Expert: Maria - 10/27/2004

Question
Just a speculative question-- I don't know whom best to ask:

How soon do you estimate it will take until some universal language becomes the primary language for the developed countries ?

So that,for example,even among historically Spanish-speaking peoples
Spanish language would become something more of cultural or historical interest.  

Answer
Hello,

Actually this is a question that really lies outside my expertise.
Anyway I think  it will never  happen  that  only one language becomes  “the primary language for the developed countries”, as you say.

Each language in fact gives an insight into the way of thinking, culture and civilization of each people and therefore it's very important that each people preserves its own language which is its own heritage.

What  can happen  and already  happened is on the contrary that  a language becomes the lingua franca among different people which however retains its own language and uses the lingua franca as a common mean of communicating.

This lingua franca is English today as well as it was Greek in ancient times and  later Latin which was the language of the Roman empire  in different parts of Europe, Asia and Africa until the 15th century, when Latin began to lose its dominant position as the main language of scholarship and religion throughout Europe and was supplanted by French in the following centuries.

In short, in the past Koiné Greek ( meaning ‘common Greek'), Latin and French have all served as a lingua franca in the Western-dominated world as well as today  it is  English that serves as a fully established formal language.

Best regards