Should there be a Universal Language?

Have you ever been on holiday and realised that on your trip, you couldn’t communicate with someone, and wished that there was a universal language that all of humanity could use?

How would one work, and how would we implement it?

Believe it or not, this globalised society has not been the first to want a universal language.

The ancient Greeks and Romans too wanted one quite badly, and gave it a unique name, Lingua Franca. But yet, even as late as the Victorian era wanted a common language.

Who Was L.L. Zamenhof and what did he do for Universal Languages?

L.L. Zamenhof was a Polish-born Linguist, who created the Esperanto Language. He took apart European Languages, and synthesised a brand new one, he had hoped that this would become the international language (Esperanto does mean ‘Hopeful one’).

He hoped that due to the large quantity of vocabulary from each of the major European Languages, that it would become quite easy to learn. He hoped that the ease of learning the language would encourage Europe to adopt the language as the continent-wide Lingua Franca, and then the rest of the world.

Esperanto is currently an official language of the European Union, and has 2 million speakers across the world!

What have been (other) Lingua Francas in the world?

• Ancient Greek– Ancient Greek was the first recorded Lingua Franca in Europe, being used by Ancient Greek settlers and their colonies. These colonies then spread the language across the Mediterranean, this is why English and other European languages have a high concentration of Greek words!
• Latin– This is the most self explanatory- most of Europe was Catholic, and all religious documents were produced in Latin. This made it so that envoys would communicate in Latin, and interpret it into Lay people’s language
• French– French was once the Lingua Franca, up until a few years ago, when English was adopted. French was obviously used by the French Empire and their colonies, but also by Spanish and English diplomats and nobility as a second language.
• Spanish– This is another fairly self-explanatory, the Spanish had a large trade empire across North and South America. This has led to almost all of South America, and a large portion of Southern North America to adopt Spanish as their language. In fact, due to this, Spanish is the Lingua Franca of South America, even though Portuguese is on of the most spoken languages on the continent!
• Portuguese– by now you are probably noticing a trend, most Lingua Francas are thanks to conquest and empires, and Portuguese is no different! The Portuguese language is used as an important Lingua Franca in Africa, especially southern Africa. It is commonly used as a medium- most African nations speak either English or French, and they don’t like compromising, so Portuguese is the obvious alternative.
• English– English is the current Lingua Franca, over taking French only a few years ago. English is now the go-to language for foreigners to learn due to the British Empire spreading the language, and America popularising it.

Obviously, this list is based on Europe, mainly Western Europe, other places throughout history would’ve had different Universal Languages.

Other than Esperanto are there any other Universal Language contestants?

Yes, there are in fact other universal language contestants, these include:

• Interlingua– This language was actually constructed by the IALA (International Auxiliary Language Association) to become the world’s universal language. Interlingua was mainly constructed out of French, Spanish, English and Portuguese, although inspiration was drawn from Russian and German. Interlingua currently only has around 1,500 users, mainly members of IALA.
• Ido– Ido is actually quite common to Esperanto. Ido was derived from Reformed Esperanto, with Ido allegedly meaning ‘offspring’ in both Esperanto and Ido. Ido and Esperanto are highly mutually intelligible with one another. It has never really taken off as an Universal language because its most prominent supporter died, and it has never regained its popularity. Some also claim that Ido is just too far into Esperanto’s shadow, as they are just too similar. Ido currently has around 500 speakers.
• English– This may seem quite shocking, but many people (mainly native English speakers) have moaned that English would be the best solution to this, why? This is because it is already the language that is most taught among non-English-speaking countries, so why shouldn’t they continue this? This idea has been floated around many times, but many people (mainly French and Spanish) worry that this will cause a loss of identity and culture. English currently has around 1.3 billion speakers.

How would they go about implementing this?

There are quite a few ways that the world could go about implementing a Universal language:

1. Agree on a Universal language– this seems quite straight forward until you realise that this would take years to decide.
2. Begin teaching teachers the language– you will need people who can teach the language to the next generation. This would be quite costly, but you could argue that this would more than pay for itself further down the line.
3. Teach the language to children– much like how French or Spanish is taught now, the teachers from step 2 would now come along and teach the children how to speak the language.
4. Repeat step 3 for a few generations– let the language seep into culture, until there are very few people alive who don’t speak the language (this will be important later).
5. Make Bilingualism mandatory– start teaching classes in the universal language. It would also be a good idea to make the universal language part of the media, and everyday life. This would mean that those who have neglected to learn the universal language will now have to learn it.
6. Reap the rewards– now that there is no funny translating business, all business, legal contracts and more can be done in the universal language to avoid confusion!

I hope you enjoyed this article on Universal languages and their use in society. I’m curious to hear your opinions as to whether you think we will ever see step 1 or even step 2 started within our lifetimes!