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I'm a fan of Jerome and his Vulgate; keep it simple. Vulgar Latin is very easy to follow. It's all the Ciceronian clause-nesting that turns people off from Latin (most people didn't speak like that anyway). And it's so much like the Romances, as you noticed, that it's almost a drop-in replacement for something like InterLingua, which took so much time and work to develop, and ended up failing.

There was a program that tried to use the language of Esperanto

Esperanto is a dreadful auxlang (auxiliary language). Look here: Learn Not to Speak Esperanto. The nice thing about it is that it's probably the only auxlang with a substantial community. They even have Radio: http://radioarkivo.org/. Interlingua is immediately comprehensible by a native speaker of one or more of: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian, Catalan and some other I forgot.

I always thought glosa would be ideal for what you proposed http://www.glosa.org/

Here's what they claim: Glosa is the most advanced one of the type that linguists call isolating. That means, that in Glosa there are no inflections. Words remain always in their original form, no matter what function they actually have in the sentence. A conventional grammar is missing.Although Glosa is a full language. Grammatical functions are taken over by some operator words and the word order (syntax). This disposition brings Glosa relationship with many languages around the world: east-Asiatic languages like Chinese, Creolean languages from Africa, pidgin languages and with reservation the most important natural language - English.
(In my personal opinion this way is not only interesting, but also the best for an auxlang.)

A Glosa word represents an idea, but no part of speech. The same word can function as a verb, noun, adjective or preposition within reason. The Glosa words are taken from Latin and Greek. So they are known to many people by foreign words or by the Roman languages. A limitated vocabulary (Glosa 1000 or Centra Glosa), easy to learn for beginners, should satisfy for all day situations. For higher demands (science, art, poetry) an extension (Glosa 6000 or Mega Glosa) is available.

I've always thought you could at least achieve an aproximate translation by going Language1 -> Glosa -> Language2. At least vocabulary and some aproximation of grammatical tense would be achieved. Modality and aspects would be missed, but I imagine could be perfected by matching context to huge word lists in Language1 and Language2. In fact, verbal aspects are just enhancements - I wouldn't say they're essential. Apparently, the dominant languages (which is not the same as saying "90% of languages") - both from East and West seem to have the notion of past/present/future.

IMHO, Glosa is very well thought out. At one time I proposed that the Debian project used Glosa. Right now, I've got some Maxima docs (open source CAS) to translate to Portuguese and I keep thinking: if we at least used an auxlang like Interlingua, we would shorten the efforts for the translation temas of all latin languages, but people don't know Interlingua (but, in fact, they do, they just don't know they do.)

Here's a little Glosa traslation (from a website linked from glosa.org) - Walt Whitman
;
O kapitana! Mi kapitana!
O CAPTAIN! my Captain!
Na fobo viagia nu-pa es ge-fini.
our fearful trip is done; (fobo-fear ge=particle indicating now, IIRC)
U navi pa dura dia panto turba.
The ship has weather'd every rack,
U premi; na pa cerka, pa gene gania.
the prize we sought is won; (pa=past, cerka=seek, gania=win, pa gania=win in the past, won)
Un asilu-lo nu es proxi.
The port is near
Mi audi plu kampani.
the bells I hear (pretty obvious: "audi", "kampani" is obvious for any Italian/Portuguese/etc speaker)
Panto homi voci lauda.
the people all exulting
(panto=pan, as in "pan-american" homi=men, voci=voice, lauda=praise ("laudamunus"))

Another sample of Glosa:
u feli A cat, the cat
plu feli; poli feli Cats; many cats
tri feli Three cats
u feli tri The third cat
u-ci feli; u-la feli

Having a good Latin vocabulary will let people studying Spanish or French or Italian recognize words that used Latin roots, and the grammar concepts do carry over some.

Actually they don't carry over at all. The subject-object-verb structure is a Romance development which replaces the classical Latin complex inflection system in which word order is almost entirely irrelevant. Grammatically, the Romance languages and Latin couldn't be much further apart than they are.

Also, word recognition based on classical Latin is overrated: the meanings of words have shifted dramatically over two thousand years, so it's misleading as often as it is helpful.

