From the Eurobarometer on Europeans and Languages, English is the most common foreign language at 34%, followed by German at 12% and French at 11%, and finally Spanish and Russian at 5%. On page 10 there is a table of "languages most commonly used". They are, in order:
For good or ill the imperial language of this age is English. As the sun, having already sat on the British empire, declines in the west of the American, I can't help but wonder what family of English-based (or, more accurately, Germanic-based) languages scholars will study a millenium or two from now. And I can't help but wonder what the lingua franca of that age will be. I would not be at all surprised if it were some dialect of Chinese. Somewhere in cyberspace, the ghost of de Chardin is smiling.
