Hello,

I have read some eloquent posts championing a multilingual globe and I feel compelled to make the case for a world language.

I worked for a multinational oil company and spent a decade overseas working in some 46 countries around the world. (I struggle along on English and Spanish)

The typical ocean going tank ship flies a Liberian flag, has a Norwegian captain, Philipino officers, and a mixed crew from a host of third world countries.

In a typical year this ship will travel to dozens of countries where dozens of different languages are spoken by the port officials, harbor pilots, etc.

By convention, English is the official maritime language, otherwise there would be disastrous cacophony (and lots more ship wrecks).

Same goes for the aviation industry.

If the object of the game is to conduct science and commerce, then assiging English as the common language works well.

If the object of the game is to communicate, to understand each other, then unless the Star Trek universal translator is invented soon....having English as the international language works well.

If the eventual object of the game is to achieve world peace, stamp out world hunger, and communicate, teach, and trade with each other...having a common language will help rather than hinder that goal.

As the Internet and future forms of communication makes political boundries into ever more porous and imaginary lines....as physical boundries such as mountains and oceans shrink...so too should boundries of language that serve to seperate different people.

The world would be a better place should we start talking the same language.

Keeping Lithuanian, and Korean, and Spanish, etc as second languages is a nice idea, like keeping the art of cursive handwriting alive, quaint and nostalgic...but in 2000 or 4000 years or 6000 years, with technology shrinking the world into something analgous to a megapolis today, the world will either have one common language...or it will be a feudal society of clans in mistrust and often in war with each other, much like we have now.

The worst wars in this world are civil wars, think of the mess in the Balkans. But those people all speak more or less the same language. The people involved in the inter-communal strife here in Indonesia speak the same language (most of them in addition to their local languages). Would Palestinians and Israelis get on any better if they spoke the same language?

Having everybody speak the same language will not mean they are going to get on any better -- it'll just make it easier for them to find out what they disagree on.

Bingley