Wreybies has already mentioned all the different varieties of Spanish, and of course you only need to look at how English is developing in different countries to realise that a world language is an impossibility. A standard language for official purposes, perhaps, and for schools within a country, but one that is spoken the same everywhere? Not really achievable. Anyway, what's the problem with everyone speaking two or three languages fluently? It was fairly common in the past, and where I live businessmen spoke and wrote at least three different languages--Ottoman Turkish, French, and Greek, usually with Italian and English also. Really, much more effort could be spent on language teaching, especially for English native speakers who don't always seem aware of what they are missing out on.
However, all Spanish speakers can understand each other perfectly well and I suppose most English speakers too. Local differences will always exist, but having a common way of communication that made possible an act as simple as writing a pamphlet and knowing that all humanity can read it, would be a strong root for a more united world.
They can understand each other reasonably well at the moment, but a few hundred years could change things! My personal opinion is that countries could start to get more isolated again: travelling, communication etc may become more difficult, nationalism and local differences could take over resulting in distinct changes that make e.g. English completely different in all the countries where it is spoken. I suppose I'm influenced by the fact that Azebeijani Turkish is so different from Turkish spoken in Turkey--and that only took a century of government interference of different kinds on both sides to bring about. And also my particular dystopian view of the world comes into play
My loud talkative sister in law from California spent two weeks in North of Scotland barely saying a word because she didn't understand anything. I know the kids that take German curse the fact our town is twinned with a town in Bavaria when it comes to language exchanges. A native or fluent speaker can cope with variation but I also know friends who have learned Spanish and can sort of manage in Spain struggles more in Mexico etc But people manage even if they don't speak the language to communicate or I do anyway. Don't really have a point beyond it is upto each individual to find a way to communicate it is good practice for if you have a Mum with a stroke or a son with speech delay. Or a friend that is deaf etc
That's a bold statement that sounds a bit more like emic data than etic. I will honestly admit that I have some significant degree of difficulty understanding Spanish with the heavy ceceo coupled with the all the S's made into SH's. When I have to interpret for such clients, I sweat. My point to the example I was making is that language is going to do what it is going to do and there is usually little that human will can do to sway the matter. Spanish has an academy trying to keep the language uniform and the effort comes to nothing. English has no such academy and the language is actually very uniform. Either way, the language itself as a dynamic, as a paradigm, as a living thing, wins out. Human will in the matter is shoved to the side.
Believe You're right Wrey: I remember a French Premier Fighting the insidious creeping "Franglaise". He had to yield a lot of ground to "Babysitter" etc. before surrendering. I remember learning fluent French while living there, not a big deal. Used to Pi$$ me off to see Americans waving dollars at the locals like an incentive, to make them speak English!. "The Ugly American"!! Right now I have a Paris Radio station on WiFi to keep from throwing it away with yesterdays potato peelings!. Just wish they'd play less American songs!!--maybe another glass of Beaujolais will help??.
A one world language sounds extremely improbable, if not impossible. Besides having to convince most nations to leave their own language for a foreign one (which would be at best, a blatant abandonment of their culture), the decision of which language to use would certainly be something that could start wars. For some of us, we would be fine if english was chosen (a bad choice, since modern english is extremely poor), while others would want german. Then there will be a group of people who say, "Hey wait a minute! German is such a harsh language! Spanish is so much more beautiful!" "Spanish!" Some random guy might say, "Are you crazy? I couldn't learn spanish if my life depended on it!" Then you get things like, "French is clearly the best." "Are you kidding? Russian is superior." "Who do you think you are? Hebrew is the oldest language, and thus, our best choice." "What? Punjabi is by far the oldest!" "Is not!" "Is too!" "Is not!" "Stop fighting you fools, Sanskrit is the oldest language." "Liar." "I will not be part of such useless discussions." "Ha, try saying that when Polish is the world's language!" "English!" "French!" "Italian!" "Wu!" "Korean!" "Klingon!" "Japanes-- wait a minute, Klingon?" "Persian!" "Dutch!" "Latin!" Elgaisma calls out. If I can already start a fight with myself, imagine what it would be like to get the whole world to agree on one. Someone mentioned that the only way to world peace is through a single world language. The only way to a single world language is through a tyrannical power. I guess that would totally defeat the purpose of world peace, huh? About saving languages. Some languages need to be saved, because they have a wealth of information written down somewhere. Some may be lost, but lets not forget that new languages are made over time. Take english for example. Go back in time, and you might not be able to understand a word they are saying. Take someone from the past, stick them in the 21st century, and they will be completely lost. Languages change, new dialects appear, and old dissappear. Unlike what many people like to think, we are not in control. Trying to be would just be asking for a lesson in "How to realize you are not in control." You can't save every language, so if someone wanted to, they just have to be very picky when choosing one, since it would have to be one really worth saving. On a side note, this whole conversation has led me to remember a joke about controlling english. Spoiler Europe English The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world! It made me laugh.