If there is any one language that serves as a good introduction to the common body of Latin (and Greek) words present in the European languages, it would be Interlingua, which was specifically designed for that purpose. It's also much simpler to learn. Plus, anyone knowing any Romance language can actually understand you if you speak it!

Personally, I'm weak for Interlingua.

How can you think Esperanto is a neutral language?! It is compose solely of romanctic languages!

If that were true it might actually be easier to learn, at least for those speaking any language of European origin. In fact, there is a lot of Germanic and Slavic in there as well, but most of it is so unpredictably distorted it's hard to recognize. In addition, many frequent words as well as the grammatical structure are entirely contrived and bear no relation to any natural language.

For a more naturalistic language that's actually easier to understand as well as learn for those knowing English and/or any Romance language, try Interlingua.

Also forcing a culture to learn your language is not the way to make friends.

Anyone in the world who wants to mean something on an international level is currently forced to learn US English. It doesn't seem to disadvantage the US much. In fact it puts it at a significant advantage because native speakers are often preferred.

How about Solresol (Except that it sounds like a Hawkwind album) as an Interlingua ?

Last week I heard an interesting talk on ontological transforms (I work in a Semantic Web research lab), comparing the views of the Platonic Interlingua approach and a neo-Wittgensteinian transform-based approach, presented by a chap who's PhD back in the days before The AI Winter had been on machine translations of languages.

Put simply, the Platonists assume the existence of a "Language of Heaven" (probably Welsh), and if you transform the source language into that, then there's another transformation into the destination language. All possible translations for n languages can be done with a mere 2n pre-existing transforms.

The transform-based approach says there is no single common conceptual root. You can regress by transformations (maybe transforming Southern Redneck into English, then translating to French and thus transforming to Creole), but there's always a point at which you must translate between ultimate distinct roots.

En Français:
On ne donne aucune indication dont les calculs pour la densité d'enregistrement de données la fiole minuscule décrite pourraient tenir cela beaucoup

Auf Deutsch:
Keine Anzeige wird gegeben, von der Berechnungen für Datendichte die kleine Phiole, die dargestellt wurde, können würden, das viel anzuhalten

In italiano:
Nessun' indicazione è data di cui le calcolazioni per densità di dati la fiala molto piccola descritta potrebbero tenere quello molto

Em Português:
Nenhuma indicação é dada de que os cálculos para a densidade de dados o vial minúsculo retratado poderiam prender muito isso

En Español:
No se da ninguna indicación de la cual los cálculos para la densidad de datos el frasco minúsculo representado podrían sostener eso mucho

Why not just give the average of all these, it saves work and even more people will understand it.

In Interlingua, traduction libere e plus clar:

Nulle indication es date del calculationes pro le densitate de datos [determinante] quanto le phiala minuscule hic picturate poterea tener.

I would like to expand on what you said about Interlingua since I believe this is underrepresented here.

Io volerea expander sur lo que tu diceva super Interlingua proque io trova que isto es hic subrepresentate.

Interlingua is a neutral, constructed, but naturalistic language that most anyone could understand, at least passively, without having to learn it first. A grassroots, clean alternative to the sluggish and bloated monopolist English, not controlled by any government, company or other entity, upon which anyone can freely extend and build, as long as you keep to a certain set of openly published, scientifically established guidelines -- a kind of Linux of the human languages?

Interlingua es un lingua neutral, construite, ma naturalistic que quasi tote le mundo poterea comprender, al minus passivemente, sine deber apprender lo primarimente. Un fresc alternativo grassroots a le monopolista anglese phlegmatic e inflate, non controllate per alcun governamento, compania o altere entitate, sur le qual alcuno pote liberemente extender e construar, a condition que on respecte un certe collection de regulas scientificamente establite -- un sorta de Linux del linguas human?

Interlingua has been in use for decades (for real, not as a hobby). And it's not just because of it's name that it is the ideal auxiliary language for the Internet age; its major advantage is its instant usability even outside the Interlingua community.

