- Nov 20, 2018
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The language most people tend to speak as a "universal" language is based on the language spoken by the greatest current influence.
For instance, during older times, Latin was spoken pretty broadly since the Roman Republic / Roman Empire was the greatest influence in the world. Before that, when the Egyptian Empire was spread broadly, Egyptian was spoken throughout the world of commerce and in official political settings. In the 1100s, when the French-speaking Normans were in power throughout England, large numbers of people on the island started speaking French in addition to their native Old English. (This eventually became a hybrid of the two, which is partly why Modern English is so screwed up today.)
For now, at least, the United States, Canada, and Great Britain are three of the most influential lands in the world. Because each of them speaks English, their language has been spread widely. When it comes to speaking a language, humans don't tend to rely on whatever is most efficient nearly as much as what is most beneficial for day-to-day life. Since business in the world is still heavily influenced by English-speaking countries, the English language continues to be heavily used internationally.
Supporting what you said, in Japanese there are different ways of saying I and you, specifically dependent on gender. In Chinese, the pronoun tā (whether written as 他, 她, and 他) is pronounced the same and only differentiated in writing and context; and, of course, companies more and more use the pinyin of tā instead of the zhuyin equivalents.
