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Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea of an
international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
for communication between groups speaking different primary languages. In other conceptions, it may be the primary language of all speakers, or the only existing language. Some religious and mythological traditions state that there was once a single universal language among all people, or shared by humans and
supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
beings. In other traditions, there is less interest in or a general deflection of the question. The written
Classical Chinese language Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...
is still read widely but pronounced differently by readers in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, Vietnam, Korea and
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
; for centuries it was a '' de facto'' universal ''literary'' language for a broad-based culture. In something of the same way Sanskrit in India and Nepal, and Pali in
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
and in Theravada countries of South-East Asia (
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
, Thailand,
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
) and Old Tamil in South India and
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, were literary languages for many for whom they were not their
mother tongue A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
. Comparably, the Latin language (''qua'' Medieval Latin) was in effect a universal language of
literati Literati may refer to: *Intellectuals or those who love, read, and comment on literature *The scholar-official or ''literati'' of imperial/medieval China **Literati painting, also known as the southern school of painting, developed by Chinese liter ...
in the Middle Ages, and the language of the Vulgate Bible in the area of Catholicism, which covered most of Western Europe and parts of Northern and Central Europe also. In a more practical fashion, trade languages, such as ancient Koine Greek, may be seen as a kind of ''real'' universal language, that was used for commerce. In historical linguistics, monogenesis refers to the idea that all spoken human languages are descended from a single ancestral language spoken many thousands of years ago. It could be said plausibly that mathematics is the universal language of the world that all are capable of understanding.


Mythological and religious universal languages

Various religious texts, myths, and legends describe a state of humanity in which originally only one language was spoken. In Jewish and
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
beliefs, the story of the Tower of Babel tells of a consequent " confusion of tongues" (the splintering of numerous languages from an original Adamic language) as a punishment from God. Myths exist in other cultures describing the creation of multiple languages as an act of a god as well, such as the destruction of a 'knowledge tree' by Brahma in Indic tradition, or as a gift from the God Hermes in Greek myth. Other myths describe the creation of different languages as concurrent with the creation of different tribes of people, or due to supernatural events.