Interlingua ha essite usate pro decennios (realmente, non como un hobby). E il es non solmente le nomine que rende lo le lingua auxiliari ideal pro le era del Internet; su avantage major es su usabilitate instante anque exterior del communitate de interlingua.

For 27 years (from 1924 to 1951), a team of linguists worked on the cool concept that an interlational language already exists, hidden in all the world's national languages: the language of scientific and technical international words, mostly of Latin and Greek origin. They extracted this language methodologically out of seven major source languages sharing most of this international vocabulary. Then they made a minimalist grammatical framework around it (no gender, no verb inflections, almost no irregularities, etc), et voila: a constructed, but natural language, easy to learn, that's immediately usable almost all over the world (even on computers: its character set is plain ASCII).

Durante 27 annos (ab 1924 de 1951), un equipa de linguistas laborava sur le concepto superbe que un lingua international jam existe, latente i omne le linguas national del mundo: le lingua del parolas scientific e technic international, principalmente de origine latin e grec. Illes extraheva methodologicamente iste lingua ex septe major linguas fonte possedente in commun le major parte de iste vocabulario international. Tunc illes faceva un structura grammatical minimilista circa lo (nulle genere, nulle inflectiones de verbos, quasi nulle irregularitates, etc). Le resultato: ecce un lingua construite ma natural, facile a apprender, que es immediatemente usabile quasi in toto le mundo (mesmo sur computatores: su serie de characteres es simple ASCII).

The team, called IALA (International Auxiliary Language Association) decided that the source languages for Interlingua would be English, French, Spanish/Portuguese (taken as one), Italian, German, and Russian. Roughly said, if a given word appears in some form in at least three of these languages, it is automatically an Interlingua word, whether it appears in any dictionary or not - all that needs to be determined is its 'prototype', an average version of the word without the peculiarities of the national languages. This linguistic methodology makes any governing body obsolete.

Le equippa, appellate IALA (Association de Linguas Auxiliari International) decideva que le linguas fonte pro interlingua esserea anglese, francese, espaniol/portugese (prendite como un), italian, german, e russian. Approximatemente, si un parola date appare in alcun forma in al minus tres de iste linguas, illo es automaticamente un parola interlingua, esque illo appare i alcun dictionario o non - toto que debe esser determinate es su 'prototypo', un version medie del parola sin le peculiaritates del linguas national. Iste metodologia linguistic rende obsolete alcun corpore governante.

Interlingua is the ultimate human open source language. If you discover a new word that appears in at least three of the source languages, then all you have to do is determine the prototype and you have a new Interlingua word. This way, many English words, especially Internet-related terms, have made its way into Interlingua since it was published in 1951. In addition, there is also its innate ability to build new words out of existing ones.

Interlingua es le ultimate human lingua de fonte libere. Si vos discoperi un nove parola que appare in al minus tres del linguas fonte, allora toto vos debe facer es determinar le prototypo e vos ha un nove parola interlingua. Via iste methodo, multe parolas anglese, specialmente termines de Internet, ha arrivate in interlingua post que illo era publicate in 1951. In addition, illo ha anque un capacitate innate de construir nove parolas de parolas existente.

- Martijn, Netherlands (© 2000)

I would like to expand on what you said about Interlingua since I believe this is underrepresented here.

Io volerea expander sur lo que tu diceva super Interlingua proque io trova que isto es hic subrepresentate.

Interlingua is a neutral, constructed, but naturalistic language that most anyone could understand, at least passively, without having to learn it first. A grassroots, clean alternative to the sluggish and bloated monopolist English, not controlled by any government, company or other entity, upon which anyone can freely extend and build, as long as you keep to a certain set of openly published, scientifically established guidelines -- a kind of Linux of the human languages?

Interlingua es un lingua neutral, construite, ma naturalistic que quasi tote le mundo poterea comprender, al minus passivemente, sine deber apprender lo primarimente. Un fresc alternativo grassroots a le monopolista anglese phlegmatic e inflate, non controllate per alcun governamento, compania o altere entitate, sur le qual alcuno pote liberemente extender e construar, a condition que on respecte un certe collection de regulas scientificamente establite -- un sorta de Linux del linguas human?

