Throughout this class, we have looked at language from
the very basic units of sound to what we actually mean when speaking. We have also looked at how these things occur
in other languages, but our main focus has been on the English language. Why is this?
Well, we all speak English for one, and we are also in the United
States, where the official language is English.
Yet many of us speak languages other than English. These other languages may be first languages
or languages of your native countries.
They also may be second languages that you have learned from living
abroad or studying it in school (as is my case). I took six years of French in middle school
and high school, yet I am not attending the Sorbonne and I do not have a countless
friends who speak French as well. In
fact, I probably could not attend the Sorbonne since my French skills are so
limited (despite the six years of French class).
The simple truth of the matter is I have no imperative
reason to perfect my French or study in France.
English, on the other hand, demands this kind of necessity for speakers
of other languages to learn it. Most
foreign authority figures speak English and many got their higher education in
the US or England. It is clear that
English is widespread across the globe.
Virtually anyone who wants to be recognized on the global level must
have control over the English language.
But why has English become so widespread?
Chinese has the most number of speakers in the world, but
English has the widest distribution of speakers. One factor in this distribution has been
England’s colonization of various lands from North America to Southern Africa
to Australia. These early conquests have
spread English to almost every continent.
Yet other countries also traveled and colonized faraway places. For example, Spain’s lasting marks can be
seen in virtually all of South and Latin America and Spanish is very prevalent
in the US as well. Yet Spanish does not
have the same level of ubiquity as English.
I’m not sure whether the universality of English is good
or bad. It certainly acts as a kind of
universal language in the world right now.
This is partly due to globalization and the internet. It is so easy for people on opposite sides of
the globe to interact with each other; by buying and selling things, sharing
videos, emailing and talking on the phone, etc.
With all of this traffic across the globe, people need to be able to
understand each other. As a result,
English has come about as the language of choice for connecting people across
the world.
This may not seem directly related to our class, but I
think it is interesting to talk about the social statuses of languages. Some languages have grown in popularity while
others are quickly becoming extinct. Is
it good that we have (or are moving towards having) a universal language? Or will our attempts at making the Tower of Babel
once again fail? Should the universal
language be English? Is there something
(syntactically/phonetically/morphologically) different or specific to English
that makes it naturally widespread or a good choice for a universal language? Do you even think English could become a
universal language? Or is it just
another passing phase like that of Greek, Latin and French before it?
I find this topic extremely interesting, so I’m glad you’ve written about it. Although I agree with you that English has gained an impressive level of ubiquity, especially as a result of the spread of language through colonization, I want to defy the belief that English is necessarily the world’s language. Having lived in Japan for many years, I can safely say that the level of English adoption is very low. Historically, of course, Japan has been closed off to the world and has a history of retaining cultural purity as a result of this. Conducting business in Japan as a foreigner is extremely difficult if one doesn’t speak Japanese. I feel like this parallel can be drawn to many countries all over the world, including China and regions of South America.
ReplyDeleteAs these regions grow in influence, I do not see English developing as the main line of communication. If we take China who is growing at incredible pace, I see Mandarin becoming a must for international business. However, if we consider Japan now (who’s economy is contracting and with bleak future projections), we notice that a lot of companies are making their company language English because they want to open up to the world. It’s interesting to see how the power and influence of certain countries on the global stage can dictate which languages the world will need to start learning.
You definitely raise some interesting, and perhaps heated questions when you discuss the globalization of English. Although I can see how a universal language might have utility advantages with respect to ease of communication, some might argue that a globalized English language would complete, or at least be part of, a larger trend of the globalization of “Western” culture, however defined.
ReplyDeleteI personally would argue that the cultural harms of having a universal language, particularly the loss of widespread access to the oral, and in some sense, written traditions of most, if not all other languages, would be terrible for overall human culture and thought, greatly diminishing human cultural diversity. As a SLE student, seeing the tremendous variety of perspectives that “non-Western” cultural traditions, however defined, have brought to the humanistic dialogue, to lose such diversity would feel fatal.
As we continue in a supposedly post-colonial era, I do think that an appreciation for diversity and national identity will prevent the extinction of many, but not all, languages. I can only hope that more countries gain the economic and political independence necessary to develop such national identity, and more powerful hegemonic nations can support that.
Thanks for this interesting blog post! I do not think that achievement of a universal language will ever come to fruition because of the rapid pace at which languages change. Particularly in an increasingly interconnected world, I do not think that one language will stay consistent enough to become universal. Moreover, regardless of whether a universal language ever could be established, I also do not think that such a development would be a positive one. As has been discussed in previous blog posts, linguistic features specific to a particular language can place constraints on aspects of communication and thinking. It seems that given these constraints, greater linguistic diversity might help promote a greater diversity of thinking and increase the chance of innovative ways of thinking about problems.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post Raci! I agree completely with the descriptive sense, English has gained incredible traction because of the economic power of first England and later the United States. And true, in the case of available information, given the dominion of US media in the world, and information technology services in the internet, non-English speakers find large utilities in learning English. However, if anything, this becomes an interesting disadvantage of sorts for English speakers. From a strategic standpoint, ESL speakers can communicate without English speakers understanding, English speakers cannot. Moreover, the fact that ESL speakers are now bilingual gives them cognitive benefits that monolinguals don't have. And even in a more abstract manner, the fact that they recognize that they have to learn something as difficult and effort-intensive and go ahead and learn it predisposes a very healthy and ambitious mix to success. One could, potentially, make the connection with these points and the incredible success of immigrants in America. In that sense, even though America has no "need" to learn other languages, it fails itself by not doing so, and giving up on understanding of other cultures. Moreover, this need is based on the current state of affairs in the world, who knows what the world's landscape will look like in twenty years?
