Everything about Universal Language totally explained
A
universal language is a hypothetical language said to be spoken and understood by all or most of the world's population. In some conceptions, it may be the primary language of all speakers, or the only existing language; in others, it's a fluent secondary language used for communication between groups speaking different primary languages. Some mythological or religious traditions state that there was once a single universal language among all people, or shared by humans and
supernatural beings; this isn't supported by historical evidence.
The idea of a universal language is at least as old as the
Biblical story of
Babel. The biblical story of Babel's fall states that there was once a time of a universal
Adamic language (now often associated with the
Kabbalah) — and then something happened, the
confusion of tongues, analogous to
the Fall of Man. In the
Christian tradition there are various attitudes to regaining the supposed
golden age, before Babel; these include optimism, pessimism, and recourse to
parody and warnings on
hubris, depending on the wished interpretation of the story.
In other traditions, there's less interest in or a general deflection of the question. For example in
Islam the
Arabic language is the language of the
Qur'an, and so universal for Muslims. The written classical
Chinese language was and is still read widely but pronounced somewhat differently by readers in different areas of
China, in
Korea and
Japan for centuries; it was a
de facto universal
literary language for a broad-based culture. In something of the same way
Sanskrit in
India was a literary language for many for whom it wasn't a
mother tongue.
Comparably, the
Latin language (
qua Medieval Latin) was in effect a universal language of
literati in the
Middle Ages, and the language of the
Vulgate Bible, in the area of
Catholicism which covered most of Western
Europe and parts of Northern and Central Europe also.
Seventeenth century
Recognisable strands in the contemporary ideas on universal languages took form only in
Early Modern Europe. A
lingua franca or trade language was nothing very new; but an
international auxiliary language was a natural wish in light of the gradual decline of Latin. Literature in vernacular languages became more prominent with the
Renaissance. Over the course of the 18th century, learned works largely ceased to be written in
Latin. According to Colton Booth (
Origin and Authority in Seventeenth-Century England (1994) p.174) "The Renaissance had no single view of Adamic language and its relation to human understanding." The question was more exactly posed in the work of
Francis Bacon.
In the vast writings of
Gottfried Leibniz can be found many elements relating to a possible universal language, specifically a
constructed language, a concept that gradually came to replace that of a rationalised Latin as the natural basis for a projected universal language. Leibniz conceived of a
characteristica universalis (also see
mathesis universalis), an "algebra" capable of expressing all conceptual thought. This algebra would include rules for symbolic manipulation, what he called a
calculus ratiocinator . His goal was to put
reasoning on a firmer basis by reducing much of it to a matter of calculation that many could grasp. The
characteristica would build on an
alphabet of human thought.
Leibniz's work is bracketed by some earlier mathematical ideas of
René Descartes, and the satirical attack of
Voltaire on
Panglossianism. Descartes's ambitions were far more modest than Leibniz's, and also far more successful, as shown by his wedding of
algebra and
geometry to yield what we now know as
analytic geometry. Decades of research on
symbolic artificial intelligence have not brought Leibniz's dream of a
characteristica any closer to fruition.
Other seventeenth-century proposals for a 'philosophical' (for example universal) language include those by
Francis Lodwick,
Thomas Urquhart (possibly parodic),
George Dalgarno (
Ars signorum,
1661), and
John Wilkins (
An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language,
1668). The classification scheme in
Roget's
Thesaurus ultimately derives from Wilkins's
Essay.
Early modern ideas about philosophical language were motivated by various theological preoccupations, ones not necessarily associated with
Pentecost (see below).
Eighteenth century
In the
18th century, some rationalist natural philosophers sought to recover the
Edenic language. There were two general approaches. In one, it was assumed that education inevitably took people away from the innate state of goodness they possessed, and therefore there was an attempt to see what language a human child brought up in utter silence would speak. This was assumed to be the Edenic tongue, or at least the lapsarian tongue. However, the more common and vigorously attempted project was to either discover the most ancient language (assuming that it would be nearest to Edenic) or to compare all languages and discover their common structures and thus to understand what language God had built into humans. There were, therefore, multiple attempts to relate esoteric languages to
Hebrew (for example
Basque,
Erse, and
Irish), as well as the beginnings of
comparative linguistics.
On the other hand, Voltaire's
Candide took aim at Leibniz as
Dr. Pangloss, with the choice of name clearly putting universal language in his sights, but satirising mainly the
optimism of the projector as much as the project. The argument takes the universal language itself no more seriously than the ideas of the speculative scientists and
virtuosi of
Jonathan Swift's
Laputa. For the like-minded of Voltaire's generation, universal language was tarred as
fool's gold with the same brush as
philology with little
intellectual rigour, and universal
mythography, as futile and arid directions.
Nineteenth century
At the end of the
nineteenth century there was a large profusion of constructed languages intended as genuine spoken language. Among these were
Solresol,
Volapük, and
Esperanto, with Esperanto becoming the most popular.
In the latter half of the
nineteenth century, the Founder of the
Bahá'í Faith (
Bahá'u'lláh) called on the governments of the world to effect the
establishment of an international auxiliary language. Since then, the international Bahá'í community has promoted this goal, particularly through the United Nations, as a means of facilitating "the transition to a global society".
Twentieth century
Global media, the legacy of the
British Empire, the status of the
United Kingdom as an economic
superpower in the first half, and the
United States in the latter half of the
twentieth century led to the informal adoption of
English as the primary language of international business. English is on the rise, and is suspected by some, to become the official language of the world within a few generatons. The constructed language movement gave rise to a more a naturalistic approach, producing such languages as
Latino Sine Flexione,
Occidental, and finally the
auxiliary language Interlingua. Of these, only Interlingua has any backing today..
Contemporary ideas
The early ideas of a universal language with complete conceptual classification by categories is still debated on various levels.
Michel Foucault believes such classifications to be subjective, citing
Borges' fictional
Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge's Taxonomy as an illustrative example.
A recent philosophical synthesis has also connected Leibniz's interest in environmental engineering with Systems Ecology. It has been proposed that a modern form of Leibniz's
Characteristica Universalis is the
Energy Systems Language of Systems Ecology, which has been used to develop ecological-economic systems overviews of landscapes, technologies, and Nations. One consequence of this seems to be that Leibniz's Enlightenment project is alive and being applied globally in the
evaluation of ecological sustainability.
Pentecost
A
Bible-centred discussion of the question would pick up on the
glossolalia (
speaking with tongues) of the
New Testament Pentecost story, where in the
Book of Acts (External Link
).
» And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house"..."And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire"..."they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues"..."devout men, out of every nation under heaven"..."the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?" - Acts 2:1-13
In the story,
Saint Peter proceeds to explain this miracle as the fulfillment of the prophecy by
Joel. A Christian interpretation views this event as the reconstitution of the division brought about at the
Tower of Babel. The tower to reach heaven represents a
Titan's (futile) quest, but the
descent and acceptance of the
Holy Spirit upon the men at the Pentecost represents that quest's fulfillment.
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