Is the Tower of Babel still affecting us or something?
Edit:
We have 8 billion people, yet the best we could muster for the most total speakers of a language is under 2 billion, including non-natives…
- English (1,452 million speakers) First language: 372.9 million Total speakers: 1.4+ billion According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers.
I would imagine that there would have to be a really good reason to happen, and the default is millions of different (albeit slightly) languages amongst an equal number of small communities. It takes empires and states to force a unified linguistic project, which is not necessarily pursued in all cases. If you’ve ever had a group of friends sort of develop their own cant, imagine how quickly it could change if it was 150 people who only contacted outside traders five times a year.
Language and politics is a huge part of linguistics (e.g. “a language is a dialect with an army and navy”). Certainly, since nationalism began there has been concerted efforts to unify languages around the powerful members of a nation (France explicitly does this with a legal structure, English has elitism in social structures). The borders of languages are forced categories of fuzzy culturally evolved systems. Who decides the line between German and Frisian?
The short answer is “Why would there be such a broad language?”. The default case is diversification, being able to talk to someone across the world might be convenient every now and again compared to being able to talk to your local community every day.
We haven’t been a global world for very long. And language takes very long to spread and become common.
Because for most of modern history, we were very isolated from the “outside world”.
Other than the last 200 years, the best “internet” was a dude on a horse. Since groups of humans developed quite independently of each other, they developed their own languages. However in the modern age this is changing rapidly, with many languages and dialects coalescing into one, consistent, language. Additionally many countries have tons of English speakers which is a defacto “universal language”. Most big cities will have english translation for many signs and important documents.
Kial ne esperanto?
I just now googled it so it might be wrong but… two million isn’t close to half the world population.
two million isn’t close to half the world population.
Simple solution: just kill 8106 million and it will be
Esperanto definitely isn’t a contender, but it’s design was to be a language that’s easy for everyone to learn and be the “universal” language. People have to speak it though, otherwise it’s not of much use to know it.
Estas pli da ni ol oni eble pensus
Redakto: TIU ĈI FADENO ESTAS NUN LA POSEDAĴO DE LA UNIVERSALA ESPERANTO-ASOCIO
geography is a bitch
I’d argue that by your own criteria, English is that language.
There’s like 1.2 billion English speakers, including non-native speakers, tho? the OP asks for like 3.5 billion or somethin’… since population globally is 8 billion…
Less then a quarter of people speak English, so not even close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world
Including people who speak English as a second language, estimates of the total number of Anglophones vary from 1.5 billion to 2 billion.
So you’re right: one quarter of people at most. Nonetheless that’s remarkable. Too bad it’s due more to subjugation than cooperation.
Nowadays it’s probably also because of the dominance of American culture, especially online.
Awfully generous of the UK to go out of its way to respect Mongolia. I guess you gotta honor that Klingon code.
Well fuck me sideways I thought it was more than that.
You as a 8.1 billion population have to come together and decide as a group and the enact it. If we couldn’t even stop Covid which is still around you think we can do something like this?
I really like esperanto as a project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
It had a lot of support with early 20th century anarchists who saw it as a way to make people less nationalistic and prone to their domestic propaganda.
Maybe it’s Interlingua. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua Most people who speak a latin based language already understand interlingua. That would be the best chance of getting a majority of the world on the same language. It would include a big part of Europe, all of South and Central America and half of North America
Interlingua: Da nos hodie nostre pan quotidian,
Esperanto: Nian panon ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ
English: Give us this day our daily bread;
We have our choice between Spanish Latin, Romanian Latin, or super complicated Latin that contradicts itself and absorbed things from everywhere at random.
or super complicated Latin that contradicts itself and absorbed things from everywhere at random.
English borrowed a shit tonne from Latin & Romance languages, but it is at its core a Germanic language.
To make a joke that still sticks with the facts, maybe something like “wannabe Latin”, or “that shitty Romeaboo language”.
English (1,452 million speakers) First language: 372.9 million
This is already wrong, which means your entire premise is prob wrong
anglozone population = 510 million. I’m pretty sure more than 72% of that population speaks english fluently
Wasn’t there a language created called Esperanto that was supposed to be the world language.
Every time this was attempted we chose the language of the worst colonizer at that time
“chose”. learning the language of the worst colonizer of your time’s always been economically advantageous
I would say there is. Body language. Just about any human you meet can understand body language.
I suppose, though very poorly in comparison to what we usually mean by language. This sparks an interesting question though: can two human strangers communicate with each other better than any other animals can, even when those two people have no language in common?
I would argue yes, but not by a massive degree in my opinion. Every animal has body language and several things are shared amongst many of us, especially mammals. But yeah, I think our whole species would understand things like pointing at something or laughing or offering something with an outstretched arm, or a surprised face or a scowl.
👍
But don’t try this in many parts of the Middle East.
👌
And don’t do this in Brazil.
To use an analogy, if a culture is the lock, a language is the key, and some keys just don’t fit certain locks.
Erm erm, one sec.
~Love is the Universal language~
Ok you can crucify me now xD
👉👌
Even the Tower of Babel cannot take this from us.
😏? 😉? 👍 🫦🍆✊👅💦💦🤤😪
Who needs a language
We have NTT DoCoMo to thank for that.
Is that the default situation is it??
You dreamed up a scenario and now are asking why it is not the case.
Tell me, where is this global language where it has 3.5 billion speakers, if not half? You’ve indicated it’s not the case…?
Do you think I ask in bad faith, or do you ask in bad faith?
It is a somewhat naïvely-framed question, but also you could have just clicked downvote and moved on with your day.
