Let Your Language Die (For the Greater Good)

I realize I am treading a very fine line here. After all, the title does not really raise euphoria in the vast majority, and is very sentimental to millions. They have lived with it, learned with it, have emotions and past attached to it, and many are willing to die for it. I might be hated to present my views, I may be abused, or I may be ignored as a cold-hearted maniac who doesn’t understand emotions or is unwise to worldly facts. But the job of an author is similar to that of a judge- not to let preconceived notions interfere with the facts. I must write only what I believe, comfortable in the knowledge that while taking the exact opposite view-point will garner more much more likes and love than the one I am presenting here, it will not be morally true for me to bend towards cheap publicity for fear of  condemnation.

Most people fear change in some or the other way, just the degree varies- for some, change is shifting to a new job, while for others it may be a learning and adapting in a new culture. Regardless of the personal tolerance towards the degree of change, the fact remains that change (whatever a person might consider it to be personally) is terrifying for most, and one does not embark on it until one can still manage, somehow, in the present situation. But while change should not be undergone for the sake of change itself, change is still the most important aspect of life. Everyone changes, regardless of how much they try to hold on to the present. But the river of time only bends, it does not ever stop. The environment is undergoing continuous change- and until and unless one adapts to it, the end can’t be far. This is as true for individuals as it is for the species, a rule well studied as the Darwin’s Law.

Just because most people are not in favor of an idea, does it make the idea correct by itself? No. The reluctance to change is not the sign of truth, or of lack of need to change, or of the validity of idea. All it is, is a sign of itself- the reluctance to change.

So, let's begin. Why do we need a common language? The answer is easy enough. If everyone understands everyone else, it in essence helps everyone as well. There is extended and rapid growth, as most fights can be solved by proper dialogue. People have one lesser reason to fight (language) and an easier way to resolve them. I believe that anything that helps people reduce intolerance must be embraced with open hands. One with expertise can go live and work at any part of the world. The areas with labor shortage can have more skilled labor. An engineer can learn and practice engineering at any part of the world. Efficient managers can be called when in need, and scientists can use a common terminology for better understanding of various terms and help the society grow by more involved research. 

It must be understood that I am not suggesting the complete demolition of one’s mother tongue, but trying to enforce a common second language for all. If that comes at the price of letting the mother tongue die, it is still not too big a price to pay.

I also know that many would presume the second language to be English, and so I wish to point out that this is not the case. Yes, English seems likely enough in today's scenario, but I am talking about a highly evolved form of English, if any is used at all. We add around 150-200 words to the English language every year, and for it to encompass all the native emotions and words that only a few languages have, English would have to undergo a major shift from the limited language that we now know it to be - a English 2.0 perhaps. 

But wait a second. What about my culture? My roots? Aren’t they being forcefully taken away from me?

And that brings us to the trickier part- not because of the facts that rule them, but because of the plethora of emotions attached to the question. So first, let’s define our culture. After all, when one does not even know what ones culture or origin is, can one really preserve or change it? What is the point that I should consider my root- a root strong enough to uphold? Which culture should I go back to? Who decides the exact moment of time, the practices during which can be called as the standard for a culture?

The human species, in all likelihood, started language with what is known as “Bow-Wow Theory”, which says that the earliest words were imitations of sounds made by animals. I think we can all say it good that we evolved enough to go past that, and let’s not consider that primal state as our roots. After all, most people want their roots to be meaningful and comfortable enough for most people to be attracted by it- even if they are not the real roots. And going by the same logics, lets skip the “Pooh-Pooh” theory (first human words as emotional interjections and exclamations triggered by pain, pleasure, surprise, etc) as well as “Yo-He’Ho” theory (language emerging out of collective rhythmic labour, the attempt to synchronise muscular effort resulting in sounds such as heave alternating with sounds such as ho).  Let us skip past all that, past those uncultured, cluttered and basic sounds, the sounds which might represent our real roots. Let us directly go to the age of actual, verifiable, and highly evolved language- the written language!

