Stephen Baxter explains the prevalence of (British) English across one of his multiverses as being the result of a particularly enterprising and colonial bunch of reality-hopping alt-human primates who have the culture of Victorian Britain for some reason.

The main differences seem to be their stature, the fact they pronounce Portuguese “Portugoose” and the fact they have tails which they find incredibly embarrassing. Oh, and they might have squeaky voices too.

I think the idea is that the human lineage skips the great ape phase in their reality but it’s all very, very silly.