From the darkest post-World War II trials, of Nazi war criminals in Nuremburg, came a key feature of modern international diplomacy, the use of simultaneous interpreters housed in little booths to translate what people speaking different languages have to say. Without this instantaneous translation, the post-War world would not have seen the United Nations, global trade negotiations, functioning bodies like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the ASEAN or the OAU.
And of course there would be no way that the European Community could have grown from six countries speaking 3 different languages to its current membership of 27 nations speaking a dozen and a half different languages (not counting Erse since most Irish speak English.)
In the pre-War years, the only way diplomats could communicate and haggle and play chicken about financial aid to each other countries was by all talking French.
My knowledge of Estonian or Hungarian, Bulgarian or Latvian. is meager.
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