Interlingua has been in use for decades (for real, not as a hobby). And it's not just because of it's name that it is the ideal auxiliary language for the Internet age; its major advantage is its instant usability even outside the Interlingua community.

Interlingua ha essite usate pro decennios (realmente, non como un hobby). E il es non solmente le nomine que rende lo le lingua auxiliari ideal pro le era del Internet; su avantage major es su usabilitate instante anque exterior del communitate de interlingua.

For 27 years (from 1924 to 1951), a team of linguists worked on the cool concept that an interlational language already exists, hidden in all the world's national languages: the language of scientific and technical international words, mostly of Latin and Greek origin. They extracted this language methodologically out of seven major source languages sharing most of this international vocabulary. Then they made a minimalist grammatical framework around it (no gender, no verb inflections, almost no irregularities, etc), et voila: a constructed, but natural language, easy to learn, that's immediately usable almost all over the world (even on computers: its character set is plain ASCII).

Durante 27 annos (ab 1924 de 1951), un equipa de linguistas laborava sur le concepto superbe que un lingua international jam existe, latente i omne le linguas national del mundo: le lingua del parolas scientific e technic international, principalmente de origine latin e grec. Illes extraheva methodologicamente iste lingua ex septe major linguas fonte possedente in commun le major parte de iste vocabulario international. Tunc illes faceva un structura grammatical minimilista circa lo (nulle genere, nulle inflectiones de verbos, quasi nulle irregularitates, etc). Le resultato: ecce un lingua construite ma natural, facile a apprender, que es immediatemente usabile quasi in toto le mundo (mesmo sur computatores: su serie de characteres es simple ASCII).

The team, called IALA (International Auxiliary Language Association) decided that the source languages for Interlingua would be English, French, Spanish/Portuguese (taken as one), Italian, German, and Russian. Roughly said, if a given word appears in some form in at least three of these languages, it is automatically an Interlingua word, whether it appears in any dictionary or not - all that needs to be determined is its 'prototype', an average version of the word without the peculiarities of the national languages. This linguistic methodology makes any governing body obsolete.

Le equippa, appellate IALA (Association de Linguas Auxiliari International) decideva que le linguas fonte pro interlingua esserea anglese, francese, espaniol/portugese (prendite como un), italian, german, e russian. Approximatemente, si un parola date appare in alcun forma in al minus tres de iste linguas, illo es automaticamente un parola interlingua, esque illo appare i alcun dictionario o non - toto que debe esser determinate es su 'prototypo', un version medie del parola sin le peculiaritates del linguas national. Iste metodologia linguistic rende obsolete alcun corpore governante.

Interlingua is the ultimate human open source language. If you discover a new word that appears in at least three of the source languages, then all you have to do is determine the prototype and you have a new Interlingua word. This way, many English words, especially Internet-related terms, have made its way into Interlingua since it was published in 1951. In addition, there is also its innate ability to build new words out of existing ones.

Interlingua es le ultimate human lingua de fonte libere. Si vos discoperi un nove parola que appare in al minus tres del linguas fonte, allora toto vos debe facer es determinar le prototypo e vos ha un nove parola interlingua. Via iste methodo, multe parolas anglese, specialmente termines de Internet, ha arrivate in interlingua post que illo era publicate in 1951. In addition, illo ha anque un capacitate innate de construir nove parolas de parolas existente.

- Martijn, Netherlands (© 2000)

I would like to expand on what you said about Interlingua since I believe this is underrepresented here.

Io volerea expander sur lo que tu diceva super Interlingua proque io trova que isto es hic subrepresentate.

Interlingua is a neutral, constructed, but naturalistic language that most anyone could understand, at least passively, without having to learn it first. A grassroots, clean alternative to the sluggish and bloated monopolist English, not controlled by any government, company or other entity, upon which anyone can freely extend and build, as long as you keep to a certain set of openly published, scientifically established guidelines -- a kind of Linux of the human languages?

