Which language would be the best lingua franca?

[Anomalocaris]

Perhaps a form of pinyin simplified chinese.

Alphabetical, but with simple grammar. Also has a large population base.

English is, supposedly, one of the hardest languages to learn. The main difficulty with Chinese, I think, is the symbols. Making it pinyin helps with that (as well as helping typing).

Why restrict to European languages when Asia is going to be dominant in the next century?

That’s not a bad suggestion, as tonal languages are inherently more flexible than pitch-accent ones.

Boru

Also inherently more difficult to learn.   I was told by my Chinese friends that listening to westerner who mastered the grammar and diction of Chinese is still an ordeal because they continue to be unable to make the appropriate tones, which often makes them incomprehensible, or worse.    One gentleman was heard to order a male hooker at a restaurant.


A language intrinsically suitable, as opposed to suitable by scale and cultural influence, to be a universal language should have simple grammar, few or no exceptions to the grammar and any spelling/sound rules, not context sensitive, requiring the mastery of relatively small set of signs and symbols,   Its sounds should be deductible from its signs and symbols, and it should as much possible use only a limited set of sounds, pitched snd tones that would be quite common across most languages, or at least to language spoken by majority of the world’s people.

Another important trait, if the universal language is to be based on an existing language, is its vernacular should be relatively slow to change.   Languages which relies on inscrutable idioms or idiom sets and vernacular that changes quickly are not suitable.

Chinese does not fit the bill.  Neither does English.   Latin oddly does.  Classical Latin probably fit the bill better than Ecclesiastical Latin.

when i jested the universal language should have binary alphabet if 2 letters and express itself as clicks rather than  vowels and consonants, it was mostly kidding, but not entirely kidding.