He who knows the minds of all
If everybody adopted English, and all the other languages went extinct, the world could function more efficiently. We wouldn't need to hire all those translators. They could instead take jobs that produce real value.
Some people say that losing languages is like losing animal species. I disagree. I think it's more like a single animal species losing parasites.
Languages are only means to an end. The
languages itself are not important, but the thoughts that we express
with them. And any thought that is worth expressing in some language,
you can also express in English. Fortunately, globalization and the
information superhighway speed up this process of language extinction
and harmonization.
For some reason, those who lament the
disappearance of every insignificant little language never seem to tell
us what number of languages they would consider to be optimal. If some
language going totally extinct is a bad thing, would it conversely
follow that some language splitting in two separate languages would be
a good thing? Would the best possible situation then be if every person
on Earth had an idioglossia that no one else speaks, so that everybody
has to first learn the private language of the other guy just to be
able to talk to him? Certainly not, so the optimal number of languages
must lie somewhere between one and six billion. Let the free market
once again decide the most efficient choice, but I tend to believe that
the optimal number of languages in the world is just one. (And no, that
one language is not Swedish, despite what some Bosse, Balle and Olle
would like to pretend.)
I am not a very cunning linguist so I
might be totally wrong in the following, but I have occasionally
wondered whether we will ever again actually get to observe some major
language splitting in two separate languages, as has happened countless
times in the past in migration, conquests and geographical isolation.
Probably not, with the possible exception of some minor tribal
languages in the remotest of places. These days, the ubiquitous mass
media keeps the whole world in sync so that despite the geographic
distances, everybody gets to constantly hear the same language. The
languages change gradually and gain new words, but these changes
immediately spread all over so that new languages can't really diverge
that way. At the same time, media also maintains the historical record
of how the language was recently used, so small changes cannot snowball
unnoticed. Also unlike in the distant past, all kids go to school, and
the relevant people who actually use and control the language all learn
the same language there.
Im studyin Computer linguistic which includes general linguistics as a minor subject and it is true that most of the books considers language extinction as a terrible thing. Main argument is that when we loss some language we loss some information of how the mind works and it is more difficult how to explain how language developed in the first place.
Personally I don't see the problem, when we have descriped grammar and dictionary, there is no problem if language disappears from everyday use. World would be much easier and effective place to live if all speaks same language.
But I have been thinking two cases where more languages could be beneficial (these are not discussed in any humanities books as far as I know).
Firstly, I have read somewhere about that childs from bilingual families have higher IQ than childs monolingual family. So speaking of two language when you are young could be good for your mental development.
Secondly, I have thought that maybe some language has more expression power in different professional areas. Probably every language can express everything, but some do it easier and clearer in certain circumstances.
For example I think Finnland had done pretty well economically and scientifically, when you think that it is small language and totally different from other european language (belongs to different language group than big european languages). When you think about that overhead in learning and translating other languages. Could it be that finnish language is more efficient in other ways, more exact or something like that?
Posted by Peter | 11:06 AM
I wrote about the same subject earlier in Finnish:
http://www.lariq.net/soopa/archives/004101.html
Posted by Soopa | 11:34 AM
It's not as though "everyone learns English" necessitates "other languages go extinct". I suspect that, in the future, mostly everyone will speak English and many will also continue to speak local languages, especially the big ones like Chinese.
Posted by Otto Kerner | 11:46 AM
In the future, mostly everyone will speak Chinese and many will also continue to speak local languages, especially the big ones like English.
Posted by Huckleberry Finn | 2:08 PM
"For some reason, those who lament the disappearance of every insignificant little language never seem to tell us what number of languages they would consider to be optimal."
There is no optimal number of languages. However, disappearance of languages is in no way different from any other kind of language change, and there is an optimal speed for any kind of language change (if it changes too slow it's too slow for people's changing needs, if it changes too fast it has a negative effect on continuity and mutual understanding of speakers). The optimal speed is determined by the market, and the market normally consists of both progressive and conservative forces (most people being both).
The market pressure at the moment is certainly not towards one language, but towards fewer languages than exist now.
As to a major language splitting into two separate languages: might happen for political reasons, but they probably won't diverge as much as in the past, for the reasons you mention.
Posted by Vera | 4:50 PM
I wonder what would be the optimal amount of widely adopted programming languages. "The languages are not important, but the thoughts that we express with them" applies also to programming languages, doesn't it?
Posted by Rebyk | 3:57 AM
huck: With luck, mostly everyone will speak Esperanto or Lojban or somesuch in the future, but I think English has already achieved a critical mass whereby it is pretty much here to stay. A catatclysmic change, such as the destruction of the English-speaking population and economy in a war, would be able to arrest this process, but I don't think that any gradual change will. As China's economy develops, they are putting more and more resources into improving their English-language ability.
Posted by Otto Kerner | 7:32 PM