Interlingua es un lingua neutral, construite, ma naturalistic que quasi tote le mundo poterea comprender, al minus passivemente, sine deber apprender lo primarimente. Un fresc alternativo grassroots a le monopolista anglese phlegmatic e inflate, non controllate per alcun governamento, compania o altere entitate, sur le qual alcuno pote liberemente extender e construar, a condition que on respecte un certe collection de regulas scientificamente establite -- un sorta de Linux del linguas human?

Interlingua has been in use for decades (for real, not as a hobby). And it's not just because of it's name that it is the ideal auxiliary language for the Internet age; its major advantage is its instant usability even outside the Interlingua community.

Interlingua ha essite usate pro decennios (realmente, non como un hobby). E il es non solmente le nomine que rende lo le lingua auxiliari ideal pro le era del Internet; su avantage major es su usabilitate instante anque exterior del communitate de interlingua.

For 27 years (from 1924 to 1951), a team of linguists worked on the cool concept that an interlational language already exists, hidden in all the world's national languages: the language of scientific and technical international words, mostly of Latin and Greek origin. They extracted this language methodologically out of seven major source languages sharing most of this international vocabulary. Then they made a minimalist grammatical framework around it (no gender, no verb inflections, almost no irregularities, etc), et voila: a constructed, but natural language, easy to learn, that's immediately usable almost all over the world (even on computers: its character set is plain ASCII).

Durante 27 annos (ab 1924 de 1951), un equipa de linguistas laborava sur le concepto superbe que un lingua international jam existe, latente i omne le linguas national del mundo: le lingua del parolas scientific e technic international, principalmente de origine latin e grec. Illes extraheva methodologicamente iste lingua ex septe major linguas fonte possedente in commun le major parte de iste vocabulario international. Tunc illes faceva un structura grammatical minimilista circa lo (nulle genere, nulle inflectiones de verbos, quasi nulle irregularitates, etc). Le resultato: ecce un lingua construite ma natural, facile a apprender, que es immediatemente usabile quasi in toto le mundo (mesmo sur computatores: su serie de characteres es simple ASCII).

The team, called IALA (International Auxiliary Language Association) decided that the source languages for Interlingua would be English, French, Spanish/Portuguese (taken as one), Italian, German, and Russian. Roughly said, if a given word appears in some form in at least three of these languages, it is automatically an Interlingua word, whether it appears in any dictionary or not - all that needs to be determined is its 'prototype', an average version of the word without the peculiarities of the national languages. This linguistic methodology makes any governing body obsolete.

Le equippa, appellate IALA (Association de Linguas Auxiliari International) decideva que le linguas fonte pro interlingua esserea anglese, francese, espaniol/portugese (prendite como un), italian, german, e russian. Approximatemente, si un parola date appare in alcun forma in al minus tres de iste linguas, illo es automaticamente un parola interlingua, esque illo appare i alcun dictionario o non - toto que debe esser determinate es su 'prototypo', un version medie del parola sin le peculiaritates del linguas national. Iste metodologia linguistic rende obsolete alcun corpore governante.

Interlingua is the ultimate human open source language. If you discover a new word that appears in at least three of the source languages, then all you have to do is determine the prototype and you have a new Interlingua word. This way, many English words, especially Internet-related terms, have made its way into Interlingua since it was published in 1951. In addition, there is also its innate ability to build new words out of existing ones.

Interlingua es le ultimate human lingua de fonte libere. Si vos discoperi un nove parola que appare in al minus tres del linguas fonte, allora toto vos debe facer es determinar le prototypo e vos ha un nove parola interlingua. Via iste methodo, multe parolas anglese, specialmente termines de Internet, ha arrivate in interlingua post que illo era publicate in 1951. In addition, illo ha anque un capacitate innate de construir nove parolas de parolas existente.

- Martijn, Netherlands (© 2000)

I would like to expand on what you said about Interlingua since I believe this is underrepresented here.

Io volerea expander sur lo que tu diceva super Interlingua proque io trova que isto es hic subrepresentate.

Interlingua is a neutral, constructed, but naturalistic language that most anyone could understand, at least passively, without having to learn it first. A grassroots, clean alternative to the sluggish and bloated monopolist English, not controlled by any government, company or other entity, upon which anyone can freely extend and build, as long as you keep to a certain set of openly published, scientifically established guidelines -- a kind of Linux of the human languages?