ReplyDeleteIn the prescriptive sense, however, I disagree. I don't think that "declaring" a universal language will be feasible. It's an extremely hard problem because we find ourselves at a loss when trying to come up with valid criteria to justify the acquisition of the language. Should we base it off how easy it is to learn? How widespread? How common? A common ancestor of current languages? And even if we convene on these things, how do we ensure that everyone will find such a utility in this?
Even though English has gained traction, it has not replaced the people's original languages. It is not as if English is "swallowing" other languages, but rather it is enhancing the speakers and giving them access to powerful cognitive and communicational tools. If we take this approach, then the issue does not become, "let's try and simplify by having one language", but rather "let's try and grow by understanding more". I honestly find the latter to be healthier not just for people, but for global understanding as well.
The rise of English as a widespread and quasi-universal language can be largely attributed to the status of England and, later, the United States as world superpowers for the past few centuries. The spread of English began with the establishment of England’s vast and global colonial empire and the subsequent growth of those colonies. Then, as a global economy emerged and the world began to industrialize, a disproportionately large portion of production came out of English-speaking countries, causing English to rise in utility for international trade. Finally, with the rise of the digital age, most of which originated in the United States, English has become the most common language of the internet. These factors of spread, economic, and communicative utility have led to a continued emphasis on English language education in non-English-speaking nations and a rise of conduction of business and diplomacy in English. That being said, while English is a useful language for international communication I believe it would be unrealistic and detrimental to establish it as an official “universal” language. Languages hold keys to diverse historical and cultural traditions as well as a sense of cultural identity. Establishing a universal language could diminish much of that and potentially cause a strong backlash, much like the eradication of indigenous languages by colonialists. Thus, having English as a de facto language of international communication seems logical given the global prominence of English-speaking nations, but the social and cultural negatives of establishing a universal language outweigh the negatives.
ReplyDeleteGreat, and highly controversial topic. The obvious problem that is brought up in these debates is that with the globalization of a language comes the trade off between efficacy and cultural dissipation. On the one hand a universal language is a useful tool for standardizing trade communications and intellectual discourse, whereas on the other hand the spread of one language at the expense of indigenous languages can bring about a loss in freedoms and identity to the people's affected.
ReplyDeleteIt is my opinion that some language should be taught universally, but why this hasn't happened yet has to do with nations not wanting to concede political defeat linguistically. Of course it would help the world progress at a faster rate if we all spoke the same language (or at least spoke it as a second language) but inevitably the direction that growth would go in would be highly dictated by the underlying implications of the choice of language. I don't know enough about Esperanto, but it seems like a nice idea for citizens of the world to all adopt it as their second language, especially as it is devoid of nationalistic connotations. Perhaps, however, the problem of a universal language will be a thing of the past when speech recognition and translation services become so mobile and sophisticated that we don't need to learn other languages in the first place...
Solid post on a topic of much debate these days. Although the ubiquity and status of English is undisputed, its candidacy for a universal language is. Personally, I strongly believe it would be beneficial at multiple levels to have a legitimate, official universal language that everyone is expected to know. Easing global communication will tremendously extricate many problems resulting from language barriers and communication gaps. However, English may not be the best choice. I believe that if there is a universal language, it should be extremely simple phonologically, grammatically, etc. Linguistically speaking, English can be quite difficult. There are a plethora of idioms, syntactical anomalies, homophones, and other complications that attribute to this difficulty. This would make learning such a universal language accessible to everyone and much simpler.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic that I’ve thought about when traveling in Europe. There were various times when I was able to easily communicate in France and Germany because many people can at least understand English and speak a little as well. Even in the Czech Republic, many people can hold a basic conversation in English. This made me think how different it is in the United States. Imagine a person coming into a store and asking a question in French; it’s likely that not one employee will be able to help out. When a foreigner comes to the U.S, they are basically expected to learn English to communicate. This, no doubt, shows that English may be becoming more of a universal language. However, I don’t really think having one universal language is a good thing. Yes, it would make communication in the world easier than ever, but I really believe that language is huge part of culture and I don’t think it should be replaced just for the sake of having a universal language.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. One interesting thing you've touched on is the fact that we are all studying linguistics and gaining an appreciation for the infrastructural qualities of languages without speaking multiple common languages. It is especially interesting given that you've brought this up in the context of understanding whether English (or Chinese) will become a universal language.
ReplyDeleteWhat if it is not the semantic/phonological qualities of one language that are going to multiply and dominate but rather that the decoding of language itself will make different languages relatively superficial as far as limiting communication. Lets say we can get to the bottom of what makes languages different and form computerized methods of translation that are accurate (which we're not far from at all). Once this happens then the need for a universal language evaporates almost entirely. What happens then?