English by no means the 'universal' language
Languages are not only communication tools, but in their diversity and ethnicity they are also integral parts of world culture. Communication and development policies which are not based on respect and support for all languages amount to a death sentence for the majority of languages in the world. It is generally accepted that in the past century the greatest challenge to linguistic diversity has been the spread of English; but, statistics show that no more than ten percent of the world's population speak English as a native language. English is by no means a 'universal' tongue just yet - and in my eyes it is unsuitable as one, along with all other national languages. Personal experience will show that a person talking in a second (non-native) language will never reach quite the same level of fluency as the native. The beauty of national languages is in their differences, their complexites, the subtlety of their turns of phrase - but it is these same treasures that make national languages too difficult and too non-neutral for intercommunication. This is a reason why an easy-to-learn, auxiliary language like Esperanto should be used to solve the language problem - speakers of all languages, large and small, should have a real chance of learning an second language to an expressive, highly communicative level.
Sent by: Gabriel
Comments
Well, neutrality is the reason why Esperanto has not been fully adopted. Due to the fact that it does not change, it does not have an identity. Nobody will ever have sympathy for a language which does not allow creativity.
I do not feel comfortable to think of a world language. Greek has been one once, Latin too, but they have all disapeared far before acquiring uniformity.
I should mention that Esperanto would not become everyone's first language. That's not the point of Esperanto.
I don't think English should be a universal language because all of the other languages would be lost. Also, we wouldn't have the joy of learning other languages and then travelling to foreign countries.
I believe that English should not be the universal language because I am dutch and if I cannot speak my language then I will lose the culture that the Dutch and other countrys have.
I am from Saudi Arabia this is the first time I share a comment. What I want to say is everyone is proud of his language. I like my Arabic language and find it very rich in meaning. It is difficult to learn although I found it easy to learn other languages myself. I'm now learning English and French. If I have the time I don't mind to learn any other language. I mean it is not easy to find an international language. But I would suggest that the Arabic language is a suitable international language because it is the language of the Quran and all the Muslims around the world read it in Arabic.
With Omalkhair's logic, Mandarin Chinese or Hindi should be the universal languages. Honestly, just because Arabic is used in the Quran doesn't mean that everyone who uses the Quran speaks Arabic. That's like me saying that because the Bible was classically written in Latin, we should rally around Latin.
I strongly disagree with Esperanto, or any other language for that matter, becoming a universal language. Once we have a universal language governing us, then the next step would be to make that language everyone's first language. It will become human nature to learn Esperanto first and then their national language second. Ah, Heather Christie, you should be watching out for what English is doing to the internet! Also, you are staggeringly lucky you have been able to become competent in so many languages. I have struggled with Arabic and French, but even after a full immersion experience I am only able to communicate a little. Cut some slack - the ADVANTAGE is that Esperanto is easy. And watch out for English being forced on everyone else.
English is widely spread all over the world and everybody knows that but I think it's impossible for any language become universal because every nation has its own culture, and native language is the part of the culture, so, English will be the universal language only when all people on the world will speak English like their own.
Esperanto is not neutral. It has a strong Romance influence. In fact, English is more neutral than Esperanto as far as usage in the West is concerned. It is a Germanic language and therefore shares a lot of syntactical features and similar vocabulary with other Germanic languages. At the same time 50% of its vocabulary is borrowed from the Romance languages. In addition, there many words, and prefixes and suffixes of words with Greek roots. It is like a melange of Western European languages melted in one. It is therefore a perfect language for the USA and the EU. It is however not universal as it has nothing to do with most languages outside of Western European civilization.
Flag this comment