There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
It even existed in Old and Middle english, upto the 1500s.
Some nouns still have genders in english. But this is more an exception than a rule. Ie. a ship/boat is female (called “she”), while nature is also feminine (often personified as “Mother nature”).
This isn’t gender though, this is just personification. The thing about grammatical gender is that it is *not* personification. For instance, Germans don’t view a table has having some kind of male quality, nor do the French view a table as being somehow female.