| Moderator: |
Gerhard Bischoff |
| eMail: |
Euyasik (at) gmx (dot) net
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| Author |
Brett Zamir |
Brett Zamir, Us-American, now living in China, initiated a web-site "onetongue.com". There he discusses topics concerning constructed languages. Included is an experiment how to spread the ideas of an international language.
Don’t We Already Have an International Language? - English !
(to those insisting that English is already a universal language)
English has indeed in some ways filled the gap pending the choice of an official universal language (e.g., in many Internet settings, scientific articles, air traffic control, etc.). However, though English may in some ways be a lingua franca, it is obviously not accepted sufficiently to have become mandated education in all primary schools in all countries. And as an article in the Atlantic Monthly November 2000 issue argued (see http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/Whatglobal.html
), it has hardly spread as widely or deeply as many may imagine. For example, though it is used in virtually every regional and international forum around the world as one of the official languages, it is not even the most common 2nd language nor the most common language totaling native speakers or both native and 2nd language speakers, as Chinese (Mandarin) tops the list in all of these categories. Nor is its use spread to a wide number of countries as an official language or with many native speakers. ( See the Statistics section : http://onetongue.com/index.php?page=languagestats&language=en ).
For different reasons (distaste with perceptions of historical or current cultural hegemony, a complex language with inconsistent spelling, non-uniform affixes and roots, etc.), many nations may not be willing to commit to English -- at least for the education of all of their children.
It is possible that such nations could be won over to the idea of English if they are not already -- by the argument for example that its existing spread lends itself to be the final choice, but in order for some language to take root -- including English -- assuming we respect democracy for all (and are not going to see an English speaking country physically conquer the world and force all of its subjects to learn English), we must remain open to the possibility that another language will be chosen. If not, we are not only being divisive, but ineffective in seeing our own dreams realized.
Only upon making a universal, representative, and democratic choice, made after deliberative study among experts across various disciplines, which genuinely allows for the free choice of any language, will the peoples and governments of the world be willing to carry out the requirement for all of the children in their countries to learn such an official second language.
For those who think the market forces are sufficient to consolidate English eventually, we ought to consider that with changing economic winds as well as political forces, we may yet see another change from English (as the past has seen changes from French (or in some places from Russian) and from further back (in the West) from Arabic, Latin, etc. The most populous and up-and-coming nations of China if not India might conceivably upset the equilibrium in the future, for example, as might other changing political and economic factors (and then subsequently change again).
It is only global political action which can resolve this international question firmly. Language policy is able to effect changes (as demonstrated even at the inadequate national level) or it would not be adopted (as it has been on the national scale).
Many countries have national language policies to encourage the spread of an official national language over defacto market conditions, and though such policies are inadequate given that their decision-making structures do not represent the oneness and interconnectedness of all humanity (and they will continually face immigration of minorities unfamiliar with their country’s national language), they nevertheless testify to the efficacy of having some language policy -- how much more so would this be at a global level with its comprehensive reach.
It is clear that de facto conditions are not adequate nor will they be sufficient to establish any language as a universal language unless a global representative political decision is made and universally implemented.
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