jueves, 18 de noviembre de 2010
¿Would an artificial language fulfill the goal of an international language?
¿Would an artificial language fulfill the goal of an international language?
Different languages have always been a barrier for proper communication. For that reason different languages have served the purpose of an international languages; Latin, French or English depending on the time of History. Another option is the development of an artifial language like esperanto, which has not been successful. In this essay I will disscuss the cons and the pros of using English as an international language or inventing an artifial one to serve that purpose.
Some people have quite many arguments against using English as an international language. They claim it is unfair because some people already have it as a mother tongue. Some other people go as far as to say that it is arrogant, as it implies the superiority of English as opposed to other languages. Another point is that English is very difficult to pronounce for those whose mother tongue has a more limited use of the sounds. To make things worse, this laguage is one of the most aphonetic one on the Earth, adding an extra strain for lazy learners or for people who have some kind of discapacity in reading like dyslexia.
However, I honestly believe that having English as the international language is a positive thing. I feel it enriches our world view and makes it easy to communicate. On the contrary, developing an artificial language would entail a huge and tedious effort. Futhermore, it would be very difficult to agree with the rest of the world on the type of morphology, syntax or phonetics that language would have, as people would choose the most similar to their mother tongue.
Last but not at least, learning English is not an obstacle for learning other languages. And even if English was not considered “international” , many people would still learn it because it is official in many countries.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that inventing a whole new language would be a waste of time, and the few benefits it would convey would not compensate the time and effort. I believe that nowadays English is the best laguage to fit the label of “international”.
Different languages have always been a barrier for proper communication. For that reason different languages have served the purpose of an international languages; Latin, French or English depending on the time of History. Another option is the development of an artifial language like esperanto, which has not been successful. In this essay I will disscuss the cons and the pros of using English as an international language or inventing an artifial one to serve that purpose.
Some people have quite many arguments against using English as an international language. They claim it is unfair because some people already have it as a mother tongue. Some other people go as far as to say that it is arrogant, as it implies the superiority of English as opposed to other languages. Another point is that English is very difficult to pronounce for those whose mother tongue has a more limited use of the sounds. To make things worse, this laguage is one of the most aphonetic one on the Earth, adding an extra strain for lazy learners or for people who have some kind of discapacity in reading like dyslexia.
However, I honestly believe that having English as the international language is a positive thing. I feel it enriches our world view and makes it easy to communicate. On the contrary, developing an artificial language would entail a huge and tedious effort. Futhermore, it would be very difficult to agree with the rest of the world on the type of morphology, syntax or phonetics that language would have, as people would choose the most similar to their mother tongue.
Last but not at least, learning English is not an obstacle for learning other languages. And even if English was not considered “international” , many people would still learn it because it is official in many countries.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that inventing a whole new language would be a waste of time, and the few benefits it would convey would not compensate the time and effort. I believe that nowadays English is the best laguage to fit the label of “international”.
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