Why is a Global Language Needed?

It is often argued that the modern “global village” needs a “global language”, and that (particularly in a world of modern communications, globalised trade and easy international travel) a single lingua franca has never been more important. With the advent since 1945 of large international bodies such as the United Nations and its various offshoots - the UN now has over 50 different agencies and programs from the World Bank, World Health Organisation and UNICEF to more obscure arms like the Universal Postal Union - as well as collective organisations such as the Commonwealth and the European Union, the pressure to establish a worldwide lingua franca has never been greater. As just one example of why a lingua franca is useful, consider that up to one-third of the administration costs of the European Community is taken up by translations into the various member languages.

Some have seen a planned or constructed language as a solution to this need. In the short period between 1880 and 1907, no less than 53 such “universal artificial languages” were developed. By 1889, the constructed language Volapük claimed nearly a million adherents, although it is all but unknown to day. Today the best known is Esperanto, a deliberately simplified language, with just 16 rules, no definite articles, no irregular endings and no illogical spellings. A sentence like “It is often argued that the modern world needs a common language with which to communicate” would be rendered in Esperanto as “Oni ofte argumentas ke la moderna mondo bezonas komuna linguon por komunikado”, not difficult to understand for anyone with even a smattering of Romance languages.

Many of these universal languages (including Esperanto) were specifically developed with the view in mind that a single world language would automatically lead to world peace and unity. Setting aside for now the fact that such languages have never gained much traction, it has to be said this assumption is not necessarily well-founded. For instance, historically, many wars have broken out within communities of the same language (e.g. the British and American Civil Wars, the Spanish Civil War, Vietnam, former Yugoslavia, etc) and, on the other hand, the citizens of some countries with multiple languages (e.g. Switzerland, Canada, Singapore, etc) manage to coexist, on the whole, quite peaceably.