Is it reasonable and desirable to try and preserve all existing languages? Having only one language is useful?
919434
not so very long ago huge numbers of people in southern and central europe spoke latin.\n\nbut as the people in spain began to get more interested in talking to each other than in talking to italians, their language slowly evolved from latin to spanish.\n\nthe same thing happened in france, italy, romania.\n\nit is impossible to preserve a language against the wish of its speakers: people use a language to communicate with the people they want to talk to.\n\nit is just as impossible to stop new languages from evolving. a thousand years ago there was no recognisable english language, but as the need for one developed it appeared.\n\nthere are already dialects of english which are nearly unintelligible to speakers of the standard dialect (jamaicans and nigerians have forms of english which are on the verge of becoming separate languages).\n\nyou cannot tell a language what to do:- it tells you.
962271
A common, universal, language is necessary.\n\nEducators, regardless of tenure or degrees, are useless hulks of meat if they cannot communicate with their students.\n\nAt one time, it was necessary to learn Latin in order to understand science, because it was the only universal language throughout Western European Civilization. It was a pain in the butt, but it worked. And there were no complaints about it being cultural chauvinism, in spite of it being a dead language.\n\nDiversity is cool, but it ignores the fact that a universal language is more efficient. Does any teacher want to learn 5,486 languages and cultures in order to teach a class?\n\nIf I had to teach my children a second language to enhance their ability to survive and prosper in the modern world, it would be English. Once they knew that, the doors would be open to understanding a wealth of information about science, math, finance and culture.
1129852
It's better to have two languages spoken. It would be more conveinient if everyone knew how to speak english, but that's a long and hard task to teach many.
921073
just keep the most recent one.\nthat will do,\n\nall java versions are backward comptible
165698
I found learning the Russian language to be very enriching. However, it was also extremely useful to me as I grew up in Alaska and MANY spoke Russian. I think it depends on what you wish to do whether or not it would be worthwhile for you. Learning Russian can help greatly with learning other languages such as Greek, Persian, and even Chinese. It can be very useful if you wish to go into International Business or International Law. Also, if you plan to study dance, art, or music the Russian peoples made many great contributions. I found studying Russian to be worth my while.
609449
ANSWER: Although a language can be defined as differently from one person to the next, SIL International, the pre-eminent source for the catalogue of languages around the world, claim there are 6,912 known languages.\n\nEDIT: Posted wrong link, this is correct\n\nhttp://www.ethnologue.com/home.asp
347787
well, i don't think I am.  So that leaves you only like 5 billion people in the world to ask.  (I'd learn Chinese and Hindi so you can ask and knock off a bunch of people with only 2 languages)
1148199
I don't know. I read a bit about the software. I've used language software with some of the same features, those programs were cool. It's probably great !
1001700
As a casual perusal of multiple reference works on this subject will reveal, the question, "Which is the oldest language?" quite easily generates several suggestions which almost always include one or more of the following venerable candidates: (in no particular order) SUMERIAN, AKKADIAN, CHINESE, EGYPTIAN, PHRYGIAN, SANSKRIT, PHOENICIAN, etc., etc. And, such a list, of course, obliges the questor to make his own limited choice...\n\nTHUS, a clear-cut answer to the question is not forthcoming, the experts aren't committing, and the end result (if the questor does indeed MAKE a choice) is arrived at kind of like pinning the tail on the donkey.\n\nA fundamental factor which lends to the above-cited indecisiveness in this field of study is the universally held notion (seemingly unassailable) that, historically, language should somehow show a developmental progression ranging from primitive rudiment to modern refinement. However, as the above list indicates, such is not the case! On the contrary, ancient languages are every bit as linguistically refined as the most trafficked languages of today! Furthermore, there is no historical evidence of earlier more rudimentary intermediate languages which provide a bridge between our supposed first grunts and snorts, and the sophisticated cadence of languages such as the above. So until such evidence is definitively in place, the experts remain in a holding pattern and continue to shove palliative lists at us from which we may make our personal choices.\n\nThus, in dealing with the question, "Which is the oldest language?," we continue to work with a theoretical linguistic model which suggests a developmental pattern which is not consequent with reality.
