Frequently jaw-dropping and never less than convincing -- Henry Hitchings Financial Times A linguist of astonishing voracity ... the predictions are striking Economist Extensive and engaging...A sweepingly learned and garrulous guide to historical curiosities -- James McConnachie Sunday Times A wide-ranging linguistic perspective. -- Robert McCrum The Observer As Nicholas Ostler exhaustively documents...history shows that no language will dominate the world conversation forever...More provocatively, Ostler argues that, once the dominance of English has waned, no lingua franca will replace it. -- Jonathon Keats New Scientist A thorough analysis of the rise and fall of different lingua francas, Ostler provides us with a series of rich examples showing how these 'common languages' achieve prominence and how they subsequently, and inevitably, lose this, left to shrivel for use only as mother tongues. -- Colin Fraser Scotsman