if you are interested in translating/interpreting at the anti-globalization coordination level maybe you should check babel.org. they have been in charge of most of the interpreting going on since the first european social forum. and you can sure find the weirdest language pairs in their team. with sometimes intermediate languages if the pairs are not present (chinese-french/french-czech). etc. there is a need to think anti-globalization action outside english language. and this is happening.
> Also, AFAIK, English is still the principal language of aviation, and
> much of the Internet/computer industry, among others. You could say
> that these are "elites" (i.e., small percentages of the world's
> population) but they play rather crucial roles in tying the world
> together.
you are not talking "language" per se here. only code. just like the language for postal affairs is french. i doubt post office heads anywhere in the world master french.
jc helary
ps: but your point is _not_ absolutely invalid. in fact i work as a translator/interpreter for a japanese company who had to sign a contract with french partners. the contracts were written in french and english (???). it only occurred to them later on that they should have requested a japanese version (after i made them realize that there were discrepancies between the two versions...)