Would it be easier to have just one language in the world?

Question

for and against arguments welcome

Answer 1

Well for me that is the beauty of life here on earth: having different languages..<;

Don't you think that it's fun to decipher what other languages mean..don't you think it's fun learning another language and when you finally be able to speak another language fluently then that's one great achivement right...

I still prefer what men have right now, since it makes us crave for knowledge and learning...it makes us do more and achieve more..<;

Answer 2

The idea of a common planetary language, especially if it is arbitrarily chosen or worse, would be next to useless. Each linguistic group would resent the fact that any other language was forced on them, and NOBODY would agree on ANY language since they would all want their own.
Esperanto is making headway in becoming an AUXILIARY language, yet people reject it out of hand because they all fear the loss of their tongue and a single language spoken by all, which is exactly what Esperanto is trying NOT to do.
Esperantos' purpose is to provide a common SECOND language so that you and you and you don't need to sink years into study of a language that you will most likely NEVER fully assimilate like a native. The choice would be yours. With Esperanto you can be comfortable talking to your neighbour in your native tongue and just as comfortable talking to Ming Lu across the waves on an equal footing in this easily learnt language. It's like a neutral handshake, because each participant invested an equal amount of effort to learn this easy language. (16 gramatical rules... NO exceptions!)
So will it some day become universal (which by the way doesn't mean that EVERYBODY in the world speaks it, just those that want it / need it)?
Well, the $600 million USD spent yearly on translation services at the UN and likewise in the EU says, sooner or later something is going to change, and this is the cheapest and most effective proven alternative.
In short... YES! It would be easier, as long as it is done in a logical and considerate fashion.
Research and draw your own conclusions.

Ĝis!

Answer 3

Sure the world council has already decided to do this - As from 2012 the entire world will have to speak Swahili. The name was drawn out of hat from the thousands of languages spoken in the world. If in 2012 you are found to speaking anything else than Swahili you will punished. You may even find yourself incarcerated.
The British tried this in some countries they colonised. They even tried to wipe out Welsh in Wales. The French did the same as did the Spanish. In Britanny the Breton language was also treated the same- If you were caught speaking Breton in school you were given a tie to wear around your neck, if you caught someone else speaking Breton then you gave that tie to him and so on until the end of the day when the child wearing the tie was beaten for speaking the language they had learned at their mother's knee.
In short of course it would be easier and perhaps in a few hundred years we will some godforsaken thing spelt like text speak with a mix of English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German and Spanish. Which no-one around today would recognise - just go look at Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in its original language!

Answer 4

Which one? Easier for who? How to choose one?
I'm personally against because the variety makes the things more interesting, as in every other fields ... People are different, they have different cultures, why should they use the same language?
In fact the try they did with Esperanto was a great fail. ( I hope i'm not offending some fans...)

Answer 5

That would be the same as having one race, religion or creed. God made us all so very different, be grateful, it keeps things much more interesting as oppose to stagnant and boring. I am lucky enough to read, write and speak four languages, two others barely but I try. There is one Universal language, that would be LOVE.
God bless us all...

Answer 6

Yea, it would be easier, but it would also be really boring. I love going to public places and just listening to musical sounds of ten languages being spoken at once, and I love trying to guess what the people are talking about.

Answer 7

And once you'd homologised the world's languages and we all spoke only English, what would you go for next ...? The world's cuisines? We'd all be eating porridge, marmite sandwiches and chips ... and the English would be forever deprived of their beloved curry!

If my language died, I would die with it. It's a terrible idea.

Answer 8

God/Allah (not Jesus) put us here with differences so that humans can get to know each other, to live together in harmony. A common language would help this out, but we will still have skin color to overcome, and this will be more difficult in the end.

Haile Selassie I of Ethopia gave as speach to the united nations, Bob Marley sings it in a song called "War".

"That until the color of a man's skin, is of no more significance then the color of his eyes".... everywhere is war, me say war!!

Answer 9

It would be very boring! Imagine it was English, and every movie came from US or UK - really mainstream! No Mandarin with its amazing hieroglyphic like symbols? no French?- no reason to try to learn about other cultures! Esperanto? I don't think so!

Answer 10

One language is fine but you would put a heck of a lot of, sometimes overpaid, translators noses out of joint. t
They would end up on the dole and we, the taxpayers, would have to pay their dole money and possibly compensation. Otherwise I agree that fewer languages would be an advantage. Would the americans like to have to speak another language? They think their version of 'american english' is the mother of english.