Why Isn’t There a Universal Language?

There’s probably one main universal language you’ve heard people refer to. That is, of course, love. But what about spoken language? You know, words and speech and all that? Well, people have tried to make some before, with varying success.

If you’ve ever heard of the language Esperanto, then you probably know where this post is headed.

Conlangs: Languages Made on Purpose

Anyone who’s read a fantasy story, or even some science fiction, has probably encountered a conlang, even if you don’t know what it is.

The main thing separating a conlang from a real language is the fact that they didn’t spring up naturally. Most languages came to be as people described the world around them without anyone controlling the development. In a conlang, one person (or sometimes a group) sat down and created every bit of grammar and vocabulary from scratch.

Conlang is short for constructed language, and refers to a language created by a single person or small group for a particular purpose. Klingon in Star Trek is one example, as are JRR Tolkien’s Sindarin and Quenya, or Skyrim‘s Dovahzul.

I’ve even started working on a few of my own for personal projects that might be published one day.

But how does this all relate to travel? Well, conlangs have been used for a lot more than just fictional stories.

Universal Language

Throughout human history, it has certainly been theorized many times that we would all be better off if we spoke the same language.

While this is probably true, if you’ve been on my blog for a while, you know how that could also cause other problems that linguistic diversity might solve.

Of course, there have been a few languages in history that have risen to heavy prominence. Latin was one of the first, and has of course split into at least five others since Roman times. Then came many more. Most recently, English is the language that everyone wants to learn. And it has a bunch of Latin words, too.

But what if we could make a language that nobody spoke natively? What if, rather than everyone learning English or some other established language, we all learned one created for that exact purpose? And one that’s easy to learn, at that?

Esperanto

Esperanto was among the many languages specifically created with this intention. In fact, a small global subculture of Esperanto speakers has appeared over time. They usually identify themselves with a green, five-pointed star.

It uses a lot of European language quirks. To me it sounds a lot like Spanish, in spite of what I’m sure are various borrowings from across Europe.

Here’s the thing, though. If you’ve been on this blog for any amount of time, or if you know anything about language and linguistic relativity, then you know that making a universal language like this is probably tougher than it looks.

What seems pretty universal to a western European might not be as easy to learn for someone who speaks an African or Asian language, for example. Of course, anyone can learn any language with enough effort. But if the intention of Esperanto or any language like it is to be easy to learn, then it has to find a way to accommodate everyone.

Making Universal Language Easy?

Making a language simultaneously functional and easy to learn for everyone across the world is a daunting task. Probably more so than it sounds.

Every language classifies the world differently. Even one constructed to be easy to learn is subject to the biases of its creator.

There are some, though, like John Wilkins’ Philosophical Language, that tried to fix this problem.

He wanted to treat language like a math problem that needed to be solved, and his language guide reads like a taxonomy chart that a biologist would use. He accounted for every possible descriptor, meaning, and nuance that could ever exist.

Language, unfortunately, doesn’t really work very well when you give it a taxonomy chart.

How Easy is it, Really?

Arika Okrent describes some of Wilkins’ process in her book In the Land of Invented Languages. I’m going to quote her synopsis for how this whole thing was made:

1. To make a math for language, you need to know what the basic units of meaning are, and how we compute more complicated concepts out of them.
2. To figure both of these things out, you need an idea of how concepts break down into smaller concepts.
3. To break down the concepts, you need a satisfactory definition for those concepts; you have to know what things are.
4. In order to know what something is, you have to distinguish it from everything it is not.
5. Because you have to distinguish it from everything, you have to include everything in your system. So there you are, crafting your six-hundred page table of the universe.

Yes, you read that right. The taxonomy chart he made is six-hundred pages. It’s incredibly complex, and a lot of thought clearly went into it. But one of the main goals was to make the words actually have a specific, inherent connection to the thing they’re talking about.

The problem is, in order to speak the language, you would essentially have to memorize a 600 page chart, or carry it with you all the time. Learning a normal language is hard enough.

The whole thing feels more like a language a computer would use than something a person would use. Like writing C++ or Javascript to express an opinion.

What about Klingon?

I’m sure this was your next question, right? Klingon is one of the better-known conlangs out there in the world, created for Star Trek.

Interestingly enough, it’s actually one of the conlangs that’s stood the best chance of becoming a universal language.

At sci-fi conventions like Comic Con, Klingon speakers might meet up and have a whole conversation with each other in Klingon without having any other languages in common.

Of course, any language could fill this role, but having one without any prior real-world history or bias can help a lot. Add in the fact that two speakers already share a common interest, and starting up a conversation will be incredibly easy!

Starting a conversation with a Spanish speaker as an English speaker might be tough, especially as a learner, simply because of your limited vocabulary and knowledge of the other person. But if you both know Klingon, you can immediately start talking about Star Trek and easily expand into other interests from there. It’s amazing what something like this can be capable of.

Unfortunately, outside of diehard Star Trek fans, this one probably won’t go very far. People without any connection to the show aren’t very likely to learn the language.

Still, both Esperanto and Klingon have created a unique cultural identity that unites their speakers.

Language Change

Even if a language did manage to take root as a universal language, it wouldn’t last very long.

Because people can only spend a lot of time in a small area, they’ll slowly develop new ways to talk. Whether that’s the way they pronounce words or the words they actually use, it will change over time.

That’s the same reason why we have British, Australian, and American English. Or even the various dialects of American English spread across the US. (Here’s more on the difference between language and dialect.)

There are even special ways of speaking that have developed online and across various communities.

Different groups with another common language besides the global one— for example, a community that speaks both Spanish and ‘Global’— would develop their own unique quirks. It would be influenced by their Spanish, either through pronunciation, vocabulary, or both.

Now, obviously, this dialect would still be intelligible by other groups who speak ‘Global’, but over time these differences might become more ingrained in that region of the world. Then, it might become a separate language again.

We would need something more interconnected than even the internet to maintain a proper, standardized version of such a language without it taking on a bunch of different forms.

However, there’s always a chance that it could end up working, if done with proper care. I would be hesitant to trust anyone enforcing one specific way of speaking it, though.