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The Importance of Language Diversity

There are over 7,000 spoken languages in the world today and according to the bible, language diversity started as a result of the story of The Tower of Babel. 
This is explained in Genesis 11, where mankind were greedy and decided to build a tall building that would be able to “reach to the heavens” (Genesis 11-4) so that they could be like God and would not need him. The pride and arrogance of this act caused God to create different languages among the people so that they would not be able to communicate and work together to build the tower. But what would happen if all people spoke the same language?
Any attempt to answer this question can only be theoretical because it never happened before. Even if we all started from the same language, this would not last too long because language can change and adapt to a culture's needs over the course of time. If we all spoke the same language, cultures would not be as present because language adapts itself into the culture, and into its special characteristics.
The language we speak shapes our thoughts, the way we see the world and perceive information, as well as shaping the way we categorize things. The theory that supports this claim is called the linguistic relativity thesis “the linguistic relativity thesis, which says that the language you speak broadly affects or even determines the way you experience the world, from the way you perceive it, to the way to categorize it, to the way you cognize it”.
People with shared languages often share common experiences and backgrounds. They are able to communicate more effectively in a language they feel comfortable to speak in, and are able to express their feelings and thoughts through words. 
In my opinion, different languages are so important because of the reasons I mentioned. Languages bring people closer together than apart, by creating a strong bond. Languages are a crucial and vital part of different cultures and sometimes, it is one of the many aspects that makes a culture so special and unique. Communication is a key to human interaction, and therefore, a shared language is a key to human interaction.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 7, 2020 at 5:19 AM

    I'd never heard of the linguistic relativity thesis before and I think it's very interesting. I am glad you wrote about it.

    ReplyDelete

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