[Fiji Hill]

English seems to be a lingua franca in black Africa. In Germany, the Goethe Institute runs schools that offer intensive courses in German to foreigners. When I attended one of these schools, I had classmates from several African countries. They would speak to each other in English because their native African languages were mutually unintelligible.

[Jamestown1630]

I’ve encountered Chinese students who have to do that; they don’t understand one another’s brand of Chinese.