If you had to choose a language to become the "univeral language", which one would you choose and why?

Question

There are a broad spectrum of reactions to the fact that English is becomming adopted universally. I you had to choose a language to become the new lingua franca, would English be your first choice? If not, which would you choose? Please give reasons for the language of your choice. (Is it clear, beautiful, easy to learn, easy to pronounce, able to describe complex thoughts, visual, emotional, etc.)

Personally I would choose the African language with all the click sounds so I could beatbox and speak at the same time.

Answer 1

i would say Vietnamese. It's a really beautiful language with several accents (acute, circumflex, grave ...) that gives the language its natural intonation.

Besides, it's my mother tongue :-p

Answer 2

First, let me be very clear about this.
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!)
Believe it or not, Esperanto represents the best chance for the survival of the multitude of dying languages since it's purpose is to forestall the monopoly of any one National tongue to the disadvantage of another.
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 (six official languages) and a similar amount in the EU says, sooner or later something is going to change, and this is the cheapest and most effective, proven alternative.
NOBODY has to give up their mother tongue, nor should they.
So, long answer shortened, NO. I wouldn't accept a single language for the world. An auxiliary language however would be wonderful.
Research and draw your own conclusions.

Ĝis!

Answer 3

Latin (old latin, not South American Latin) is very basic and is the root of many modern languages. Its grammatical structure is very easy to understand, easier than English.

However, because everyone in the world has already established English as the lingua franca, and in fact, has derived whole new languages based on English, then I would say that I wouldn't want to change a thing.

Answer 4

English. It already has a large installed base and it is being spoken by more people all the time. Just about every country has English speakers or English is taught in the schools. There's no such thing as "easy to learn" when considering languages. French is easy to learn for a Spanish speaker but difficult for a Chinese speaker. Also that talk about "beauty" wrt languages is bunk as well.

Answer 5

BeatboX?? haha...I think i agree with u. YEAH!!!

I propouse spanish...of course, cuz it's my mother tonge...it is easy, sounds beautiful, n very rich...

:) But i guess latin would be 0k too...or greeK...cuz many of the most popular n beautiful languages have their roots on those two languages...

i don't remember when, but i read about the creation of a new language...it's made by the mixture of almost all idioms n dialects etc, existin' over the planet. So, it would be fair 4 all cultures...every person would be satsfied n happy...N, it is suppoused that it would be very easy 4 us to learn, cuz it wz taken the easiest word n terms from each language..

Like: plan...(No matter what u speak, u get it)...or amor...oui, bye, 0k.., phobia, infinitum, platino, mama....World wide known words.

Answer 6

I would choose Spanish, since many people speak it and it sounds beautiful to me. Also, it is much more straightforward than English--it is much easier to spell. I have observed that children can learn how to read and spell better in Spanish than in English. The way the language is structured supports a creative mindset, which I think is cool.

Answer 7

none, because all languages have words that no other express meanings that no other language has, and it expresses nuances of things that exist that wouldn't otherwise not exist. furthurmore, language also reveals unique aspects of an entire society, like etiquette, etc. plus no language is easier or harder than any other; a 3 year old chinese child will know the same amount of chinese that a 3 year old american child knows english. it just depends on what you grow up with which determines which ones you find difficult to learn. i grew up with 3 languages in my house, therefore, i find none of them hard. but if somebody asked me to learn a langauge that stems from another language group, i would probably find it difficult.

Answer 8

hahaha, beatbox and speak at the same time?
well, maybe I'd choose spanish because I already know it (it is my native language) and it is very romantic or english because it is easy to learn.

Answer 9

I would choose English. I guess I'd choose it because that's the only language I know. I guess that's selfish, but it's the truth.

Answer 10

SANSKRIT!

Sanskrit has one sound associated with each letter.
Putting two different letters together doesn't make a third sound (like "sh", "ch", "ph" or "gh" do in English.)

If not the Sanskrit language, at least the script!
.