Your Language Or Mine Part 1
October 2021 Editorial
www.ink2quill.com

The scope of language in itself and its influence on us all is vast. You can define the term `language´ as all forms of communication in our societies. That means spoken and written languages and all other forms of communication both verbal and non verbal. I feel that the scope of language has never been adequately studied or defined because it is not at all obvious. It has never been adequately defined and that is not an obvious statement either. What if we defined the entire scope of language as all the languages of the world, all of them including computer languages? And then made the simple analyses of deciding which languages were most prevalent, exercised the most influence, in our society today? We could make a list of those languages and get incredible insight into the invisible forces that influence society today. Today, languages like Mandarin, Hindi and English would be on that list and as far as computer languages go that is a different can of worms. Analyzing computer languages is an interesting but difficult task because of the changing technologies. So, to keep things simple, what is the big deal of having your language as the lingua franca?

Today, in the western world the lingua franca is English, it used to be French but it is English now. Many movies, videos, blogs, books, streaming content and content of all types is in English. That is a gigantic boost for a language. If a country can spread its language outside its borders then that country will notice that their international trade numbers will get a boost. In some cases that boost is ginormous. Another advantage for a country to spreading its language outside its borders is that when people travel for leisure or to find work to other countries they will most likely be well treated and possibly have advantages in the foreign job market.

Languages are a way for people to connect and that is a very important for a nation and especially an individual. In the US it is said that it takes immigrants up to 3 generations to achieve the American Dream and assimilate in American society. Nowadays because of technology that might be as little as a single generation. Thanks to technology and a more developed market that endeavors to reach all areas of society, that means all language groups of people even those outside the circle of English, can participate in the economy in their own way. People are also more open minded than in the days before the internet. They no longer see people who do not speak the same language they do as a threat to their way of life, and that is a good thing. You also have the vast entertainment industry that is constantly looking for new content. So, for example, the top show in the US that my friends are talking about today is a Korean series. The series before that was a hugely successful and well done American fantasy series. Content creators are scrambling to find good and popular content anywhere around the world they can find it and language is no longer a barrier to that search.

Through this all the largest content creator / streaming companies do their best to create content in the lingua franca of the day to reach the most people. That is to say, English. So, much content today is in English but that is changing. Countries around the world are struggling to bring their languages to the forefront the way English is. In this day of vast amounts of content people realize more and more the importance of language as a conduit to larger audience and they are right.

But there is a wild card in this language debate and that is technology. Translation technology is just getting better and will reach the point where people will no longer have to read subtitles or get human translators at conferences. Picture a scene where two people are holding a conversation where each person speaks in a different language. The translation devices in their earrings or as a pin on their jacket work perfectly and remove the understanding barrier between the two people, for the most part, as if the two spoke the same language. The communication barrier is completely gone. Will the idea of a lingua franca become obsolete?

So, your language or mine?

John Ink2Quill

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