Interlingua es un lingua neutral, construite, ma naturalistic que quasi tote le mundo poterea comprender, al minus passivemente, sine deber apprender lo primarimente. Un fresc alternativo grassroots a le monopolista anglese phlegmatic e inflate, non controllate per alcun governamento, compania o altere entitate, sur le qual alcuno pote liberemente extender e construar, a condition que on respecte un certe collection de regulas scientificamente establite -- un sorta de Linux del linguas human?

Interlingua has been in use for decades (for real, not as a hobby). And it's not just because of it's name that it is the ideal auxiliary language for the Internet age; its major advantage is its instant usability even outside the Interlingua community.

Interlingua ha essite usate pro decennios (realmente, non como un hobby). E il es non solmente le nomine que rende lo le lingua auxiliari ideal pro le era del Internet; su avantage major es su usabilitate instante anque exterior del communitate de interlingua.

For 27 years (from 1924 to 1951), a team of linguists worked on the cool concept that an interlational language already exists, hidden in all the world's national languages: the language of scientific and technical international words, mostly of Latin and Greek origin. They extracted this language methodologically out of seven major source languages sharing most of this international vocabulary. Then they made a minimalist grammatical framework around it (no gender, no verb inflections, almost no irregularities, etc), et voila: a constructed, but natural language, easy to learn, that's immediately usable almost all over the world (even on computers: its character set is plain ASCII).

Durante 27 annos (ab 1924 de 1951), un equipa de linguistas laborava sur le concepto superbe que un lingua international jam existe, latente i omne le linguas national del mundo: le lingua del parolas scientific e technic international, principalmente de origine latin e grec. Illes extraheva methodologicamente iste lingua ex septe major linguas fonte possedente in commun le major parte de iste vocabulario international. Tunc illes faceva un structura grammatical minimilista circa lo (nulle genere, nulle inflectiones de verbos, quasi nulle irregularitates, etc). Le resultato: ecce un lingua construite ma natural, facile a apprender, que es immediatemente usabile quasi in toto le mundo (mesmo sur computatores: su serie de characteres es simple ASCII).

The team, called IALA (International Auxiliary Language Association) decided that the source languages for Interlingua would be English, French, Spanish/Portuguese (taken as one), Italian, German, and Russian. Roughly said, if a given word appears in some form in at least three of these languages, it is automatically an Interlingua word, whether it appears in any dictionary or not - all that needs to be determined is its 'prototype', an average version of the word without the peculiarities of the national languages. This linguistic methodology makes any governing body obsolete.

Le equippa, appellate IALA (Association de Linguas Auxiliari International) decideva que le linguas fonte pro interlingua esserea anglese, francese, espaniol/portugese (prendite como un), italian, german, e russian. Approximatemente, si un parola date appare in alcun forma in al minus tres de iste linguas, illo es automaticamente un parola interlingua, esque illo appare i alcun dictionario o non - toto que debe esser determinate es su 'prototypo', un version medie del parola sin le peculiaritates del linguas national. Iste metodologia linguistic rende obsolete alcun corpore governante.

Interlingua is the ultimate human open source language. If you discover a new word that appears in at least three of the source languages, then all you have to do is determine the prototype and you have a new Interlingua word. This way, many English words, especially Internet-related terms, have made its way into Interlingua since it was published in 1951. In addition, there is also its innate ability to build new words out of existing ones.

Interlingua es le ultimate human lingua de fonte libere. Si vos discoperi un nove parola que appare in al minus tres del linguas fonte, allora toto vos debe facer es determinar le prototypo e vos ha un nove parola interlingua. Via iste methodo, multe parolas anglese, specialmente termines de Internet, ha arrivate in interlingua post que illo era publicate in 1951. In addition, illo ha anque un capacitate innate de construir nove parolas de parolas existente.

- Martijn, Netherlands (© 2000)

I looked at the interlingua page referenced above www.interlingua.com. I only speak English, yet I can understand the text. Damn! I can understand it better than Spanish (and I had a year of that in high school).

