[newsbinator]

> Poetry, songs and literature just do not seamlessly translate between languages very well. Nor should we lose the calligraphy of Japanese/Chinese/Arabic/Persian.

We don't have to incinerate anything. There won't be a government commission you have to petition to be allowed to do Japanese calligraphy or read a poem in its original language.

[ksdale]

I mean, if you don't force people to do it, then English is The One Language you're talking about. People have basically collectively decided that if they're talking to someone halfway around the world, the words for net and fish are net and fish.

[paganel]

Of course not, but the language will get lost, with time.

[dorchadas]

This is already happening, at an ever increasing rate. It's likely that the majority of languages will be extinct by the end of the century.