As for the future of English being so necessary---that is debatable. It has been noted that in certain sectors of the world other languages (lg) are coming into major usage.
Since China opened its doors for economic opportunities, businessmen and others are engaging more and more in the use of Mandarin. Thus, a bigger portion of the world is "converting" to Chinese lg usage.
There are also pockets of Chinese in other countries. Take in the USA, for instance, where many individual families still use their native tongue and do not see the need to change to the USA's national lg.
Vancouver, BC, Canada is another example. Large numbers of Cantonese-speaking peoples have moved there; from Hong Kong especially. They have created a "mini-Hong Kong" complete with shopping malls devoted to their own people using their own mother tongue for transactions. The English-speaking native, should she venture onto such turf, feels like the foreigner!
This is similar with blocks of Arab-speaking countries, Hindi sectors, as well as Spanish ones. It is even thought that Spanish may overtake, or at least be as prominent as, English in the USA, making it a Spanish-English bilingual country.
Those peoples who are learning English as an L2 and incorporating their respective countries' idiosyncrasies are changing the face of English. Even today's generation of native English speakers are simplifying English. This is radically seen with the advent of cell phones with all their worse than telegram-like short messaging abbreviations and deviations of spelling and grammar.It appears then, that although English is still widely used, it's being "watered down" and beginning to take a backseat to other lgs. Therefore in several decades' time English may well NOT be the important 'lingua franca' it once was.
~ERC 2010~
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