Wow.

Ryan

I don't mean this as a troll: I rather like the language, it has this rather quaint quality to it (if you've never seen examples, try fortune -m ESPERANTO, and also fortune -o -m RFCRENAGB | rot13 if you have the off fortunes installed). And it has enjoyed a remarkable popularity for a constructed language: when you consider that many natural languages (and not just languages you've never heard of) have fewer speakers than Esperanto, you should be impressed.

In a way, Esperanto is a historically first example of an "open content" view of things: before Esperanto there was Volapük, and Volapük was on its way to be a big success, only the inventor of the language (whose name I can't remember and won't be bothered to look up) wanted to keep a tight control over it. On the other hand, Dr. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, had the smart idea of immediately giving up control over the language, and letting the speakers themselves make the usage decisions they wanted. Also, he made the right choice in deciding not to associate too tightly his constructed language and his mumbo-jumbo philosophy (of the kind that was en vogue in those days). Because he made those smart moves, Esperanto still exists, relatively, whereas Volapük is sleeping in Tumbolia (the land of used light-bulbs and forgotten languages).

Despite this positive aspect, Esperanto came too late to be a success. English was already on its way to becoming the universal language (as a famous French author wrote (in French) "you don't want Esperanto? too bad for you: you will get English instead"). Note that the battle was perhaps tighter than you might think: evidently English has always had far more speakers than Esperanto, but China was all in favor of Esperanto at some point, and with its considerable population, it could have made a difference. (I don't think, however, that Chinese will become a world language at any point.)

Logic is perhaps a criterion for geeks, but it isn't one for success. Regularity is, certainly. But logic isn't. Esperanto isn't so very logical (at least not in the eyes of a mathematician with a special interest in logic, plus who's a computer geek, like me). Lojban (and the rival version of the same, what's it called again?) is a failure at that (i.e. it has the disadvantages of a logical language without being truly logical, only logical in its syntax). It is, I think, possible to build a completely logical language, but it will never be spoken, simply because we do not think logically, and the ideas we want to express are not logical: even if everything can be expressed in the language, it will be far too tedious. On the other hand, logical languages might be of interest to artificial intelligence researchers, but then it is an abstract language that is to be invented, not a concrete realization (who cares whether "man" is called "fubabusti", why not call it "man"? language is much more than a set of meme-to-sound translations).

A more interesting class of constructed languages is represented by Interlingua, a mixture of the Latin languages which has the property that someone speaking a Latin language does not have to learn Interlingua in order to be able to understand it (though he must learn it to speak it, of course). I can assure you: it's true.

English is the fourth lingua franca of the Earth (that is, of the "interesting" parts of the Earth :-). The first was Greek, which was the real language spoken in the Roman Empire (everyone spoke Greek, only Romans spoke Latin). Then came Latin, in the middle-ages, being the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Then French in the Enlightenment (Voltaire, then at the court of Frederik the Great in Prussia, pointed out that german was only used to speak to horses in Prussia in those days). So English is the fourth. There are similarities between all these linguæ francæ. The Greek spoken in the mediterranean basin during the Roman Empire, the mediaeval Latin and the "internetican" English are spoken and written by people whose it is not the native tongue, and who consequently modify it (to use a neutral term) in various ways. English has, therefore, much more changed since the XIXth century than French or Italian, for example, in much the same way that the "Koine" Greek of the New Testament or the Latin of the Vulgate would have horrified Euripides and Cicero; under, notably the influence of people like myself who have to speak English to make themselves understood, but whom list fain speak vilely than beware lest some vile words mar the purity of their discourse (ahem).

I do not think there will be a lingua franca beyond English. Simply because we have reached the global stage, there is no exterior influence that would cause is to switch to another language. But, of course, English has yet to evolve considerably under, this time, a whole planet of influences and locutors.

(As a friend of mine likes to say, if the French had not had the stupid idea of winning the hundred-years war instead of losing it as they seemed prepared to do, everyone would be speaking French nowadays.)

Just my EUR 0.02.