A language of communication for United Mankind
It would work without it, but it would be a great relief
If the Babylonians had realised what they were doing with their damn tower, the project would not have been approved. So this ruined building laid the foundation stone for a special profession, that of interpreters. To this day, the guild contributes to the fact that a standardised world communication language is considered superfluous. In doing so, it has made itself indispensable, because without its services, secure international communication has hardly been possible.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, some of the interpreters employed by the European Union became unemployed. Due to the cancellation of many meetings, there was less demand. This could be the beginning of the extinction of this profession, as artificial intelligence is already enabling translations of astonishing quality. It is only a matter of time before tireless language robots replace interpreters behind the tinted screens in conference rooms. However, AI cannot replace direct human communication, at most it can make it easier.
A common lingua franca would be very useful for communication between the citizens of the world, as is the case with international air traffic. This should not be left to robots either. There is no question that English has long since taken this place. There is no way around English today. Nevertheless, there are still enough reasons to critically scrutinise the dominance of English. Apart from the historical background, English is not a particularly melodious language, and even an imposition when squeezed out of the throat of Donald Trump. But that is purely a matter of taste. After Brexit, English took a back seat in the European Union. There are languages in Europe that sound much better. However, they are also more difficult to learn. French - like some others - is negatively burdened by imperialism and colonial history. German is not very popular, which is quite understandable.
This brings us back to the question of whether it would not be better to choose a completely unencumbered, constructed planned language that is relatively easy to learn and also sounds good. A language that does not overlay or even replace the existing mother tongues and does not claim to be a cultural language. A whole series of logically structured planned languages were invented in the 19th and 20th centuries. The best known and most widespread is Esperanto.
Esperanto has long since passed its zenith. The international Esperanto community is over-aged, the new generation is too weak. Nevertheless, Esperantists are very active on the Internet. There is even an Esperanto Wikipedia. The many special characters are a hindrance to written use on the Internet. If Esperanto is to become a world language with an increasing number of speakers, it would have to be reformed. There has been a practical example of this for a long time, but unfortunately it has hardly been recognised: IDO. In addition, the European Esperantists should now push ahead and offer Esperanto as a European language of communication again. A global increase would then be quite possible again. But nothing is happening.
So let's stick to English for now. That's why I write my website, my blog, my articles and my correspondence for the United Mankind Initiative in English, even though I don't speak English at all. I use the online translator from DeepL, which is based on AI. The translations are close to perfection. It's not for nothing that DeepL now has the reputation of being the most accurate translator in the world. For my purposes, the free version is perfectly adequate, as long as the communication is not reduced to memes but consists of comprehensible, coherent sentences. However, if you want to do larger translations, it is advisable to subscribe to the paid service.
Committed supporters and speakers of Esperanto may disagree with me on this article. I am not saying that English is the last word in wisdom. But if Esperanto wants to have a chance of becoming a real world language, its protagonists should commit themselves to United Mankind and not leave it at some international folklore. Ultimately, the selection of a binding world communication language should be the result of a discussion in the future United Mankind Organisation and a decision by its General Assembly.
That's very superficial reasoning. Why Esperanto? As if there were no other auxiliary languages.
If Esperanto is the most popular international auxiliary language, it does not mean that one should choose it. The creator of Esperanto did not have the necessary linguistic knowledge, and therefore the language itself is bad. It has a lot of invented endings, suffixes and words. In addition, new words are created from these invented and twisted international words, for which there is no equivalent in any other national language. I am not even talking about the same arbitrarily created letters with circumflexes. In a word, the language is terribly created linguistically, which causes great difficulties in learning and even more so in using it.
In my opinion at the moment the best auxiliary language available is Novial. I advise you to familiarize yourself with this project. It also has a lot of bugs, but unfortunately they haven't come up with a better one yet. So I think there is no perfect language for international relations. And this has to be corrected, because the need is already there.