Failing Linguists

There is no doubt that a common language used throughout the world would do much to bring countries closer to each other . Though it is becoming increasingly easy to move from place to place , our inability to communicate with one another gives rise to numerous misunderstandings and makes real contact between people of differing nationalities impossible .

Many attempts have been made to overcome this problem and they have all failed . The fear of foreign influence and domination rules out the universal acceptance of any one of the existing major languages . Aware of this difficulty , many linguists have constructed artificial languages which could have no possible political overtones . They have argued that a language of this sort would perform much the same service as Latin did in the Middle Ages .

Although linguists succeeded in making their artificial languages extremely simple so that they would be easy to learn , their attempts seemed dommed from the start . The reason for this is that there is no real incentive to learn an artificial language . There is nothing to guarantee that everybody is willing to make the effort ; there is no assurance that the learner will have any adequate return for his toil . When people today undertake to learn a foreign language they are not interested in only speaking it . Mastery of a language makes available to the learner a great deal of worthwhile literature and many current publications . This is the biggest stumbling-block of all for the artificial – constructed tongue . Having no literature of its own , all it can offer is a limited number of translations which are valueless in themselves . Nor can it acquire any literature ; for it would have to be used for a great many generations before this could become possible . Moreover , constant use over a long period would bring into being many national dialects and the language would thus defeat its own purpose .

Another serious objection is the fact that a language is shaped by use and not by design . It is a living thing which is forever growing and changing . It takes hundreds of years before it can acquire richness and depth . In an artificial language , however , the meanings of words are rigidly defined . Inflexibility makes for an absence of subtlety , so that no really fine meaning can be conveyed .

Though this quality might be admirable for scientific publications , it greatly impedes the development of any significant literature . Latin was ideal in this respect , for it was a ‘dead’ language with a literature ; an artificial one is “dead” from the start . This makes it likely that existing language barriers will remain with us for a very long time .