Is one-world-language a good idea?

[miniboes]

As someone who lives in a country that has largely adopted English into its culture, I think it's a great idea to have one language taught all around the world. Especially because it eliminates the hassle of having to learn French and German and stuff. Being bilingual appears to reduce Alzheimer's risk, if there as not enough reason yet. I do not think it is reasonable to expect to be able to make all countries adopt English as the main or only language, that just won't happen. As a second language, I absolutely agree.

[bennyboy]

You'll always have cultural diversity: different accents, different usage, localized vocabulary due to different environments.


I fully support the idea of a world language. I'd recommend using a Korean-style phonic writing system with extended characters (look up Korean writing system, it's really simple and great).

[DramaQueen]

Especially if everyone in the world understands the message "fuck you and your god" equally.

In Libyan Arabic: nayyik inta w rabbik or najjëk ënta u'rabbëk (there is no standard orthography)

In the Arabic script: نيك انتا وربك

[Violet]

We could all learn to speak English and Chinese, and perhaps Portuguese. But that's on individuals if they want to communicate.... there should be no 'enforced' 'language of the world'. Impact on culture is more severe than minor.

[Dystopia]

I personally like the idea of having a single worldwide language. By that I don't mean abolishing existing languages, rather choosing one of the existing languages as the primary language for the entire world. That way, there would be a single global language which everyone will know and will be able to communicate in, alongside their local language/s if they want to be bilingual.

Positives:
+ Ease of communication.
+ Less confusion with future interpretations of texts, especially with religion.
+ Easier to relate with one another.

Negatives:
- Partial loss of cultural diversity.

Here I am reviving old threads!

I think English is already the standard world language - Sure, Mandarin is becoming more important with the rise of China as a worldwide political power, but English is still pretty much expected to be the form of communication between foreigners.

In my country there's English from basic school to highschool and it's not optional - That being said, I have lots of friends who suck at English and teaching methods might not be efficient all the time.

I really don't know what a worldwide language would mean - But overall there is no political institution with power to force others to learn one worldwide language so it's basically a matter of choice.

I work hard to make my English more fluent and as fluent as possible and I've been doing that since I was in the 5th grade - But sometimes people don't even have resources to learn their native language correctly, let alone a worldwide language.

I do not think this would cause cultural loss since languages (native ones) would still be spoken... And I think certain texts like the universal declaration of Human Rights should be written in several languages, since for now not everyone is fluent in English.

[downbeatplumb]

There should be one world language and it should be English.

Otherwise I'm screwed.

[Chas]

There should be one world language and it should be English.

Otherwise I'm screwed.

English was good enough for Jesus, so it's good enough for me.

[robvalue]

I misread the title as "should we have a one word language"

We already have a one word language, the language of apologetics. Here is the full vocabulary:

Goddidit

[vorlon13]

One world language ?

Esperanto

[Norman Humann]

Aber warum nicht Zherman? Is very gut, ja?