All of us have the same few languages as our original mother language, but sadly no one presumes to write Sanskrit, Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian or Eblaite as their mother tongue anymore. It will just not make any sense in today’s scenario. But that's how the languages evolved- people moving to geographically distant locations and finding new and unique words to explain their experiences to one another- words that had no way to be explained in the current language. But given the fact that the people were geographically too far from each other, the words that they made couldn't reach the ears of their counterparts. The same process happening over and over again resulted in the formation of a new language. 

But the times have changed, and people have changed with it too. Everyone considers their adoptive mother as more important to them than the birth mother, and the same lies true with the adoptive language. The simple fact remains that most people consider the times and the culture that was in place when one was born as his/her own culture, and no one is willing to consider the fact that how that particular culture was reached upon is a story of another culture that was lost, culture that some of ones ancestors once considered as their own. There has been no culture that has been free of rapes, killings and public assault, and people are more than happy to change those very visible parts of the culture given the fact that such things now obviously seem to be archaic and partial. But people find much more difficulty in changing the salient features, the customs that have been forgotten in meaning but only remembered in repetitive actions, because of the simple fact that the detrimental effects are not immediately visible.

The fact remains that the future growth and prosperity of every nation and every species depends on the evolution of a common language. When a cat purrs, we know it is comfortable as the sound is involuntary. The very fact that it cannot be faked makes it trustable. Words are very easy to fake, and so immediately fail in this test. And when by instinct one learns not to trust others, one cannot grow altogether. Consider the evolution of apes- the fact that one is not willing to trust sounds that can be produced voluntarily has stopped the evolution of a complete species. It was essential for them to learn to fake sounds- that way a mother ape could lie about the availability of food, and hence be able to save it from others and feed her baby instead. But continued over the millennium, it was severely detrimental. Apes now trust only the most primordial sounds- those of anger, fear or happiness, and the effect it has on their mental growth is evident.

So, till now we have (hopefully) no more qualms about one’s culture (cannot be defined or defined only when convenient) and the need for a common language (to help evolve as a group, where everyone benefits).

 

The next thing some believe is that the eras of evolution are long gone. We don’t need the change now. Anyways, people are taking over our language by imposing undue importance to a foreign language. And once someone believes that his something is being taken away from him, man becomes all the more possessive. So let us now consider this question, which has wide emotional effects.

Let me state this very clearly once and for all- No language is taking over some other language. Languages are simply evolving. And yes, they are evolving right now, in our own culture, in our very own presence. Once again, most people simply think that language is something that remains the same from the moment of its inception. But languages, like cultures, are living entities too and they change continuously, for better or for worse. To say that a language represents a culture is a gross overstatement. It might just represent the ideas that the people following a few shared customs grew up with, but not much more. We changed from the ancient languages to the ones in use today one word by one word, one grammar rule by one grammar rule. And this was done not quite by will, as much as by necessity. Despite the fact that languages have come to play an important role in bringing and binding the people together, the basic (and probably naïve) role of language is to help communicate ideas better. If a language has too many rules to follow, it will eventually cut down on the rules till it reaches a point of harmony and ease with which everyone is comfortable.

History supports me in my claims. Look at all major civilizations, they have all tended to be one with homogeneity. The more the people who are busy fighting, the lesser is the productivity and growth. More often than not, great leaders have tended to steer civilizations towards a common goal- a common religion and a common language. Greeks had a more-or-less common language, and so had the Egyptians. Most of the USA speaks one common language, and so does most of China. Major Indian leaders after independence wanted something that would join people, that would unite them, and distribution of states based on languages was strongly opposed. Multiple attempts were made to have a common language of administration. Though this language based states worked out fine till now, scratch the surface and one can still see presumptions and fights. We are lucky that the country survived to reach an age of technology- a tool never before available to the masses- where tolerance has increased by learning and understanding. Now, though we share many different languages, we are still more homogeneous than ever before- and that would be our saving grace in the end.

