I spent an hour in the exec lounge of a european Hilton hotel this evening.
The only other occupants were a large group having an extremely spirited conversation in Arabic. I understood much more than the basics of the entire argument because they were Arab aviators discussing test and acceptance flying along with SOPs and procedures. I understood because the discussion had to be conducted more in English than their native tongue.
Conversely try writing a sentence using longeron and aileron with only genuine English words.
In a technical trade such as ours most languages simply do not have the words to express yourself unless a government decrees it out of sheer bloody mindedness. I'm from a proud Welsh speaking family but even I humbly accept that going home in a 'tacsi' so I can catch the footy on my 'digidol' TV is utter bollocks.
English is the de facto 'World' language and it has precious little to do with perfidious Albion. We have a significant readership in the PRC and they write to us in the language they use professionally. Same with Taiwan.
Nothing to do with being a post-imperial remnant here at the Towers. English is the lingua franca of worldwide aviation even when nations use another of the approved ICAO languages in its own airspace.
Finally, the other foreign language forums all lend themselves to a quick cut and paste into a babel fish type translator to give us a rough and ready indication of whether it needs viewing by one of our legal team.
Therefore it is a case of not now, perhaps not never but certainly not at the moment.
Regards
Rob Lloyd