In September 2019, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary added 530 new words to its collection, which now totals roughly 470,000 words. Needless to say, language, all languages – are always evolving.
How could they not? A hundred years ago, words like “online” and “video” didn’t exist. Today, here you are!
But “evolving” and “merging” mean two different things. And it would take a lot more than changing times to get us all speaking the same language. But is it still possible?
There would be more than a few issues involved with choosing one language for everyone to speak. Who’d want to give up their mother tongue?
Our native language is more than just a means of communication; it’s a link to our personal identity. And if we were to force everyone to choose one existing language over another, it would not only spark a lot of tension, it could put millions, if not billions, of people at a severe disadvantage.
Let’s put this conundrum into context. The English language is spoken in more than 100 countries, making it the world’s most universal language.
But with 1.1 billion speakers, Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world. So how would you choose?
In 1887, Dr. Ludwik Zamenhof invented Esperanto, which he believed could be adopted as an international language. Zamenhof grew up in Bialystok, Poland, which was home to a multi-ethnic mixture of Poles, Russians, Jews, Lithuanians and Germans.
Zamenhof believed he could promote trust and build community amongst the diverse population by creating a new language that everyone could speak. But since Esperanto was never adopted by any political or economic superpower, it failed to live up to Zamenhof’s expectations.
Nonetheless, more than 2 million people in 120 countries now speak Esperanto, making it the most commonly used constructed language. So if we had to choose a neutral language for everyone to adopt, Esperanto would be the likeliest contender.
But feel free to make the case for Klingon or Elvish!
Even if the world did share a single language, there’d still be plenty of misunderstandings because it’s not such a small world after all. Since the first human migrations, we’ve settled all over the place, evolving in different climates and relying on different foods.
We also built economies on different resources. These divergent experiences formed unique cultures and customs, which don’t always translate so easily.
So while we could all adopt the same grammar and vocabulary, cultural differences would still keep us apart. But really, is that such a bad thing?
If we all spoke the same language and shared the same culture, wouldn’t the world be kind of boring? It’s not as if we’d get world peace.
In fact, it’s probably our differences that bring us closer. Diversity fuels cooperation and innovation through trade, and the exchange of information and ideas.
And while language might often be seen as a barrier, it also promotes patience and better listening by making us work harder to understand each other. So why limit ourselves to just one language, when we can celebrate more than 7,000 ways to say “Welcome,” or to ask ourselves, “What If?”
