Scientists say that in the future humanity will speak the same language.

Do you think this is a positive or

negative social development?

Communication is an integral part of human’s life; as a result, the barrier of communication caused by
difference in languages is becoming more and more unbearable and requires a radical solution. Scientists
therefore make a prediction that a language will be shared by the global population in the future.
However, I deem this as a negative development because it is unnecessary due to futuristic technological
advances, as well as being both time consuming and labor consuming.

Firstly, developing the same language for the humanity is unneeded. Since the technology developed for
translation is already advanced enough, people of different communities have no difficulties
communicating with each other by means of these devices. For example, a French person may
communicate well with a Japanese one if they use Google Translate and other kinds of translating apps.
What is more, there are now many free courses offered on the Internet for interested people to master in
any languages, which both allows for people’s enhancement of knowledge and reduces the necessity of a
shared language.

Secondly, the idea of applying the same language to every country requires a large budget along with
enormous labor force and long time to spread the language over the globe. To develop a global language,
this may involve the recruitment of large numbers of experts in inventing one and being trained in
mastering this language. Also, spreading the language around the world will incur large budget in
teaching this language to children and adults, additionally, since the elderly and middle-aged cannot
adapt to using new languages, this may take several decades for the language to be widely used. A case in
point is Esperanto, which is designed to be used globally but is now used by only a small number of
people.

In conclusion, on account of the technological advances which makes a shared language unnecessary,
together with the budget and labor involved in developing one, I strongly consider this as a negative
development for the society.
Some people say that governments should spend money on measures to save languages that are used by
few speakers, while others believe it is a waste of financial resources. Discuss both views and give your
opinion.

Language is an integral part of each country’s culture; as a result, the dying of some languages is an
alarming situation that needs to be dealt with. It is widely advocated that part of the government budget
should be spent on preserving minority languages; however, others suggest that this is money
consuming. Personally, though I admit that preserving languages by budget is justified, I believe that
there are more important matters to be dealt with financially, and that preserving threatened languages
is everyone’s responsibility.

On the one hand, preserving threatened languages is essential for a society’s culture and its people.
Firstly, regarding language’s decisive role in a community’s uniqueness, dying languages greatly
diminishes cultural diversity. A country’s language reflects the history of that society, as well as people’s
ingenuity; as a result, the dying of a language means the death of the community’s values. For example,
Indian tribal languages that vanish because of European colonization prove great damages to the
humankind’s knowledge, especially when people want to gain an insight into the prehistoric lives and
tribes. Secondly, a language will bridge the generation gap and give people a sense of belonging. When
communicating in native languages, the barriers between the young and the old will be greatly reduced
due to their shared dialect and utterances. In addition, those with an ethnic background may feel more
close to their mother tongue and their motherland than adopting a popular but foreign language.

On the other hand, budget should be channeled into more important aspects including healthcare and
education, and the governmental effort is not enough when it comes to preserving endangered values.
With developing and underdeveloped countries teeming with poverty and illiteracy, focusing on the
economy and education would be a well-informed approach. As a great proportion of the population still
experience hard lives, they may dismiss the protection of endangered languages as unnecessary and
raise objections. Therefore, economic and educational aspects of a country should be prioritized so that
the population will be fully aware of the importance of preserving dying cultures. And since the
government’s efforts alone are not sufficient, each person is partly responsible in practicing the
endangered language and prevent it from vanishing. If the government want to protect the dying
languages, but there are no people interested in securing it, with even fewer speakers, the threatened
dialects are subjected to vanishing.

In conclusion, in view of there being more important issues to be addressed by government’s budget, I
strongly believe that every person should bear responsibility for protecting threatened languages.