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I am sad I am not seeing a strong cultural push towards everyone learning a single common language (which, for historical reasons, could well be English) at lea

I am sad I am not seeing a strong cultural push towards everyone learning a single common language (which, for historical reasons, could well be English) at least as a well-acquired second language. Instead, the received present-day norm is to insist on cultural and linguistic diversity. Learn Spanish. Learn Mandarin. Learn German. Learn French. Oh, and while you are at it, learn Welsh or Irish too... It’s bewildering. And those enormous corps of translators seem like such a wasted effort!

Tharkun 7y ago
Y Gymraeg is a lovely language. Music to my ears. There have been several pushes for common languages. Latin once dominated at least the sciences and clergy. French was the literal lingua franca for a good while in various contexts. English has kind of taken over that role at the moment. But those languages are all a bit shitty when it comes to ease-of-learning. French with its complex grammar. English with its spelling oddities and its absolutely mind-bogglingly vast vocabulary. Latin, well, who even speaks Latin anymore. Artificial languages like Esperanto are allegedly easier to learn, but they've never taken off. I've long held the belief that the EU should make English a mandatory second language across all its member states. It's easily the most spoken second language in the EU already, but there are huge differences in proficiencies across countries/regions.
- klodolph 7y ago
  “Literal lingua franca” might be a bit confusing, because Mediterranean Lingua Franca was a pidgin based on northern Italian dialects.
- seszett 7y ago
  English is already a mandatory second language in pretty much all countries of the EU. Where it isn't mandatory, it is still the de facto second language in education.
- azangru 7y ago
  > But those languages are all a bit shitty when it comes to ease-of-learning. French with its complex grammar. English with its spelling oddities and its absolutely mind-bogglingly vast vocabulary. Well, every natural language that developed organically and was not artificially created will, by necessity, have its quirks. But if it is learned early enough in life and actually used on a daily basis, people will overcome these quirks. Latin’s use as an international language of religion, scholarship and science occurred during the time when it was already all but dead. Only a tiny minority of the population knew it; and there was neither a universal system of education to teach it, nor mass media to provide continuous examples of its usage. When French and German were tried as international languages, the situation was somewhat better in the sense that they both were living languages; but still there was no infrastructure in place to teach it to large segments of the population. Now, I feel, the situation is very different. A huge proportion of population receives primary and secondary education, which offers a great opportunity to teach a common second language. A massive amount of films, books, or radio programs offer examples of oral and written English usage; and the Internet is connecting people at a previously unimaginable scale. Now, I feel, we have a fighting chance of finally getting a common language. Of course, I understand that a language becomes international not only due to its linguistic merits, but in a large respect due to the political and economic power of the countries where it is spoken. And since China is on the rise and the West is somewhat in decline, I fear that English may lose its momentum, and we may lose our chance to have it as a truly universal language.
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    That English is extremely difficult to write is a serious issue, though. A very large portion of English speakers are functionally illiterate.
schoen 7y ago
It would be very useful to have a worldwide auxiliary language, but Esperanto's experience shows that the coordination challenges of picking one and convincing institutions or individuals that it's worth it for them are formidable. People may also resent being told that they have to learn a specific language for many different reasons related to their feelings about that language or the people who speak it. You can see pockets (or wide swaths) of resentment toward many widely-spoken languages. I remember being shocked at the thought that people around the world wouldn't naturally get enthusiastic about Esperanto as a sort of Schelling point and just learn it. But if you think about the practical day-to-day communication dynamics that people confront, they usually have some particular regional or national language that would be especially useful to learn. That benefit is obvious and reliably foreseeable, whereas the benefit of joining in an inchoate humanity-wide auxiliary language project is speculative and at best delayed.
slaslasla 7y ago
Sure, why don't we start this initiative by learning Mandarin? Or does it have to be YOUR language that everyone should be obligated to learn and communicate in?
- dang 7y ago
  "Be kind. Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- azangru 7y ago
  Firstly, it isn't mine. At least not by birth. Unfortunately. Secondly, this kind of moral objection ("does it have to be YOUR language"), intended to shame the proponent of this idea for their presumptuousness, will never get us anywhere. Why don't we start this initiative by learning Mandarin, you say? Why not Arabic, someone replies. Why not French, another says. Why not Spanish, joins yet another. And Welsh, let’s not forget about Welsh, another cries. Framing the question of why pick language X instead of language Y in moral terms is pointless. Sure, one can try to argue from a purely linguistic perspective, pointing out unwieldiness of Chinese characters as opposed to Latin-based alphabets; or the general rarity of tonal languages, such as Chinese; but that’s a crappy argument. A good argument, I think, is that we are at a point where English is already used as an international language in a number of spheres, and instead of discarding it and picking an entirely different language and re-training humanity to use it, it makes much more sense to continue pushing forward with it.
  - slaslasla 7y ago
    Based on OP the number of English and Mandarin speakers is roughly the same, and considering written Chinese is mostly shared between languages that would mean that more people can currently read Chinese than English. You have your qualms about Mandarin, but anyone can complain about a language they do not speak, and claim it is too difficult for this or that reason. Compared to English, Chinese grammar is very simple, the written language is compact, and there is little confusion about pronunciation. It seems as good as any (if not better than most) as an international language. It seems you realize it as well, as it is hinted in your own posts; you will never convince everyone to pick your preferred language and convert to it. It is like trying to convert everyone to the same religion. You may think that your choice of [language/religion] is the best one, the one that makes the most sense, without realizing your own bias.
ordu 7y ago
I like English, and I love Russian. I can do with Russian wonderful bewildering things. Ow, I've seen some wonderful things that can be done with English and cannot be translated into Russian, but I know much more language tricks that cannot be translated into English. It is a funny thing to borrow English tricks and to make them with Russian. For example I love the idea of phrasal verb, especially when a preposition becomes a word the sentence ends with. It is so alien for Russian, but somehow it have meaning when done in Russian. I mean, I like English but I'm not ready to throw Russian away. From other hand, using grammar of one language with other is a way to converge languages into one, but it mightn't work. Some people become nervous when their language borrows features of other languages, they see it as an expansion of that other language, they are afraid of losing their beloved language. There is a vocal opposition in Russia to the borrowing words from other languages, especially from English, which is seen as a dominant language abusing its power to oppress weaker languages (a natural Russian reaction to any power: power exists to be abused, it is an axiom in the Russian culture). I know that French have an opposition like this, though maybe due to other reasons. Maybe if English started to incorporate words and grammar from all languages around the world, it could become a language of languages, but I suspect that languages needs rules forbidding some constructs to be language that allow express things. Incorporating all possible rules probably would make any word combination to be allowed and language might lose its purpose.
- gshubert17 7y ago
  > Maybe if English started to incorporate words and grammar from all languages around the world, it could become a language of languages, but I suspect that languages needs rules forbidding some constructs to be language that allow express things. Incorporating all possible rules probably would make any word combination to be allowed and language might lose its purpose. English borrows words promiscuously from other languages. Many were borrowed from French after the Norman conquest. Many were borrowed from Latin and Greek by scholars. In fact there's a list of lists here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_English_words_by_country_or_language_of_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_English_words_by_coun... All the loanwords in English is one reason why its orthography (spelling) is so difficult.

