Languages, the stone age.
Hot thread, "How could a mouse ever help a lion?" link text, thus far 2 pages of answers to figure out how to translate it in Spanish and still no official answer. That brings me to think about something…why do we even need to translate it? Wouldn't it be wiser to have a worldwide universal language? It seems English is the accepted business language for the whole world so why not stick to that, teach it in school as the official language and it would become natural in a few generations? For example in Bretagne (region of France) the "Breton" (mix of Gaelic and German I believe) is the regional language (taught in universities too) but French is their national language. Same for the Catalans (near Spain) and the Alsacians (east of France.) And those are not dialects, they are languages.
Or is it essential to keep difference for the sake of traditions and cultures? If we take example on technology then we should opt for the 1st solution. There are around 6900 different languages in the world. Could we deal with 6900 different operating systems? We are in 2010 using ways to communicate that are outdated. Do we start a fire with rocks? Yes when it comes to communication. It's nice to know that our ancestors were doing it that way but let's face it, except for boy scouts it's not the most efficient way to do things. So why, while technology is revolutionizing the world, should we stick to non standard ways of communication? Is there a valid reason? By the same token why not simplifying the universal language? Grammar, conjugation, exceptions aren't they a waste of brain power, time to learn, etc. In French all nouns ending in OU have their plural by adding as S at the end except "hibou, pou, caillou, chou, genou"…what the hell? How does that serve anyone? How does that help anyone in keeping their culture alive? In my opinion all it does is keeping an outdated language alive.
An antiquity is something very old (more than 100 yo), very expensive, a reminiscence of the past. We keep it, we look at it but we don't use it. Are languages antique in a way? Is it time to move on?
9 Answers
Some 50-60 years ago G.B.Shaw (among others) was a strong advocate of spelling reform for English. This movement has gone nowhere. For the past 30-40 years there have been advocates (in China and Japan) of abandoning the traditional writing systems and switching to an alphabet-based system (specifically, Roman/Latin characters). This, too, has gone nowhere. If nations cannot agree to stop killing some portions of their own/neighboring populations because of perceived/imagined differences, what makes you (anyone) think that they could be persuaded to adopt a common language.
What happens to all of the already published books in the world? For people under about 30 this is, of course, not an issue since the only thing they read are text messages on their cell phones. Simply burn all of the world's books? Perhaps they should be translated and preserved in that way. Hmm, 20-30 years to train people to do the translations and another 50-100 years to actually do the translating. Meanwhile, presumably, people will be prohibited from writing books in the old/obsolete languages (so, a 20-30 year gap during which nobody can publish anything that is not in the "new language" This could, of course, be implemented in stages. Initially, only people under the age of five would be allowed to publish. Gradually, this ceiling would be raised. Five-ten year-olds could publish, etc., etc.
The only really positive outcome that I can see in such scenarios, is that after about 30 years of the new "Universal language", there would be enough people to keep society functioning and then the all of the "old" people who had failed (been born too early) to learn the new language could be eliminated. This would greatly ease the pressures that over-population produces (food/resource-shortages, pollution, overcrowding, etc.).
Alternatively, one can simply wait for nature to take its course. Before the advent of widespread, global communication, the maintaining of the integrity of national languages was largely supported by the physical boundaries of countries. Ambassadors, tourists and people engaged in international commerce had to deal with language/communication problems but the average citizen could remain monolingual without it ever being a problem. Technology creates a problem. We can now easily encounter web pages/YouTube clips from other cultures (in other languages). The solutions are fairly obvious: (short term) simply ignore them (intermediate term) learn enough about the county/culture to be able to appreciate them and (really long term) wait for cultures/languages to coalesce.
If I had to guess, I'd say that, in a thousand years, the global language of the Earth would be based on Chinese (with a phonetic/alphabet based writing system).
I have not studied it but Esperanto is an attempt at a standardized language.Iheard about it more than 30 years ago.It is not commonly used.
Language emanates from our being. While humans have created technology, electronics and machines are separate from ourselves and we use them as tools.Our brains are wired specifically for language.THe tool is us. Not sure I am expressing myself clearly, but I do not think of language in terms of efficiency. My endocrine system is pretty messy when you think about throwing a thimbleful of hormones into a big river,but it gets results
WIth language I think efficiency would end up getting pretty messy.
Hello Sfenchie. What you asks seems so reasonable and makes so much sense, that it should come as no surprise that other people have wondered the same thing before.
The fact is, a number of attempts have been made: just perform a search in Google for "universal language" and you will get lots of history.
The most successful and popular attempt was the creation of Esperanto, which is in fact spoken, written and maintained by several thousand people in the world.
Unfortunately, not enough people seem to be able to agree to adopt it, so it has not taken off, even after a very long time.
A simple newspeak would be double-plus ungood for culture.
My first thought was: "that's a good idea, so long as the universal language is English!"
Can you imagine the arguments that would ensue about which language should be the universal language? (Why should we learn another language, make them learn another language!) Mandarin is currently the most spoken language so should we all learn that?
I think it's a good idea in theory but it would never work in practice. There are lots of people who are very proud of their culture and language and who would turn their noses up at the idea of giving them up (I include myself in that - I like English, and when I was forced in school to learn another language, I ended up resenting the language). If our languages became extinct imagine the amount of things that would need translating - literature, films, historical documents, and how many things would survive in translations, still retaining all the brilliance of the original?
Like Gekkosan said nobody wants it. We're proud of our culture (including language).
I am all aware of the many attempts at modifying our language rules and their failures. Nothing will change until people stop looking at their own country as being the belly button of the world. Unfortunately global thinking isn't in place yet. We are thinking future of the world but meaning future of my country. Even inside countries we are divided. I personally don't know of any fix-it-all solution. What makes humans superior to animals is that we are thinking. What makes humans called to disappear is that we are thinking...the wrong way in many cases.
Diverse languages keeps things fresh and gives countries their identity, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with having different languages?
It's not that hard to learn English anyway.
I really don't see the problem with the current state of affairs, if it ain't broke then don't fix it.
Everybody has a cell phone, most can't spend 15 minutes without texting, we get money from the ATM, our life/medical records/taxes/etc. reside on computers, robot perform surgery (and now weddings in Japan) should I go on?
This genius Indian guy is bringing revolution in the technology world with his invention link text watch it and see the future.
