On Tue, Sep 10, 2002 at 07:27:13PM +0200, der Mouse wrote:
> 
> Actually, I think Hawaiian has a significantly smaller character set
> than English.  The reason for using English in things like passports is
> not that it has a small character set but rather that it is _very_
> widely understood, probably the closest thing to a globally understood
> language there is at present.
> 
The UN has granted English, French, Spanish and Chinese (and one more,
I seem to recall) international language status.

++L