Tharkun 7y ago

Y Gymraeg is a lovely language. Music to my ears. There have been several pushes for common languages. Latin once dominated at least the sciences and clergy. French was the literal lingua franca for a good while in various contexts. English has kind of taken over that role at the moment. But those languages are all a bit shitty when it comes to ease-of-learning. French with its complex grammar. English with its spelling oddities and its absolutely mind-bogglingly vast vocabulary. Latin, well, who even speaks Latin anymore. Artificial languages like Esperanto are allegedly easier to learn, but they've never taken off. I've long held the belief that the EU should make English a mandatory second language across all its member states. It's easily the most spoken second language in the EU already, but there are huge differences in proficiencies across countries/regions.

klodolph 7y ago
“Literal lingua franca” might be a bit confusing, because Mediterranean Lingua Franca was a pidgin based on northern Italian dialects.
seszett 7y ago
English is already a mandatory second language in pretty much all countries of the EU. Where it isn't mandatory, it is still the de facto second language in education.
azangru 7y ago
> But those languages are all a bit shitty when it comes to ease-of-learning. French with its complex grammar. English with its spelling oddities and its absolutely mind-bogglingly vast vocabulary. Well, every natural language that developed organically and was not artificially created will, by necessity, have its quirks. But if it is learned early enough in life and actually used on a daily basis, people will overcome these quirks. Latin’s use as an international language of religion, scholarship and science occurred during the time when it was already all but dead. Only a tiny minority of the population knew it; and there was neither a universal system of education to teach it, nor mass media to provide continuous examples of its usage. When French and German were tried as international languages, the situation was somewhat better in the sense that they both were living languages; but still there was no infrastructure in place to teach it to large segments of the population. Now, I feel, the situation is very different. A huge proportion of population receives primary and secondary education, which offers a great opportunity to teach a common second language. A massive amount of films, books, or radio programs offer examples of oral and written English usage; and the Internet is connecting people at a previously unimaginable scale. Now, I feel, we have a fighting chance of finally getting a common language. Of course, I understand that a language becomes international not only due to its linguistic merits, but in a large respect due to the political and economic power of the countries where it is spoken. And since China is on the rise and the West is somewhat in decline, I fear that English may lose its momentum, and we may lose our chance to have it as a truly universal language.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  That English is extremely difficult to write is a serious issue, though. A very large portion of English speakers are functionally illiterate.

