How would we choose a "world language" in a fair way, for a hypothetical one world government?

I mean, people would obviously propose English to be the world language, but its problematic since that is like telling the world that British Imperialism is somehow "okay", which is not okay.

So we need another language.

But how could we possibly agree on one?

Do we just find the 100 rarest languages then use one of those?

Do we create a new one?

35 comments

I think we shouldn't.
Diversity and language are strengths. We already have enough common languages for diplomacy and business.
- It's not really that diverse though. Overwhelmingly, the language of diplomacy and business currently is English.
  
  Only because we're lazy in the US and still have all the money. Watch as our economy falls and how quickly people will transaction to Chinese, French, German....
  Without business English will start to decline. It's a shit language and we're kinda asshole to the world about it.
- I agree to a point, different languages and experiences can help to shape your mind in different ways which is overall a strength
  However, if you're not able to effectively communicate those thoughts to the people who need to hear them, it's not doing anyone any good
  I like the idea of an international auxiliary language, not to replace anyone's primary language, but basically to be everyone's second language.
  Day-to-day I want everyone to keep using their native tongues, and where possible I'd like them to learn each other's languages too. But there are some 7000+ languages in use around the world, no one can learn them all, and having a common language to fall back on could be incredibly useful for facilitating communications between different people
  There have been a few attempts to come up with one over the years, either by selecting an existing language, or coming up with a constructed language, probably the most famous example of the latter is Esperanto, though that didn't exactly take off the way its creator might've hoped.
  Full disclosure - I'm teaching myself Esperanto. I am under no delusion that it's ever going to fill that role as an international auxiliary language, and I'm not sure I'd want it to be, there's plenty of valid criticism of it, and I think there could be better options
  
  Honestly I think so ~~menu little~~ many people would be on board with something like this since so many people speak multiple languages. Unfortunately, I can't imagine a world where even 50% of Americans would even try to learn a second language. I think many would outright refuse as a matter of anti intellectual and xenophobic ideology.

but its problematic since that is like telling the world that British Imperialism is somehow “okay”
..what?
Obviously english would be the choice as it has the largest amount of speakers. I know it's not the most common language spoken natively but there are more people in the world that knows atleast some english compared to languages like chinese or spanish.

I'm on board for people being required to learn some second language, but to take a way a people's language is basically cultural genocide. There are so many things buried in the nuance of usage, the grammar, and other things that are lost if the target language doesn't have those features. As a second language, this doesn't so much matter, but as a forced primary language (such as in the schools many aboriginal peoples were forced into), it is devastating.

We could never agree.
We tried creating a new one called Esperanto, it didn't work out either.
- Esperanto estas amuza!
- We could never agree.
  这很伤心
  Alexa 播放 Despacito
- William Shatner made that movie though
  Honestly I was trying to learn Esperanto for a while, it's very easy since it was constructed to not contain irregular conjugations or pronunciations. But getting everyone to learn Esperanto would never happen.
  If the global language ever changes from English, I assume it will be to Chinese.
- I don’t know Esperanto but that with more Asian influence would be cool
  
  Ceqli. http://ceqli.pbworks.com/w/page/5455970/FrontPage

I don't think speaking the language immediately condones the horrible acts of the people who spoke it in the past. German should've creased to exist 80 years ago.
There are certainly situations where use of English could be considered offensive, say, at a memorial of an atrocity. Carve those situations out and have a plan B - there is no necessity to all speak the same language all the time. It's enough if a good number of people in the right positions do. And consider that there already are English speakers in France, Iran, and North Korea (3 random examples that don't all love English-speaking countries).
English is already the lingua franca of the world and has displaced French as the language of diplomacy. In Europe before that were the Frankish tongue, Latin, Greek. Other places had other languages. It's no shoe-in that English will remain at the top but in our lifetimes I don't think it will change.

To echo everyone else: You don't. Multilingual countries just have many official languages.

Isn't English already the most used language on the planet? Doesn't matter how it came to spread so far and wide, the language itself isn't harmful and it's already in use. 🤷🏻‍♂️

There were hundreds of attemps in the 20th century. You should learn the history of Esperanto to know why it can't happen. That was the closest we ever got to a global second language.

You don't need one. Translators are good at their job.
- Not everyone can afford them.
  
  Not everyone needs them.

Isn't this why Esperanto was created?
Anyway, my vote goes to Klingon or Mando'a.

It also raises the question. If (or when) we meet aliens, which language are we going to introduce them to?
- Most likely math. Showing sequential numbers.

The real, most simple answer is: you wouldn't, at least not unless we shift into a world where there are significantly less languages.
Any world government would have to contend with the reality that the world is full of multiple languages. So a number of lingua francas would be chosen as the "official languages" - either the most spoken or the most politically important (probably one and the same).
The idea to create some sort of apolical, unproblematic language just isn't realistic. If it was, it would've already occurred on a mass scale. You could just as easily paint an artificial language in a negative light as you have with English: any artificial language would be taking up the place of a real, authentic language and imposing itself onto peoples who do not speak it (language imperialism of an artificial kind isn't much better).
Besides, translators are only getting better and better and we already have a number of multi-national institutions that function fine despite the number of languages at play (e.g the EU).

A group tried something like that with Lojban: https://mw.lojban.org/index.php?title=Lojban&setlang=en-CA

Only by not doing them, both the one world government and the language.

The first thing one does is to remove the USA from being apart of choosing the language, as at least with its current leaders the USA would cry, lie and whine about it having to be English, and if not chosen it is going to put tariffs on other countries is they don't make it any of the USA dialects. They will do what they came to make sure that the people of the country are not taught how to use it in any way.
The next thing that needs to happen is after the rest of the world creates and uses the language, they make it clear to the USA that anything that comes from the rest of the world to the USA will be in that language, things like instructions for things. The should also inform the USA that ANY and ALL Passports MUST in only in the world's language. Movies and TV shows that are from studios in the USA must be in the World Language, not Dubbed over.
I know that some will down vote what I wrote, but we see how well the rest of the world got the USA to convert to the Metric system.

English is already the global language. And ur whole argument about its imperialism history is completely flawed. Should the Germans stop speaking their language?
Plus with ai we are already at the point where we have bablefish technology.