But is China not successful without putting much emphasis on learning a foreign language? Germany? Why can’t everybody else do the same?

First, let's remove the incoherence. In today's world, China is successful only because it doing business with other countries- countries which speak a different language. The only reason that these exchanges are possible is because of the language skills that the highest echelon of the society possesses, because they are the ones helping make all the decisions and trade contracts and not the uneducated labor. Export is the largest driver of economic growth in China. But this is not a sustained growth, and will soon decay in today’s world. Now that the world is tending towards homogeneity, to use others technology and to evolve it demands understanding it first. And unless and until one cannot understand others, one cannot keep up with the pace of growth. Developing countries have come to terms with the fact, and it time that developed countries do so too, else they risk losing the edge that made them world leaders in the first place. Germany has grown as much as it could in a technically lesser advance world- but the youngsters are realizing more and more the power of learning a common foreign language.

So, how do we all change to a common tongue?

I am an engineer by training, and so to many my suggestions would seem  one-dimensional and lacking in qualification, which might not be acceptable for all- and hence I will leave the details for switching to a common language to men of better intellect, better qualifications, and more experience than me. There may be many possible ways, or indeed many plausible ways to achieve the same end result, but I feel the basics can be stated here very simply. The easiest way is to change in a quasi-static manner- so slow a change, that it impossible to know that any change occurring in any given moment of time. But a quasi-static way to change is too slow to be practical, given that millions will die meanwhile not getting what they deserve- a chance at a better life. A life in which they can explain their ideas and customs and the meanings of the customs to others who deem them queer, a life in which their opportunities to learn, grow, lead a healthy and stable life, be happy and be able to contribute to the society to the best of their ability is not limited by the language they speak. We need a more optimum solution, a very definite movement towards the same end goal, which the whole society needs to embrace together. Such an answer can be linked to the next few questions.

What language do we choose to grow forward with, as a race? How do we choose which language? The grammatically simplest, the one with least sounds, the one spoken most commonly? And why can it not my mother tongue?

To get a solution to these questions, some compromise is needed to begin with. Again, I think as an engineer, I have been taught not to look at the most accurate solution, but the one which is the most optimum. In my humble opinion, the easiest way to choose a language for the race is to make a simple graph. The number of people that will need to learn the new chosen language can be plotted on one axis, and the amount of effort required for learning the new language can be plotted on the other axis. Choose the language that fits the top of the bells curve, with various languages as the parameter.

The answer to “why not my mother-tongue” is a bit more emotional than the rest. Yes, your language may be simpler to learn and use than others, but the number of people that speak it may be very less. Even if the number of people who already know the language is very large, we can peace in the fact that it might not be the simplest to learn and hence may not be chosen. And regardless of how a language came into being, the fact remains most supreme languages have propagated only after wars and mass killings resulting in a change in governance, and that to undo the change would require countless other lives to be lost as well. I think it easier to accept the past than to undo it now, killing millions again for a change that was meant to spread peace and harmony.

But there must be some fault with my logic that is not very apparent, as if what I am claiming is so simple and useful, why has it not been done already? Why is the whole world not speaking one common language, why has it not been achieved till now?

In fact, the same has been done many times over. The same has been achieved in each city and each state. In each group of friends, and in each living-room. In each civilization, and in each country. If such homogeneity did not happen in groups, people would not have been able to settle down and grow at all. Each city has a local dialect, each state has a language. Just that now in the age of technology, the scales need to be larger than ever before. Now is the era of globalization. Of higher technology, which results in need for higher levels of expertise which can only be gained by active inclusion of different races and cultures. While there is no denying the color they bring to life, there is no resisting the fact that the world would be a happier place without it too. And after so many wars, the human race needs all the help we can get. Don't stick up for your language, stick up for all the people of "your culture" who can lead a better life because of the change. Stick up for the small girl in a remote location, who cannot learn how to make her life better for because she never got the chance to learn a language. Stick up for the young chap who might have a single idea which can change the future for us. Stick for mankind, and not for your own comfort and ease.