Linguists and historians will
answer you similarly when asked the age-old question of why we lack an universal
language. There are a dozen reasons that will remain
uninterrupted through the development of modern societies.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago,
people were confined to a relatively small space on the globe. At this point,
it would have made perfect sense to speak the same mother tongue as your
neighbor. However, we know that culture effects language, individuality, and
dialect.
We can also take from history's course of action that culture is
instinctive. As humans we seek to identify and survive alongside other people
with the same set of morals and standards. As the population grew and the world
became occupied almost entirely, the number of languages used grew to an
estimated 100,000.
Obviously, language has been condensed
over the past couple of hundred years. Languages morph, simplify, vary, and
associate.
Languages are like food - you speak (eat) what grows best around you.
Languages are like food - you speak (eat) what grows best around you.
Cultures that have flourished have
maintained their language - at least to some extent. American English, for
example, is being studied in countries opposite to America. When the
Romans came head to head with Greece, a slew of languages was adopted. While
Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Berber were accepted, eastern Mediterranean disputes neglected Latin, decimating the historical language once and for all.
On a more peaceful note, think
Shakespeare. Dr. Marc Ettlinger asks his readers to reflect on the particularly
excruciating unit in high school, where many students struggle to translate and
comprehend Shakespeare's plain English. A couple of hundred years from now, our
version of English will be outdated and will be equally insufferable to study.
Language is ever-changing and limitless.
We can gather that despite the worldwide
effort, with the exception of math, there will probably never be universal
means of communication. Modern humans have individualized through their
patriotism, their culture, their society, and all of the quirks that come with
it- including their unique vocabulary, diction, and syntax which form a single
language among thousands which have been, are, and will be.
So, we form a unofficial lingua franca to communicate to the best of our abilities.
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