In a globalised world, a standard language is essential as sometimes life or death messages have to be conveyed – just consider air traffic control which, as it happens, uses English as its standard language.

And as usual in world history, whoever gets there first, is remembered the most.

English didn’t get to where it is fairly. It lied, cheated, stole, killed and oppressed its way to being the world’s common second language. We can’t change that, it’s just the way it is, but as it happens, there are many benefits to the situation we’ve found ourselves in, and not just to English people.

Right now, there are thousands if not millions of people speaking to each other using mediums like the internet. In many cases, English isn’t either of their primary languages, but it’s the common language that allows them to communicate.

If a hundred-and-fifty years ago, you’d brought computers and internet to the world, the majority of people still wouldn’t able to communicate. Now, with English as a common language, I can speak to someone from China, Libya, Spain, Japan, Iraq, Canada, Peru or Russia. I couldn’t do that otherwise.

Sure, we have to remember that English isn’t inherently superiour, but having a global common language, whatever language that may be, is really fricken useful.

Nowhere is that more useful than in computing. Writing a complier is really hard work and the last thing anyone wants to do is maintain 20 different versions of one over different languages. So I’m afraid where computers are concerned, we just have to pick a language, any language, and decide to use that. English just got there first.