Post 4 (340): No Possibility for the Universal Language
In my freshman year at McGill University, Montreal, once several students were talking loudly in the studying area beside the sign “quiet zone”. So I nicely talked to them and asked for some peacefulness, however, they soon started talking again after a very short time of shutting up. As a result, I could not bear it and swore “你妈*的, 能不能给老子安静点” (generally means “can you please be f* quiet”), and they never talked again that night though they absolutely did not understand what I said, but they FELT it.
Since then, I began to think about the existence of different languages and the once-popular argument that the world should have only one language to create harmony and universal understanding. Personally, I believe that eliminating the variety of languages will result in more loss than gain. In this post, I will use evidence from the reputed linguist David Crystal’s book Language Death to oppose the mentioned radical idea and explain why fewer languages will do no good.
First of all, having a world with only one language is unlikely to reduce conflicts between people, thus will not guarantee mutual understanding and peace. For example, from Crystal’s writing, he points out that a number of monolingual nations had their civil wars, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Rwanda (2002: 27), which indicate that using one language to communicate without barriers is not equivalent to the idea that people can share mutual and universal understandings.
Besides, Crystal also demonstrates that it is always the people living in a monolingual nation who want a monolingual world because their entire worldview is rooted in their single language. However, those people neglect the fact that their ideal world is unlikely to achieve because it would be extremely hard to convince countries to give up their languages and adapt to the new one. Since human beings share different nationalities, cultures, and traditions, no single language can satisfy every culture, and each one will wish their language to be the last one (Crystal 2002: 28). Eventually, the movement of having one language will bring no peace but more collisions to erase other languages.
Moreover, a world with drastically fewer languages will be worse for humankind. As the words from Crystal’s writing suggest: “the dominant language would play the role of intelligibility, such as using that to interact with the outside conferences; the dominated language will be the symbol of one’s identity, culture and belongingness” (2002: 29). In other words, eliminating languages is the same case as destroying cultures and local communities, which will make the world mundane and pale as well as creating a hegemonic language.
All in all, having a world with only one language will not bring peace, for such a “goal” is hard to achieve and involves more conflicts. Meantime, having fewer languages will also make people lose their self-identifications and cultures, thus resulting in a world without diversity but only paleness.
References:
Crystal, David. 2002. Language Death. Cambridge University Press.
