According to recent statistics, linguistic diversity is vanishing.

In other words, not as

many new languages grow up as those ones which are dying and the existing
languages are subjected to the reciprocal influence, becoming sorts of mixture. In the
first place, all this is a consequence both of globalization and the Internet, that make it
simple to go from a part of the world to another. Hence, people start to think that one
day well all speak the same way.
On the one hand, it would be a great advantage to be able to understand and speak
with people from all over the world. That would not only benefit the trade but most of
all it would let us all feel closer and, in the true sense of the word, citizens of the
Earth.
However, this linguistic uniformity could just be seen as a loss of a countrys identity
for different reasons. In fact, a language is not a simple combination of vowels and
consonants, but it expresses the characteristics of the people who live in a particular
area. That is to say that a language is a population.
Thats why when we translate, for example, from Italian into English we can never do it
literally, since we must be careful about the different mentalities of two different
countries. For instance, the formal speaking is expressed in Italian by the use of the 3 rd
person pronoun Lei, while in English there isnt any polite form pronoun. This doesnt
mean that English people are impolite, on the contrary - in a more pragmatic way
they denote formality through some small cunnings (e.g. conditional instead of
imperative; Mr. .. Mrs. .. instead of the single names) and the formulation of the
sentence.
In conclusion, I think that although it is crucial to be open to different cultures in order
to exchange ideas, we should preserve linguistic diversity, because without it we
would be a boring indistinct mass, that has lost its traditions and originality. And if
theres no comparison, theres no growth either.
Probably in the future we will entirely lose linguistic diversity for real, but I think that it
wouldnt last long and new languages would originate again.

Giulia Mangiapane - April

th

12 , 2012