Universal Language

sunshines:

Isn't brail universal? :think:

Not fundamentally. I don't know Braille, Borges was blind and he didn't know Braille either. Not all people can communicate through it, thus it is not a universal language.
Moreover, don't you write English in Braille, or Spanish?

A universal language would be something we don't need to learn as an alternative language to our native one, but a sort of new level of communication. Maybe something that has to do with telepathy.

i think that would be a nightmare.
maybe sign language as a universal language, now thats an idea.

I think it would be good with one universal language, English preferably as it is in my opinion at least a very easy language to learn.

People say that they are too lazy to learn new languages but it isn't that difficult if you just try. One thing that stops people from learning new languages is for example dubbing movies. I live in Sweden and we rarely dub movies except for children's films as kids can't really read the subtitles, and compared to countries like France and Germany who are great dubbers we are a lot better at speaking and learning English. + English is mandatory in Swedish schools, and then you can often choose to study German, French or Spanish as well.

I speak Swedish fluently and my English ain't that far behind, I'm also learning Italian after having studied Spanish for 4 years. English is definitely the easiest to understand and the easiest to express yourself in.

And we don't need to abandon our old languages just because there could be an universal language, we can always learn those as well, and other languages! I mean, some languages are already dying, like the Welsh and Icelandish - people need to get over their laziness and use that brain of theirs and learn more languages!

I don't think there should be a universal language. It would be nice, I guess, but it would be such a loss of culture.

English isn't all that easy to learn - there are so many rules and so many words that even the most smartest of people don't use in real life.

Maths and Sign Langauge is the only two universal languages.

The Doctor:

English isn't all that easy to learn - there are so many rules and so many words that even the most smartest of people don't use in real life.

Maths and Sign Langauge is the only two universal languages.

Sign language isn't universal, it's just as different as verbal languages. My friend speaks the Swedish sign language and she doesn't understand her mom's boyfriend who is from Norway.

chocolate_is_my_drug:

The Doctor:

English isn't all that easy to learn - there are so many rules and so many words that even the most smartest of people don't use in real life.

Maths and Sign Langauge is the only two universal languages.

Sign language isn't universal, it's just as different as verbal languages. My friend speaks the Swedish sign language and she doesn't understand her mom's boyfriend who is from Norway.

I just thought it was all roughly the same.

From what i have seen in the world, english has become the language of big business.

People who want to get big in the business world, must learn english.

I don't think that there should be a universal langauge.

A langauge gives a country its identity and preserves its history.

My first langauge technically isn't English. It's Irish Gaelic.

There's a saying in my langauge that goes like this, "Tir gan teanga, tir gan anam .".

It means, "A country without a langauge, a country without a soul."

I think it's true.

I honestly don't know. It depends if the people want it. Well I, for one am not sure!!

Uhm yeah so a lot of people say that a country need its own language to remain somewhat unique, but would it really be so difficult to learn 2 languages? Or even more?
I agree, our language is a great part of our culture and it would suck so hard to lose that, but like I said before - We can learn to speak more than one language.

I don't think there should be a universal language because it would take away a whole load of culture.
For instance, I live in Wales, and a loooong time ago, they tried to stamp out the Welsh language completely, and have
everyone learn English - and now the percentage of people who speak Welsh fluently is pretty appalling.
I love my country's language.

Mandarin Chinese should be the universal language, >D!

Just kidding.

I don't think there should be one, but if there was I'd say English because many people speak already English. But I don't think there should be one, because it's a part of culture.

I don't know if that makes sense, I can't really put what I'm thinking into words, ^_^"

The Doctor:

chocolate_is_my_drug:

The Doctor:

English isn't all that easy to learn - there are so many rules and so many words that even the most smartest of people don't use in real life.

Maths and Sign Langauge is the only two universal languages.

Sign language isn't universal, it's just as different as verbal languages. My friend speaks the Swedish sign language and she doesn't understand her mom's boyfriend who is from Norway.

I just thought it was all roughly the same.

Nope, Australia has Auslan sign language.

The Doctor:

Maths and Sign Langauge is the only two universal languages.

But can you say everything using only maths?

Morse code is universal. :shifty

sun.shines:

Morse code is universal. :shifty

But you put words into Morse, just like Braille it's not a language in itself, rather a system design to transmit the spoken language.
There are universal symbols that needn't be spoken - such as traffic signs.

teeny.feeney;:

I don't think there should be a universal language. It would be nice, I guess, but it would be such a loss of culture.

I agree.
I like the world having different languages. It's more interesting and makes people want to know more about the backround or history of that specific region.
I think if the world only had one language, we would all be culturally lazy.

F'n'stein.:

I think if the world only had one language, we would all be culturally lazy.

Just out of curiousity, why do you say that?
To me, culture is a lot more than just the language - everyone could speak the same language but different cultures would embellish it in different ways, using slang for example.

And again, I'll bring up the example of Australia vs. the USA. We do have different cultures yet both countries have been speaking English since the British colonised - sure, there are similarities but I would say that there are two different cultures there, really. Just because we speak the same language doesn't necessarily mean that we're culturally lazy, not really.

kafka.:

sun.shines:

Morse code is universal. :shifty

But you put words into Morse, just like Braille it's not a language in itself, rather a system design to transmit the spoken language.
There are universal symbols that needn't be spoken - such as traffic signs.

But they're a form of communication. Isn't that the point of language, to communicate with each other?