WWL? World Wide LANGUAGE

What is the importance of language? Well language is one important way in which we communicate our thoughts, ideas, and emotions. There are different forms of language that we use in our everyday life. We have the ability to use body, spoken and written language if we so choose. Of these forms, body language is the only one that can be understood by all different ethnicities. Written and spoken languages however, are drastically different between ethnicities. For people that have different languages interpreters have to be used in order to convey conversations across ethnicities. Is this language barrier still consistent in today’s world?

With new technologies developing it has become easier for those with different languages to be able to communicate with one another. You can even use free textual translations on the internet by simply copying and pasting your written language and pushing a button to translate it into a whole list of common languages. But the main change we are seeing is that the English language is becoming increasing more popular around the world. Why is that? From Rob Burton’s Artists of the Floating World “it (the English language) has demonstrated a versatile capacity to adapt to new cultural contexts by adopting hybrid forms of expression.” (pg 127) That doesn’t mean that English is the easiest to learn, far from it actually, but there is something to say for being able to adapt.

So we know language is important, but is English as an international language a good thing? There are very valid arguments for both sides. I always like to stick to the positive side of things. I believe that with a universal language all the different ethnicities of this world would better understand each other. I think that the lack of understanding one another is one aspect for biases. With our world becoming more globalized I think one language being used would help the business world thrive.  In my business management course misunderstanding cultures and misusing their language is a huge setback for companies. Businesses have to spend lots of money on training employees for international affairs that could be better used to increase profits.

The other side of the argument I also can agree with to a point. The fact that English is becoming more popular, other languages are disappearing all together.  Burton quoted that “one world language is lost every two weeks when the last speaking member of that particular linguistic group dies.” (pg 27) It is believed that with languages ceasing to exist, a part of that culture is being lost, and in turn entire ethnicities are disappearing. It was pointed out in my multicultural literature class that important meanings of culture are lost because words and expressions can’t totally be translated to English. Take for example this phrase “well he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” People that know my culture would know that this means this guy is in a bad mood, or just being cranky for no apparent reason. But for someone from a different ethnicity this phrase makes no sense to them when translated. Some cultures wouldn’t even understand what a bed is. So if English becomes the sole language, some aspects of different cultures could be lost forever.

In my opinion lingua franca (any language that is widely used as a means of communication among speakers of other language) would be a good thing. I can sympathize with those that don’t wont English to become the international language because it is hard to learn new languages. I remember when I was learning Spanish and how everything is backwards, verbs are before nouns, adjectives describing the noun are after the noun, etc.  So I do believe that having one common language spoken worldwide would produce amazing results. However, I also think that being diverse and be able to speak other languages is very important as well. Balancing unity as well as diversity is the key to this puzzle.