Language challenge speech

Today there are about 6,000 languages spoken around the world. Of those only 20 are spoken by more than 1% of the population and about 2,000 languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. Slowly the number of languages we have is decreasing. Some people may argue for the protection of some of these languages, but I say we should let them all die, save English, Latin, and American Sign Language. For many reasons, having only these three languages would be globally beneficial.

Some people say that language is the heart of a culture, and by letting the language die, you are killing the culture. I think that’s like saying that if your voice changes, it will stop you from ever expressing ideas again, which isn’t true at all. Culture is not just a language; culture is the ideas, beliefs, tradition and history of a group of people. People just use language to express all of these things, and if you use a different language to express it, it’s not like the ideas and beliefs are going to mysteriously disappear. The proof of this is religion. Religions like Christianity or Buddhism have been translated into many different languages, and yet the message of the faith still remains the same. The same thing will hold true when it comes to the survival of a culture. Letting a language slip away doesn’t kill culture, it is those who are unwilling to learn about their culture who truly destroy it.

Looking at this situation from an economic standpoint, it takes up a lot of time and energy to try and preserve a language, and sometimes the resources used outweigh the benefits. The only way to keep a language alive is to continue to teach it to people, and to do this you would require teachers, a place to meet in, and possible materials like workbooks or audio tracks to listen to. All of these things aren’t free, so simply getting everything organized will take quite a bit of effort. All this effort might be for naught, as people won’t want to learn it, or won’t have time to learn it. If for instance someone offered me the chance to take a course in French or Spanish I would say no, because I wouldn’t have the time to take the course, and I wouldn’t see a return on the time invested. Don’t get me wrong, it would be cool to learn, but what are the chances that you will actually use it in day to day life? So if courses were put together for people to learn a dying language, who’s to say many people are going to actually come to the lessons? If a teacher has been hired to only teach a few people, it will be a huge waste of money.

The fewer languages there are, the more job opportunities there will be in a certain field. Nowadays if you are a contractor looking for work you are limited by what jobs are available for someone who speaks your language. If there is a company looking to hire someone to work in Japan, you are probably going to need to speak Japanese, and if you don’t you probably won’t be able to get the job. If we could get rid of this language barrier, so many more job opportunities that open up. This would happen if there was one global language. The number of countries you could take a job in would radically increase, as language would no longer be a roadblock in being hired. Economies would benefit from increased competition and innovation, as more people could connect and share ideas. Even the music industry would benefit, as songs are only being sung in a language that everyone understands.

Having a global language would greatly increase the quality of life of immigrants. In Canada there are many people who have yet to master English as a second language. This isolates them from the rest of the Canadian community, as they cannot communicate very well with most other Canadians. Last year for Social Studies, my school set up correspondence between a class of ESL immigrants and my grade. When we talked to them we found out that one of the largest barriers they had to face was learning a new language. Having one global language would remove this barrier and make the whole immigration process much easier for more people.

So for the past couple minutes I have been talking about why having one global language would be a good thing, and I propose we use that system but with a slight variation. I propose we use English as the main spoken and written language, and we keep Latin as our scientific language, and for sign language we only use the dialect of American Sign Language.

There are a couple reasons why we should use English as our main language. Firstly, over ¼ of the people in the world speak English, either as a first, second, or foreign language, and that number is going up day by day. The number of people that would need to learn English is lower than for any other language, and therefore the transition to English would be easier than for any other language. As such, fewer resources would have to be expended to teach English to those who don’t speak it.

English is the language of business, meaning that that most business around the world is conducted in English. If we were to transition to a language other than English, most businesses would need to transcribe their records into that other language. It would also slow down the economy more than if we were to switch to English because fewer people would be taking their time to learn English than if the workforce were forced to learn a different language.

If you take a look at the internet, about 80% of the sites are written in English. Transitioning all of those sites to another language would take a very long time, even if you had hundreds of years to do it in.

Around the world the majority of languages use Latin script to write, also known as the Roman alphabet, which is the alphabet we use for English. This would make the transition to English easier for most people who don’t speak English because the alphabet would be pretty much the same, and they wouldn’t have to learn a completely new alphabet.

English is a very adaptable language, as we either take words from other languages or create a new word to convey a certain meaning. Touché for example was originally a French word meaning touch, but it was adapted into English to be used in fencing when a successful hit is performed. Now it can be used in an argument when someone makes a successful point. This is just one example of the English language absorbing a word and using it and adapting it. This adaptability enables English to express anything you would be able to express in another language.

I think we need to keep Latin because it is already deeply integrated into Science, and it is already used all around the world. Additionally, Latin is a dead language; there is no slang, so the meaning of the words will not change as time goes on. This makes Latin reliable, whereas with the use of English alone, the language would tend to morph into something entirely different. We need reliability because trying to change the words we use for science wouldn’t work. After a few hundred years we may have changed the scientific name of a species so much, that if we find old records on it, we may not know which species they’re for.

Currently there are over 200 dialects of sign language, and like with languages, just because you know one doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to understand another. I think having one universal sign language would be beneficial for the same reasons why having only one language will be beneficial; it will make communication easier. American Sign Language is already the most used form of sign language, with it being present in over 50 countries, and so the prevalence argument that applies to English applies to American Sign Language.

So for the many reasons I just stated I think it is unwise keep any other languages than English, Latin and American Sign Language. Having only those three would be economically efficient, and would promote innovation, while still allowing culture to thrive. There would be more job opportunities, and the quality of life of immigrants would be improved. English should be kept, as it is known globally, and transitioning to it would be fairly efficient compared to all other languages. It is also very adaptable, meaning that there will always be a word to use in a certain situation, and expressions will not be limited. Latin will be needed because it is already used in science, and as a dead language it is reliable. American Sign Language would be the

chosen dialect out of all of the other types of sign languages, because like English it has the most speakers worldwide. For these reasons I believe the premise that we should try and preserve other languages is flawed, and that we should be trying to abolish all languages except English, Latin, and American Sign Language.