221341
It's up to the states to decide...opponents like the ACLU debate that making English the offical language would be unconstiutional because it would not enable the Spanish-speaking, German-speaking, and French-speaking immigrants and citizens from a fair and just trial, liberties and such.\n\nGoogle it, but I think because the United States is soo big and diverse, that it wouldn't be fair to the first immigrants of this country.
883171
If I should limit myself to only one language it would be probably Arabic, it is very challenging. And of course, to improve my Spanish.\nHave a nice time!
1117988
EVERYONE says french my answer don't.\nIn reality Spanish& japanese are really very important even german is good. Listen i'm not inventing stuff but i've attended so many seminars about this & that is what their answer was.Besides that these languages are important when you want to find a really good job
146096
Any languale is fine as long as the logic can be implemented in it, the choice of language is mostly dependent on the other specs like:\n\n1. Speed (ease) of implementation\n2. Output Speed\n\nFor ease of implementation one will prefer scripting language like PHP or Perl that is easier to work with in Web Domain.\n\nBut if speed is the priority then there is nothing better than a compiled language, like C++.
258815
Well it sounds great with 1907 standards, one nation one language this all good; as long as it does not keep going into one religion, one leader, one race, just like it did in Germany under Hitler just a few decades after Teddy said these things. I have no doubt, if he was alive today he would tweak his idea and rhetoric according to what happened in the last 100 years. I am not Hispanic but I know that Spanish was spoken in parts of US way before English was adopted as an official language (just a few votes ahead of German and Dutch by the way), are you going to kick them out because they have been speaking Spanish since before the US was founded?
669045
You shouldn't rely on one source to learn a language because they might have different points of view on things. I suggest that you use books, software, videos, and cassettes/ CDs to help you. Also, the Rosetta Stone one is pretty good and I think is worth it. It's up to you to decide.
422593
I don't think everyone speaking the same language would be a particularly good idea.  Each language has its own interesting features and body of literature and if we all spoke only the one language we'd lose that diversity.\n\nWhat might be a good idea is if every country agreed to teach one particular language as the first "second" language in schools so that when people travelled abroad they could guarantee being able to communicate.  English has this role to some extent, but the trouble is that it is quite a difficult language to learn to speak well.  It is also the first language of many nations and so that puts those who don't speak it as a first language at a disadvantage.  Something easy and neutral like Esperanto might be a good candidate for this... Esperanto has its own problems, but on the whole it's easier to learn than English and is definitely politically neutral.
368180
This is not true.  In the 19th century, some linguists proposed this as a possibility, but it has since been disproven.\n\nInitially, linguists thought that all world languages fell into four groups: Indo-European, Australo-Asiatic, Afro-Asiatic, and Sino-Tibetan.\n\nPeople had not yet really looked into Native American languages.  When it became clear that there were many languages worldwide that did not fit into the basic scheme of 4, linguists had to rethink everything.\n\nToday, it has become clear that there are hundreds of language families, and the basic four groups have been placed into a larger scheme containing dozens and dozens of "language families."  None of the language families are related to any other language families, so if you think about it, the great differences and high levels of complexity get really mind-boggling.\n\n(Just a note: the previous answers are way off - Latin, Greek and Sanskrit are all are part of the same family: Indo-European.)\n\nWikipedia has a decent website outlining the language families -- if you're interested, you might want to check it out.\n\nHere's an excerpt:\n\nThe largest language families in terms of number of languages are:\n\nNiger-Congo (1514 languages) \nAustronesian (1268 languages) \nTrans-New Guinea (564 languages) (validity disputed) \nIndo-European (449 languages) \nSino-Tibetan (403 languages) \nAfro-Asiatic (375 languages) \nNilo-Saharan (204 languages) \nPama-Nyungan (178 languages) \nOto-Manguean (174 languages) (number disputed; Lyle Campbell includes only 27) \nAustro-Asiatic (169 languages) \nSepik-Ramu (100 languages) (validity disputed) \nTai-Kadai (76 languages) \nTupi (76 languages) \nDravidian (73 languages) \nMayan (69 languages)