I have read before some time that the EU employs about 1650 linguists and 550 supporting language workers and spends about 0.8% (13% of all administrative costs) of its budget for translations of many official documents. The system of the EU works so that all official documents are translated to all 20 official languages. This simple fact surprised and fascinated me and finally brought me to the idea: "Wouldn't be better to have the only one official language within the EU or straight all over the world?".
Now, think about it few seconds! Think about the pros and cons of this hypothetical idea. My conclusion is that I do think so! And now, I will explain you why.
Especially, I cannot see any practical reasons for having many different languages. Do you mean that it is different to say to your girlfriend "I love you", "Je t'aime" or "Ich liebe dich"? I don't think so. The only important thing is the content of the message itself, not the words used. So, I think that the expression of love gives your girlfriend same pleasure in English, French or German (if she understands the language used) and also the apple will taste same regardless of whether you call it "apple", "pomme" or "Apfel", don't you think. Why should it be important how we all will the apple call? Language is only the system of calling things, acts, feelings and other things that surround us, but the language itself is not important. The important is to understand each other and be able to communicate, explain our opinions and our moods.
Try to imagine that every country in the EU would use different numerical system. They would count 1+1=2 in a country, 1+1=12 in an another country and 1+1=c in a third country. Does it sound crazy? In fact, it is exactly the same as to name the apple "apple" in UK, "pomme" in France and "Apfel" in Germany. In this case, you would have to know some conversion bridge between different numerical systems and have a lot of people which would handle with recalculation all financial documents to all numerical systems which is exactly the same as translation of written documents. By the way, our numerical system presently used was imported to Europe from the Arab because counting with Roman numerals was very complicated.
In my opinion, the existence of many official different languages within the EU is only the mistake and imperfection of the system. I understand that different languages were historically created in separate communities. But now in our today's interconnected world, there are not any logical reasons for preserve many different languages.
I realize that the idea about the EU speaking all with only one language seems crazy and there will be lots of people think that it's foolish, but it makes sense. Believe that I know and realize often used arguments about the culture, history and tradition of languages. But on the other hand, please ask yourself if it is really necessary to have tens of official languages within the EU. Does it bring some positives? Do you think that it is practical, rational or economical?
There is also an argument that people would miss its original languages, but try to imagine that you was born to the world with the only one language and some old man would tell you that before many tens of years there were many different languages all over the world and if you wanted to do anything with people from different nation, you had had to learn their language before. Wouldn't you think that it was foolish world if there is demonstrably better variant with only one language? Would you iniciate the change back to start speaking with many different languages again? I don't think so. It wouldn't make sense to change the system from one language to multilingual, so the one language system is a better variant.
In our country, there is a statement that sounds something like: "How many languages you can, so many times you are a man". I think that it rather means that you wasted a lot time by leaning different languages which is useless. I have to say that if I spent my life as one of the many linguists of the EU, I would regret of my life because I would spent it by filling out the error in the system, which is useless and has not any value added. And spend my whole life by the activity without any value added would scared me.
I tried to make simple calculation of my wasted time by learning of foreign languages. I have studied English 45 minutes per week in the elementary school for 7 years, 135 minutes per week in the high school for 6 years and 90 minutes per week in the university for 5 years which giving a total of 63 000 minutes (with school year of 40 weeks) or 43.75 whole days or 131.25 working days (8 hours per day). Don't you think that it is enough time? Moreover, it is only time spent directly in school, there are not included any home study, individual study or other preparation courses and it is only my first foreign language. If I add my two other foreign languages, I will get about 100 000 minutes of wasted time (70 whole days or 210 working days). It is enough in my opinion for useless activity which could be eliminated. Try to calculate yours!
To conclude, I think that the idea has a lot of positives and only few negatives. There are not any rational, practical, economical or logical reasons for having many different languages within the EU, even all over the world. I can see only two big negatives, which are the cultural tradition of different languages and practical implementation, which could be long and not easy.
The practical implementation of the idea is another topic, which I don't want to discuss here and now. I will describe my ideas of it in the following article. Here, I want to discuss the idea itself. So, lets discuss and vote in a poll below please! I will be very happy to hear you opinions.
Finally, I do hope to see and live in the world with the only one language, because I believe that this change would make the world somewhat better place to live and it would save a lot of time and effort to almost all the people which they could devote to more important things and activities than the translation and leaning of foreign languages.