Early modern history

Recognizable strands in the contemporary ideas on universal languages took form only in Early Modern Europe. In the early 17th century some believed that a universal language would facilitate greater unity among mankind largely due to the subsequent spread of religion, specifically Christianity, as espoused in the works of Comenius. But there were ideas of a universal language apart from religion as well. A ''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' or trade language was nothing very new; but an
international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
was a natural wish in light of the gradual decline of Latin. Literature in vernacular languages became more prominent with the Renaissance. Over the course of the 18th century, learned works largely ceased to be written in Latin. According to Colton Booth (''Origin and Authority in Seventeenth-Century England'' (1994) p. 174) "The Renaissance had no single view of Adamic language and its relation to human understanding." The question was more exactly posed in the work of Francis Bacon. In the vast writings of Gottfried Leibniz can be found many elements relating to a possible universal language, specifically a constructed language, a concept that gradually came to replace that of a rationalized Latin as the natural basis for a projected universal language. Leibniz conceived of a '' characteristica universalis'' (also see '' mathesis universalis''), an "algebra" capable of expressing all conceptual thought. This algebra would include rules for symbolic manipulation, what he called a '' calculus ratiocinator''. His goal was to put
reasoning Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, lang ...
on a firmer basis by reducing much of it to a matter of calculation that many could grasp. The ''characteristica'' would build on an alphabet of human thought. Leibniz's work is bracketed by some earlier mathematical ideas of René Descartes, and the satirical attack of Voltaire on Panglossianism. Descartes's ambitions were far more modest than Leibniz's, and also far more successful, as shown by his wedding of algebra and geometry to yield what we now know as
analytic geometry In classical mathematics, analytic geometry, also known as coordinate geometry or Cartesian geometry, is the study of geometry using a coordinate system. This contrasts with synthetic geometry. Analytic geometry is used in physics and engineerin ...
. Decades of research on
symbolic artificial intelligence In artificial intelligence, symbolic artificial intelligence is the term for the collection of all methods in artificial intelligence research that are based on high-level symbolic (human-readable) representations of problems, logic and search. S ...
have not brought Leibniz's dream of a ''characteristica'' any closer to fruition. Other 17th-century proposals for a 'philosophical' (i.e. universal) language include those by Francis Lodwick, Thomas Urquhart (possibly parodic), George Dalgarno (''Ars signorum'', 1661), and John Wilkins ('' An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language'', 1668). The classification scheme in
Roget Peter Mark Roget ( ; 18 January 1779 – 12 September 1869) was a British physician, natural theologian, lexicographer and founding secretary of The Portico Library. He is best known for publishing, in 1852, the '' Thesaurus of English Words ...
's Thesaurus ultimately derives from Wilkins's ''Essay''. ''
Candide ( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The ...
'', a satire written by Voltaire, took aim at Leibniz as
Dr. Pangloss ( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The ...
, with the choice of name clearly putting universal language in his sights, but satirizing mainly the optimism of the projector as much as the project. The argument takes the universal language itself no more seriously than the ideas of the speculative scientists and ''virtuosi'' of Jonathan Swift's
Laputa Laputa uh·poo·tuhis a flying island described in the 1726 book ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. It is about in diameter, with an adamantine base, which its inhabitants can manoeuvre in any direction using magnetic levitation. The ...
. For the like-minded of Voltaire's generation, universal language was tarred as fool's gold with the same brush as philology with little
intellectual rigour Rigour (British English) or rigor (American English; see spelling differences) describes a condition of stiffness or strictness. These constraints may be environmentally imposed, such as "the rigours of famine"; logically imposed, such as ma ...
, and universal
mythography Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
, as futile and arid directions. In the 18th century, some rationalist natural philosophers sought to recover a supposed
Edenic language The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the ''midrashim'') and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden. It is variously interpreted as either the language used by God t ...
. It was assumed that education inevitably took people away from an innate state of goodness they possessed, and therefore there was an attempt to see what language a human child brought up in utter silence would speak. This was assumed to be the Edenic tongue, or at least the lapsarian tongue. Others attempted to find a common linguistic ancestor to all tongues; there were, therefore, multiple attempts to relate esoteric languages to Hebrew (e.g. Basque and Irish), as well as the beginnings of
comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...
.


Modern history

At the end of the 19th century, there was a large profusion of constructed languages intended as genuine, spoken language. There were created languages which do not belong to any country and can be learned by everyone. Among these are
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
, Ido, and Interlingua. At that time, those ideas were readily accepted. With the advent of World Wars and the Cold War, these successes were buried. The constructed language movement produced such languages as Latino sine flexione (1903), Ido (1907),
Interlingue Interlingue (; ISO 639 ''ie'', ''ile''), originally Occidental (), is an international auxiliary language created in 1922 and renamed in 1949. Its creator, Edgar de Wahl, sought to achieve maximal grammatical regularity and natural character. ...
(1922), and Interlingua (1951). Gode, Alexander, '' Interlingua: A Dictionary of the International Language'', New York: Storm Publishers, 1951. English remains the dominant language of international business and global communication through the influence of global media and the former British Empire that had established the use of English in regions around the world such as North America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. However, English is not the only language used in major international organizations, because many countries do not recognize English as a universal language. For instance, the United Nations use six languages —
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
, Chinese, English,
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, Russian, and Spanish. The early ideas of a universal language with complete conceptual classification by categories is still debated on various levels.
Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...
believed such classifications to be subjective, citing Borges' fictional
Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge's Taxonomy ''Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge'' ( es, link=no, Emporio celestial de conocimientos benévolos) is a fictitious taxonomy of animals described by the writer Jorge Luis Borges in his 1942 essay "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" ( ...
as an illustrative example.


See also

* Asemic writing * aUI * Body language * Bouba/kiki effect *
Code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
*
Emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversat ...
* Facial expression *
Gibberish Gibberish, also called jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is (or appears to be) nonsense. It may include speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, or language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsider ...
* Global language system * Semiotics * Sign language * Somatosensory system *
Universal translator A universal translator is a device common to many science fiction works, especially on television. First described in Murray Leinster's 1945 novella " First Contact", the translator's purpose is to offer an instant translation of any language. A ...
* Universal grammar * Visible Speech


References


Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Universal Language International auxiliary languages Interlinguistics Language and mysticism