What language do you think should be the universal language and why?
Clearly English is going to stay the most universal language for quite a while, but do you think this is a good thing?
Thank you so much for your quick reply.
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Well, I’ll go with English solely because I’m lazy and don’t particularly want to be forced to learn another not of my own choosing.
However, I think Korean is pleasant on the ears.
I like the character set of English words. We don’t have to deal with a library of thousands of characters. When it comes to trying to type Chinese characters on a computer, it’s not easy. English also doesn’t deal with accents. No matter what language is the Universal Language, I think it should have a small character set.
English is falling into the place as the universal language just by default.
(I’ll admit my own bias in this)
A universal language needs to have an alphabet that helps to decode for consistent pronunciation. That’s why Mandarin and other Chinese language won’t work. Same with Arabic script. I don’t know about Urdu.
A universal language should have a simple structure, such as Indonesian. But it does need to have the ability to quickly adapt for change, which is one advantage English has.
My initial reaction is that there should not be a global language. There are numerous languages both simpler and more complicated than English—and to my ears, more pleasant sounding—and those who speak them have communicated quite nicely time immemorial. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve read that many languages communicate even more precisely than English. Popular as it is, why should English be the default worldwide?
Should be Dutch.
If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much.
The big dog makes the rules. Therefore it is English.
German? That is just a Dutch dialect. We may then just as well go for the correct form… Dutch.
@marinelife I’m all for dogs setting rules. I don’t want to have to speak Mandarin though.
(In my house, the small dog makes the rules.)
Russian is phonetically correct as far as being able to pronounce it easily. For that reason, I would choose Russian. English, with all its early foreign influences, is more difficult (think of all the ough words), but more expressive. Personally, I’m happy with it being English.
Laten we hier maar meteen beginnen. Nederlands bekt eigenlijk best wel lekker.
English isn’t great in terms of its orthography and pronunciation inconsistencies (what other language has words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently, like “bow” and “bow”?). But English very easily adapts words from other languages and creates new words, either from native English words or from Greek and Latin roots. That ability makes it a very good candidate for a “world language”.
Klingon
Attempts to make an artificial universal language (ie, esperanto) failed because it was only the academic elites who picked up on it, but if you need it to function, you need a critical mass of people adopting it, and the critical mass has too many bills to pay to learn a fake language.
I don’t want a universal language. I like diversity and differences, and think it’s a shame when people try to stamp them out.
Semaphore, better not flag this :)
In all seriousness, I think people should respect other cultures. One way to do this is by speaking their language when you are spending prolonged time in another country.
I believe it was Julian Jaynes who wrote something to the effect, “Language embodies culture.” Preserving language is important to me. Therefore, while English may be the language most widely used between cultures today, I do not believe it should be dictated to the masses as the language.
Studying foreign language is a hobby of mine. I’ve dabbled in quite a few. Hawaiian is enjoying a resurgence, and I’ll be taking classes in that soon.
@ucme Translate this please.
Esparanto, but just because I like saying the word. Especially when you rrrrrrrrroll the “rrrrrrrrrrr“s
Klingon. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. Everyone would be a little bit nerdier and therefore wars would end and there would be more cool inventions. No one culture or country would be able to say their language was being singled out as the best. It would level the playing field for all of mankind.
French or German
Because of Baudelaire and Nietzsche
Ugh. I can’t pronounce Klingon. It’s soooo guttural. Worse than German. No offense intended to our German speakers… I suck at your language.
Can we do Elvish instead?
Is not elvish based on welsh, with has words with 3 L, which is pronounced like chrrrrrrrrrrrr?
@Seek_Kolinahr Oohh Elvish… I like it! We may have to speak it in sigh though to keep @talljasperman happy… :) I think you’re right @ragingloli I think it is an offshoot of Weslh or maybe one of the Scandinavian languages or something… Right region anyway.
It’s kind of the bastard love child of Welsh and Norse. No long strands of unpronounceable consonants.
There needn’t be a universal language. Last I heard Mandarin was the most used language in the world.
Quenya was inspired by Finnish, and Sindarin was inspired by Welsh.
Yeah… still thinking Klingon.
Spanish because if you can speak Spanish then Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian and other Latin languages are easy to learn. Even English vocabulary is 60% from Latin. Learning Spanish has some of the same benefits as learning Latin plus there are more native speakers of Spanish than English native speakers. Latin language speakers total about a billion people.
@Chanute “English vocabulary is 60% from Latin”
Where did you get that number?
@DWW25921 French and Romanian are Romance (Latin) languages. English has a lot of vocabulary from French and Latin, altho I’m curious about a number as specific as 60%.
@morphail: No idea if that number is right, but I have heard a dictionary analysis yields about that much or more. However, that’s a little misleading because the thousand or so most common words in English are primarily of Germanic origin.
Even today, there is a formal aubtext to Romantic words in English. Romantic phrases are associated with formality, culture, or officialdom (cf., catch the crook v. apprehend the suspect). Not to mention learning, science, and medicine.
@bolwerk “catch” is from French, but it’s an early borrowing.
@morphail: I know, but I couldn’t really think of a better Germanic substitute and it’s very clearly “anglicized” anyway. “Get” is the closest High German-related word I can come up with, and it seemed weak.
FWIW, crook possibly exemplifies another curious etymological division: its origin is probably Danish or Norse, having come to England in the pre-Norman Viking/Norse invasions. “Thief” would be a word that came more directly from a High Germanic origin (Angle or Saxon?). There are other examples like that: rear/raise a child, for instance. Two Germanic origins that mean similar things, but different Germanic origins. However, these don’t usually carry different connotations.
@bolwerk Since we’re talking about this, English isn’t a High Germanic language, it’s a West Germanic language.
Aren’t all these languages West Germanic?
It wasn’t so much categories I was talking about, but somewhere way back English has vocabulary borrowed heavily from Old High German or a common ancestor thereof. Words from Old Saxon, Old Norse, and whatever that other branch (the Angles’ language?) are sometimes distinct.
Old High German and English are both derived from West Germanic. I don’t think there are a lot of Old High German borrowings in English.
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