@Wreybies I think India as a country would have been at a lost, in many ways if not entirely, if it wasn't for English as a combining factor. Yes, official language of India doesn't matter much to the poor farmers or the beggars on the street, but it matters when intellectuals/bureaucrats from all over the country who shapes the destiny of the nation speaks and thinks in the same language. I say bureaucrats because politicians come and go but bureaucrats remain, like a bridge between two successive governments assuring the continuity of policies of the nation (at least that's how it works in India). It's not for nothing that nobody here is native English speaker yet English remains one of the official languages, indisputably the most important one, despite various attempts by native language lobbies to remove it. It shows how a language survives if it becomes a necessity, in this case a necessity in uniting a country. English is gaining popularity among the masses too here. True the English spoken here is not the Queen's English or American, we even have a sort of new language spoken in most of the urban areas called Hinglish (combination of Hindi and English words in a phrase or sentence). I see it as a step closer to English replacing Hindi. Even my illiterate granny uses many English words I see it as a sure sign of English gaining the upper hand against native languages. I see the inevitability of local languages dying out in future. But is it too bad? Probably not. The English that we developed will be unique to us, many words and forms of our native languages will remain in this 'New English', in other words, it'll be a part of the evolution of our native language into a language spoken and understood by many. Also, according to the population predictions and forecasts, the present English speaking world is ageing and India's population is still very young, so may be the English spoken in India will become the future English. As for saving languages, there is a term use here by political analysts "soft diplomacy". It's a term used for soft cultural influence through mediums like popular films, songs, plays, books etc I think that's the best way to popularize and hence saving a language. I was forced taught Hindi (Hindi is not my native language) in school but I never learn enough to be able to speak and communicate in Hindi, but I am fluent in Hindi now thanks to Bollywood movies (movies made in Bombay/Mumbai) and songs. Same goes for American English, many people all over the world speaks and understand English because of Hollywood.
The original languages in which the Scriptures of the bible were written are ancient Hebrew, ancient Aramaic and ancient Greek. Let's just use any combo of these, since the most learned scholars are prone to translate them to mean anything of their choosing. That way, you say what you like, and everyone else hears what he/she wants!. Cuts down on the divisiveness. You can still argue the nuances and "pray" for change.
I would imagine what matters here is a language's present use in day to day conversation. After all, any meaningful works written by peoples in a dying tongue can still be preserved and the words translated and studied as a dead language the way Latin is, right? So really, the important thing centers around the well-being of the people who speak it. If a small, obscure tribal or regional dialect is going away as the only ones who speak it are elders who otherwise can communicate to their children to fulfill basic needs, I say record everything that can be recorded then let it pass, because there is nobody who would really appreciate its preservation. Alternatively if a language's decline is a hardship for certain people that is a different issue-find ways to help them because is the issue that matters. Beyond that of course, it is no different from the former example. I guess to me, I don't know enough about languages to care or have any biases beyond the fact I only speak English. If the whole world adopted some new, functionally better and universal global language and there was some convenient, fair way of me being able to learn it, I would.
Bah, I'm not fully awake and can't think properly to focus on this topic but I'll try making a decent reply. Haha, exactly. Back to saving languages.. I think I keep changing my mind of what I think of saving languages so I may be contradicting a previous post of mine on this but whatever. I like the idea of saving as many languages as possible, and this may be me just not wanting to let go of the past and make room for the future, and me liking history. But as Evelyanin pointed out, you can't save every language even if you wanted to. I guess we have to be prepared to let some languages go, and let them be replaced by more modern ones. A record of every language would be amazing, just to preserve the vast amount of languages that we have had. Of course, some languages we won't even know about.
And the following day, that language would itself begin to diverge into dialects. EDIT: Speaking of preservation of language: There was a news story just now about a quadriplegic man who just completed a swim across the English Channel. But to me, even more exciting is that apparently he was a dead quadriplegic! The report noted he lost his limbs years ago when he was electrocuted in an industrial accident. electrocute: to kill by electric shock.
