Shouldn't we have a universal language....like english?

Question

if everyone still spoke thier own language but learned english as thier second language, wouldn't world communication be better?
How's english for the universal language?

Answer 1

A universal language is a sound idea. Someone invented Esperanto, an artificial language intended to become the Universal language; it never happened because no one wanted to learn Esperanto. That is the problem. People have to want to learn the new language. It can't be forced on them. English is too difficult a language to learn even though it borrows words from many languages, English has too many exceptions to the rule.
French was up and coming as a diplomatic universal language and in some circles is still considered a universal language. As someone else mentioned, Chineses dialects are spoken by more people than any other language. So there you have it.

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Answer 2

My native language is English. I've noticed foreigners speaking English to each other. However, how much communication is actually taking place? I work in the computer industry and I see it every day. I've seen foreigners who speak different native languages trying to speak English to each other, and much of their time is spent repeating themselves. English is a difficult language to master because of the many rules, even more rule exceptions and a large dose of inconsistencies, now throw two or more foreign accents into the mix and the problem gets worse. Given this scenario, can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone decided to use English as the language of international diplomacy? Chaos.

There have been discussions on many occasions in multilingual political bodies (the U.N., the E.U., UNESCO, etc) of adopting a single official language to lower the translation costs. Choosing any national language to fit this niche gives additional power to the country who's national language is chosen, so everyone wants their language to be chosen, and the vote ends up in a stalemate.

The only chance of getting a single language chosen as a "universal" language in one of these organizations is to choose a language which is totally neutral and requires everyone to learn it. Therefore putting everyone on an even footing. Since all of the national languages are out, we are left with constructed languages.

A man in Poland created a language for exactly this purpose. His first book was published about the language in 1887, and despite the fact that it is not required learning in any country, it was outlawed by the Nazis in Germany, and the Communists in Russia and China, there are about 2 million speakers world wide. It's called Esperanto. The international language of peace and friendship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/esperanto...

Answer 3

Esperanto, is known as La Internacia Lingvo.
The basic theory is that each nationality would have to undertake an equal amount of effort to learn the second language, thereby bestowing no one nationality with a linguistic advantage. A neutral handshake if you will.
Another advantage is that since each of us that care to learn this easy language (certainly nobody is forced if we've no need of it) now have a means to communicate with other nationalities equally, and we are still free to use our own language in our own countries, thus protecting even the lesser used languages from extinction.
There are other international languages, but Esperanto has been the most successful by a large margin. In fact, if you were to total up the entire number of speakers for each of the other international languages, Esperanto would still out number them. At 2 million plus speakers, it is growing by leaps and bounds, thanks for the most part to the Internet.
It gets quite tiresome hearing my fellow English speakers saying that English is the easiest. Well, duh! If you grow up with it, sure. But you can't tell me there wasn't at least one moment in school where you didn't have some difficulty with our rule exceptions, idioms, or other bastardized spellings.
I have a firm handle on English, but I prefer to deal with my friends on an equal footing, otherwise they aren't friends; they're subjects.

Answer 4

English is as good as an universal language...!One has to learn English so that the person can go freely any where in the world. It is the International language spoken almost everywhere in the world. It acts as an umbrella to safeguard one's interests. A decade ago to learn English, you had to attend costly English classes or purchase course material like tapes and books. Now you can learn English for free from the comfort of your home using the Internet. The BBC and the British Council offer a number of on line courses, which teach written and spoken English. You can also improve your English by watching television programs and reading English newspapers. For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/qnzpt

Answer 5

English serves already a bit like such instrument. But I do not like idea of universal language, especially it was English. From personal perspective: English is not a language, which sounds really good. Secondly, it would split into a number of distanced dialects immediatly and would accept local words for things, which are not produced or do not grow in other climate zones or areas. I do not understand English, which is very far from London version already now.
There is no way to learn a different culture without understanding the langauges it uses. A language is reflection of mentality, philosophy, a lot of interesting historical things. Populations who forget other cultures become limited very fast. And it is unevoidable if they impose their values and their way of life for others. The world becomes poorer, less interesting. Chaplin laughed once about Ford factories... He was sane. Not all people dream about whole life tourism and not all need to read English text before creating something valuable.

Answer 6

No, because even if everyone can speak english, it doesn't mean they will; just look at French bilingual Quebec (Quebec Francophones that speak english); if you can't speak French, they shun you. Mind you, if you CAN speak French but aren't Quebecois, some have a habit of shunning you anyway...

Also, knowing multiple languages boosts one's IQ; it's better to be multilingual and speak and think in more than just one language.

English, btw, is the universal business language. So far as i'm aware, this is unofficial.

Answer 7

I agree. It would enable international communication much easier if we all had knowledge of one language. And aready english is very popular. It is one of the only language with a word of EVRYTHING.

Apparently, English if one of the most popular languages in the world. However, Spanish- Spanish is the most spoken language in the world. So why shouldnt we all speak spanish?

Well....its difficult. I have been learning spanish for 2 years, and I havent learnt very much.

I hope this helped you.

Answer 8

A universal language would destroy culture. Then again, it would make everyone's lives easier just like adopting the metric system would. As for English, it's probably one of the easier languages to speak since it is based off an alphabet of only 26 words. With the grammar rules, it's not too bad. But, with all the exceptions to the grammar rules, everyone will go crazy. I suggest Japanese.

Answer 9

But that means everyone else has to learn your language.
I'd like Hebrew to be the Universal language, but that's not going to happen either.

Answer 10

Why don't we just learn their language? Seriously if you want to talk to someone you have to make some effort and not expect them to make it easier for you. What's your second language? since you feel the world should have one and all...