There are hundreds and hundreds of computer programming languages. All of them have been invented by a person or a group of people.
There are thousands of languages for human to human communication and with a few exceptions like Esperanto, Ido, or Interlingua none of them have been invented. They exist mainly by evolution of previous languages, like Spanish or French evolving from Latin and Latin evolving from something else.
In computer programming when existing languages fall short for a particular purpose a new one gets created. The revolutionary C programming language evolved into C plus plus (C++) which years later inspired the creation of the Java programming language. C is a great language but C++ handles better abstraction and Java excels at portability. Many other languages have been invented after Java.
Human languages in use nowadays have limitations and problems too. In Spanish, verb conjugation is tricky, in French pronunciation, Chinese is difficult to learn, English spelling is random and in German there is a daemon in the articles. Since rules came after the language exceptions are everywhere.
Under these circumstances it seems appealing to copy the computer realm and invent a new human language from scratch. Imagine a language easy to learn, with simple rules and no exceptions, easy to speak and understand, without ambiguities so it doesn’t lead to misunderstandings. Let’s also make it very expressive, romantic and melodic as the icing sugar in the cake.
Wow! we just baked a marvellous new human language. Let’s call it “L” language.
It excites me the idea of having a great universal language. Every person in the world speaking “L” and only “L” language. The first thing that comes to my mind is how much easier will be to travel around the world. Also to move and live in another country. Easy to order in any restaurant. No more lost in translations.
As a consequence millions of jobs will disappear. There is no need for translations anymore. No more learning schools. No more university degrees. No more official translators or Google Translate. No more need for translating books, doubling movies or subtitling them. So much effort removed completely, forever. Sounds great to me!
Not so fast. As much as I like the idea of having a great universal invented language I don’t think this will ever happen. I believe we will have a universal language but it won’t be an invented one like “L” language.
Inventing a new language and expecting that at some point everyone will embrace it is just unrealistic. There is no motivation for it. Why would anyone go through the pain of learning and adapting to a new language if the real rewards will be reaped only by future generations?
It could be forced by authorities but this will probably just bring resentment and rebellion.
The computer world doesn’t have this adoption problem since the programmer only has to “talk” to the computer. He or she doesn’t have to talk to other programmers in that new language therefore he can move to that new language whenever he wants to. The programmer still has to go through the “pain” of learning the new language but the motivation to do so is high just by thinking about how much more productive he/she is going to be and all the new things he/she will be able to do.
We won’t have a great universal invented human language but we will have a universal human language and the transition from today’s ecosystem of languages will be smooth. It will be silent. It’s going to happen so slowly that no one will notice it.
The ingredients for this magic potion are: One, languages are living creatures. Two, people have a need to communicate with as little effort as possible and three, the world is becoming smaller and smaller.
In a few years time we’ll all speak the same language. Initially it will be something very similar to current English but the more years pass the more the language will evolve and diverge.
In the future people will look back and comment “In 2016 several languages were spoken in the earth? thousands of them? and some people couldn’t talk to each other because they didn’t have a common language? You must be kidding me. What a mess!”