[paulojreis]

Languages shape and are shaped by the environment, by the way the speakers experiences the world. There's the example by Franz Boas, regarding the many words Inuit might have for different kinds of snow [1]. Their language, in a very utilitarian manner, evolved to that state; and, of course, Inuit people's perception of the world is shaped by the fact that "snow" is not a single nor simple concept (they don't see "snow", they see a particular kind of snow with its associated characteristics). Wouldn't using English be a disservice to them, in their environment?

Besides the kind-of evolutionary argument (which might be downplayed on a globalised world), you'd have to consider the history and culture which languages carry. There are e.g. many recipes in my mother tongue which are named from historical and social context; all this would be somewhat lost in translation.

Obviously you have a point and there would be a lot of advantages on standardising on a language. The great issue is then on weighting pros & cons. Or greatest, even: being able to even begin to consider the cons. Can we really have an objective measure of how much we, mankind, would lose by turning all languages except English in dead languages?

Anyway, it doesn't matter much as the biggest obstacle is obviously political, not cultural.

[1] which was said to be a hoax, but after all not so much: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/there...

[jnky]

You make a couple of great points and I concede that their would surely be some friction losses.

However, my point is that I think the pros outweigh the cons in this instance and that humanity would be better off if everyone could communicate with everyone else.

[programLyrique]

I think that with the progress of automatic translation and interpretation (which is not perfect now, but is likely to progress -- I can't imagine all the current progress in machine learning not being also applied to automatic translation) as well, learning a foreign language for practical reasons could also become useless.

No lingua franca anymore...

[jnky]

Yeah but if everything can be effortlessly translated by everyone in a lossless manner, why not just standardize on a language then? Do languages at that point not become an unnecessary hindrance in personal communication without perceivable benefit?

[programLyrique]

Well, languages are not just about straight communication, but also about culture, litterature, history, puns, sounds, and so on.

All languages can't express as easily the same set of ideas.

There is this Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that says that language shapes what we think. It sounds terrible to me that we could sacrifice so much diversity, so many ways of thinking.

[MichaelGG]

>Wouldn't using English be a disservice to them

No. If it's true that a group of people come up with words for different types of snow, they'll do it in whatever language they speak. It's not like these words just showed up in their language out of nowhere. Likewise, someone learning Inuit but living in Jamaica probably wouldn't learn all those snow words.