[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—As you observe in
the Spectator of July 8th, English is spoken in every port of the world. It is also used as a medium of communication between people whose mother- speech is other than English. Of this a curious instance came under my notice more than twenty years ago, when I was the guest of a German merchant who lived at Carnpano, on the Spanish Main, and shipped cocoa to Europe. One day my host, while writing to a firm at Havre, asked me a question as to the construction of a sentence in English ; and then he explained that as he knew little French, and his French friends knew nothing either of German or Spanish, it had been agreed for them to correspond in English, the only language which they all understood.
There can be no question that English is fast becoming the lingua franca of mankind. The great hindrance to its still more rapid extension is our antiquated orthography, a difficulty, however, which might be overcome by foreigners learning in the first instance to spell phonetically—say on Pitman's system—and the use of phonetic spelling for international correspondence, commercial and otherwise. Were this done English would probably become the Weltsprache in half the time you have fixed for its adoption by the cultivated as a medium of communication.—I am, Sir, &c.,
WILLIAM WE STALL.
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