Mercator wrote:
I dont want to eliminate all languages ... I just think it would be beneficial, economically and otherwise, if all the world's people could speak to each other. If people want to hold on to their home languages I wouldn't try to stop them...
Unfortunately, that's not how it works in the Real World. Once a "prestigious" language like English spreads to some area with a small population of speakers of the native tongue, the speakers will learn the language, and become bilingual in both. In most cases, they will start to lose respect for their native language, associating English with prosperity and prestige and everything they want to have, and will teach only it to their children. When that generation dies out, their children will know little of the language; some might be bilingual, but with English as their first language. The next generation will
only know English, and the language will die. You can't have your cake and eat it too, I'm afraid. Either one monolithic language will take over the world, or we'll have to bungle our way forward as we are tottering ever on the edge of linguistic destruction, but at least
trying to help those languages survive, rather than trying to eliminate them.
Mercator wrote:
Really, my ultimate goal is to have the world speaking a constructed language designed to make people think more clearly, rather than a natural human language like English, which has a lot of problems.
So that's it, huh? Thousands upon thousands of years of human history, human struggles, wars, renaissances, empires, and nations have come and gone, and thousands upon thousands of distinct cultures and languages have risen only to have someone carelessly say that they should all be replaced by a single one just "to make people think more clearly"? I'm afraid it is you who needs to think more clearly; the languages and cultures of the world can't just be brushed aside like that, blinked out of existence--don't you even
think the world deserves better than that?
And, what do you even mean talking about "a natural human language like English, which has a lot of problems"? What problems does English have that are somehow hindering the human race from reaching our true potential? I challenge you to show me one flaw in English or any other natural language that would prevent its speakers from achieving anything, and tell me how a constructed language would be better.
In a hundred years we've gone from fighting with horses and muskets to landing on the moon, having permanent dwelling places in space, splitting the atom, building the internet, and constructing buildings 1800 feet tall. Are you telling me that if we'd all been speaking Esperanto rather than English, we would have colonized Mars by now, or flown to Proxima Centauri?