Why don't we all speak the same language?

A universal language would make international travel easier, but it's unlikely there will ever be one.

According to a biblical account found in the book of Genesis, people once spoke the same language. Then, because those people banded together to build a tower in Babylon that glorified their own achievements, rather than those of their deity, God punished them. He ensured that mankind spoke different languages so that they'd never be able to work together to dishonor God again.

Was there once just a single language that all people could understand? Linguists don't know; there's just not enough information about the origins of language, and there are only theories about how our early ancestors formed their first words and sentences. Did early people imitate sounds they heard in the environment? Did they babble until certain sounds took on meaning? We'll probably never know, though linguists still study babies' brains to determine if language or grammar comes hardwired in our heads.



Travel among groups who speak different languages has been difficult over history; now, we live in a world where we can board a plane in New York City and land in China hours later. In a global world, wouldn't there be a benefit to speaking the same language? Some groups have advocated that a universal language be adopted, but it would be difficult to find any group willing to give up their own language if only because so much culture and history becomes embedded within it over time. After all, the English would no sooner give up the language of Shakespeare than the Spanish would forsake the tongue of Cervantes. Attempts to create a universal second language have failed as well, but even if we could agree on a common language, it's unlikely it would resemble itself 100 years from now. After all, thanks to the Internet's influence, language has become a mix of emoticons and abbreviations like LOL. Languages simply evolve too rapidly to ever speak just one.

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