schoen 7y ago

It would be very useful to have a worldwide auxiliary language, but Esperanto's experience shows that the coordination challenges of picking one and convincing institutions or individuals that it's worth it for them are formidable. People may also resent being told that they have to learn a specific language for many different reasons related to their feelings about that language or the people who speak it. You can see pockets (or wide swaths) of resentment toward many widely-spoken languages. I remember being shocked at the thought that people around the world wouldn't naturally get enthusiastic about Esperanto as a sort of Schelling point and just learn it. But if you think about the practical day-to-day communication dynamics that people confront, they usually have some particular regional or national language that would be especially useful to learn. That benefit is obvious and reliably foreseeable, whereas the benefit of joining in an inchoate humanity-wide auxiliary language project is speculative and at best delayed.

slaslasla 7y ago

Sure, why don't we start this initiative by learning Mandarin? Or does it have to be YOUR language that everyone should be obligated to learn and communicate in?

dang 7y ago
"Be kind. Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
azangru 7y ago
Firstly, it isn't mine. At least not by birth. Unfortunately. Secondly, this kind of moral objection ("does it have to be YOUR language"), intended to shame the proponent of this idea for their presumptuousness, will never get us anywhere. Why don't we start this initiative by learning Mandarin, you say? Why not Arabic, someone replies. Why not French, another says. Why not Spanish, joins yet another. And Welsh, let’s not forget about Welsh, another cries. Framing the question of why pick language X instead of language Y in moral terms is pointless. Sure, one can try to argue from a purely linguistic perspective, pointing out unwieldiness of Chinese characters as opposed to Latin-based alphabets; or the general rarity of tonal languages, such as Chinese; but that’s a crappy argument. A good argument, I think, is that we are at a point where English is already used as an international language in a number of spheres, and instead of discarding it and picking an entirely different language and re-training humanity to use it, it makes much more sense to continue pushing forward with it.
- slaslasla 7y ago
  Based on OP the number of English and Mandarin speakers is roughly the same, and considering written Chinese is mostly shared between languages that would mean that more people can currently read Chinese than English. You have your qualms about Mandarin, but anyone can complain about a language they do not speak, and claim it is too difficult for this or that reason. Compared to English, Chinese grammar is very simple, the written language is compact, and there is little confusion about pronunciation. It seems as good as any (if not better than most) as an international language. It seems you realize it as well, as it is hinted in your own posts; you will never convince everyone to pick your preferred language and convert to it. It is like trying to convert everyone to the same religion. You may think that your choice of [language/religion] is the best one, the one that makes the most sense, without realizing your own bias.

ordu 7y ago

I like English, and I love Russian. I can do with Russian wonderful bewildering things. Ow, I've seen some wonderful things that can be done with English and cannot be translated into Russian, but I know much more language tricks that cannot be translated into English. It is a funny thing to borrow English tricks and to make them with Russian. For example I love the idea of phrasal verb, especially when a preposition becomes a word the sentence ends with. It is so alien for Russian, but somehow it have meaning when done in Russian. I mean, I like English but I'm not ready to throw Russian away. From other hand, using grammar of one language with other is a way to converge languages into one, but it mightn't work. Some people become nervous when their language borrows features of other languages, they see it as an expansion of that other language, they are afraid of losing their beloved language. There is a vocal opposition in Russia to the borrowing words from other languages, especially from English, which is seen as a dominant language abusing its power to oppress weaker languages (a natural Russian reaction to any power: power exists to be abused, it is an axiom in the Russian culture). I know that French have an opposition like this, though maybe due to other reasons. Maybe if English started to incorporate words and grammar from all languages around the world, it could become a language of languages, but I suspect that languages needs rules forbidding some constructs to be language that allow express things. Incorporating all possible rules probably would make any word combination to be allowed and language might lose its purpose.

gshubert17 7y ago
> Maybe if English started to incorporate words and grammar from all languages around the world, it could become a language of languages, but I suspect that languages needs rules forbidding some constructs to be language that allow express things. Incorporating all possible rules probably would make any word combination to be allowed and language might lose its purpose. English borrows words promiscuously from other languages. Many were borrowed from French after the Norman conquest. Many were borrowed from Latin and Greek by scholars. In fact there's a list of lists here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_English_words_by_country_or_language_of_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_English_words_by_coun... All the loanwords in English is one reason why its orthography (spelling) is so difficult.