That is not why English is used as a lingua franca. There have always been such languages, often with none of those features.
English is a lasting lingua franca because two world-dominating powers in a row - the United Kingdom and the United States - were English-speaking, producing a run of more than a century with an important trading partner and diplomatic contact speaking that language.
It's gotten deeply enough embedded that it will probably survive fading US (relative) power, but inserting theories about the nature of the language itself doesn't add any explanatory power over just looking at the history
> English is a lasting lingua franca because two world-dominating powers in a row - the United Kingdom and the United States - were English-speaking, producing a run of more than a century with an important trading partner and diplomatic contact speaking that language.
I'd say that it's mostly the US that counted. At least in Europe, before US dominance became clear (say before 1930), the French language was lingua franca and hardly anyone spoke English.
"At least in Europe" is the important part; British influence made it the lingua franca by 1900 or 1920 in South and Southeast Asia, eastern and southern Africa, most of the Mashriq, &c &c. (To this day local varieties of English in many of these places retain Britishisms.)
But yes, AFAIU English has only really become the Big One in the EU in the last 50 years or so.
There was a shift to Anglo-Saxon culture already after World War 1 because of the outcome of the war. As an example you can see that in first names of people born in the 1920s
As an aside I always find it strange when people call the Anglophonic world “Anglo-Saxon”. The original Anglo-Saxons were a very different people with a very different language (mutually unintelligible) than modern Anglophones. Of course I understand that terms become overloaded and so on, but it seems interesting and pertinent considering we’re discussing language and identity.
Yeah, I had a French friend call me “Anglo-Saxon” and I was very confused. Most Americans aren’t even nominally familiar with the term and I only knew it in its historical sense.
English is a lasting lingua franca because two world-dominating powers in a row - the United Kingdom and the United States - were English-speaking, producing a run of more than a century with an important trading partner and diplomatic contact speaking that language.
It's gotten deeply enough embedded that it will probably survive fading US (relative) power, but inserting theories about the nature of the language itself doesn't add any explanatory power over just looking at the history