RE AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

IN CONCLUSION

In our past, a number of great minds--who may not be familiar to all of us, or whose beliefs we may not share, but whose superior intelligence is acknowledged by those who knew them--have predicted and advocated a single worldwide language.  During the nineteenth century, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche forecast that "in the future...there will be a new language...just as certainly as there will be some day travel by air."  Abdul Baha Ullah, the chief figure during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of the Bahaist sect, a Middle Eastern religion with a following of tens of thousands, has been quoted as calling for "one language that may be spread universally among the people  in order that this universal language may eliminate misunderstandings from among mankind."  Octave Mirbeau, a noted French author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whose works are currently undergoing a renaissance, once said:  "Civilization will not have taken a great step forward...until there is a single language on the surface of the earth."  Karl Kautsky, a German Socialist and noted opponent of Naziism, who lived between 1850 and 1938, observed that "the division of language weakens the power of mankind...."  And the famed Russian author and journalist, Maxim Gorky, has said:  "Mankind would realize far faster the community of its interests if it spoke a single language...."

It is said to be a fundamental principle of philology that the language of each people serves as more than simply a means of communication.  Rather, it has been said to comprise, as well as to limit, the basis for the speakers of that tongue's seeming conception of, and approasch to, the world.  And, just as each respective form of currency today varies as against the currency of another nation, so too do the shades of import and meaning of language differ as regards parallel words of two different languages.

Certain items or concepts are better portrayed by the words of one language than those of another. 
Many of us have heard jokes that can only be effectively told in a particular idiom.

Thus, the variety of languages can be likened to the variety of cuisines, or musical forms, or styles of costume, that presently exist in our world.  And, as such, there is no harm in preserving them.  However, that is as far as their utility and significance appear to go.  For the purpose of transaction of all the numerous "serious" affairs of our world, a single universally expressed and understood form of language is necessary; and steps toward its creation and establishment should be commenced as soon as possible.  In fact, if a single universal language would help to create an atmosphere of peace and cooperation among all men--and it appears likely that it would--then its adoption is well one of the greatest gifts that our generation can bequeath to posterity. 

                                                                       * * * * *