I mean, people would obviously propose English to be the world language, but its problematic since that is like telling the world that British Imperialism is somehow “okay”, which is not okay.

So we need another language.

But how could we possibly agree on one?

Do we just find the 100 rarest languages then use one of those?

Do we create a new one?

  • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteEnglish
    6·
    11 hours ago

    I don’t think speaking the language immediately condones the horrible acts of the people who spoke it in the past. German should’ve creased to exist 80 years ago.

    There are certainly situations where use of English could be considered offensive, say, at a memorial of an atrocity. Carve those situations out and have a plan B - there is no necessity to all speak the same language all the time. It’s enough if a good number of people in the right positions do. And consider that there already are English speakers in France, Iran, and North Korea (3 random examples that don’t all love English-speaking countries).

    English is already the lingua franca of the world and has displaced French as the language of diplomacy. In Europe before that were the Frankish tongue, Latin, Greek. Other places had other languages. It’s no shoe-in that English will remain at the top but in our lifetimes I don’t think it will change.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.ukEnglish
    10·
    13 hours ago

    but its problematic since that is like telling the world that British Imperialism is somehow “okay”

    …what?

    Obviously english would be the choice as it has the largest amount of speakers. I know it’s not the most common language spoken natively but there are more people in the world that knows atleast some english compared to languages like chinese or spanish.

  • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
    6·
    12 hours ago

    There were hundreds of attemps in the 20th century. You should learn the history of Esperanto to know why it can’t happen. That was the closest we ever got to a global second language.

  • infinitevalence@discuss.onlineEnglish
    231·
    16 hours ago

    I think we shouldn’t.

    Diversity and language are strengths. We already have enough common languages for diplomacy and business.

      • infinitevalence@discuss.onlineEnglish
        12·
        14 hours ago

        Only because we’re lazy in the US and still have all the money. Watch as our economy falls and how quickly people will transaction to Chinese, French, German…

        Without business English will start to decline. It’s a shit language and we’re kinda asshole to the world about it.

        • angrystego@lemmy.world
          7·
          12 hours ago

          European countries use English, there’s no way French or German stand a chance. For a world language, I think it’s either English or Chinese, depending on geopolitical situation.

    • Fondots@lemmy.world
      3·
      15 hours ago

      I agree to a point, different languages and experiences can help to shape your mind in different ways which is overall a strength

      However, if you’re not able to effectively communicate those thoughts to the people who need to hear them, it’s not doing anyone any good

      I like the idea of an international auxiliary language, not to replace anyone’s primary language, but basically to be everyone’s second language.

      Day-to-day I want everyone to keep using their native tongues, and where possible I’d like them to learn each other’s languages too. But there are some 7000+ languages in use around the world, no one can learn them all, and having a common language to fall back on could be incredibly useful for facilitating communications between different people

      There have been a few attempts to come up with one over the years, either by selecting an existing language, or coming up with a constructed language, probably the most famous example of the latter is Esperanto, though that didn’t exactly take off the way its creator might’ve hoped.

      Full disclosure - I’m teaching myself Esperanto. I am under no delusion that it’s ever going to fill that role as an international auxiliary language, and I’m not sure I’d want it to be, there’s plenty of valid criticism of it, and I think there could be better options

      • pleasestopasking@reddthat.com
        1·
        4 hours ago

        Honestly I think so menu little many people would be on board with something like this since so many people speak multiple languages. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine a world where even 50% of Americans would even try to learn a second language. I think many would outright refuse as a matter of anti intellectual and xenophobic ideology.

        • Fondots@lemmy.world
          2·
          14 hours ago

          I think your first sentence got a little butchered by autocorrect, I assume it’s supposed to say “so many people”

          But I agree that America (and honestly many other primarily English speaking countries) would be a big holdout if anything but English was to be adopted as the auxiliary language. Many other countries would probably be somewhat more open to it, but it has been tried before and never seems to gain traction (esperanto almost had a moment in the early 20th century where an esperanto-speaking county was almost established and where it almost became a working language for the League of Nations- the latter never came to pass basically because the French threw a hissy fit over it.)

          • pleasestopasking@reddthat.com
            1·
            4 hours ago

            Your assumption is correct, thank you, I edited :)

            I had no idea that there was ever actually a moment for Esperanto that got blocked! I figured it had just been dismissed out of hand since its inception.

            • Fondots@lemmy.world
              1·
              27 minutes ago

              Yeah, I don’t think it’s ever exactly been a widespread movement among the general world population, but there have been a few interesting examples of groups that have adopted it, and at times it’s been big enough to draw the notice of some fairly influential people, both positive and negative, and you can kind of imagine that maybe if things had gone just a little differently at a couple different points that it might have been able to gain some traction.

  • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
    122·
    16 hours ago

    I’m on board for people being required to learn some second language, but to take a way a people’s language is basically cultural genocide. There are so many things buried in the nuance of usage, the grammar, and other things that are lost if the target language doesn’t have those features. As a second language, this doesn’t so much matter, but as a forced primary language (such as in the schools many aboriginal peoples were forced into), it is devastating.

  • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.caEnglish
    102·
    16 hours ago

    We could never agree.

    We tried creating a new one called Esperanto, it didn’t work out either.