2 - Why should we care?

Summary

Many people think we shouldn't. There is a widely held and popular – but nonetheless misconceived – belief that any reduction in the number of languages is a benefit for mankind, and not a tragedy at all. Several strands of thought feed this belief. One reflects the ancient tradition, expressed in several mythologies but most famously in the Biblical story of Babel, that the proliferation of languages in the world was a penalty imposed on humanity, the reversal of which would restore some of its original perfectibility. In an ideal world, according to this view, there would be just one language, which would guarantee mutual understanding, enlightenment, and peace. Any circumstances which reduce the number of languages in the world, thereby enabling us to move closer to this goal, must therefore be welcomed.

There are two intractable difficulties with this view. The first is the naivety of the conception that sharing a single language is a guarantor of mutual understanding and peace, a world of new alliances and global solidarity. The examples to the contrary are so numerous that it would be impracticable to list them. Suffice it to say that all the major monolingual countries of the world have had their civil wars, and that as one reflects on the war-zones of the world in the last decades of the twentieth century, it is striking just how many of them are in countries which are predominantly monolingual – Vietnam, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Burundi (the latter two standing out in Africa in their lack of multilingualism).