Building of the Tower of Babel, wikimedia commons[/caption]Carol Forsloff---The story of Babel in the Bible talks about how all men once spoke a single language but that God punished them for not obeying his commandments by giving them separate languages to make communication difficult, but what would it be like these days if all men once more spoke the same language?
There are groups that have developed over the years advocating that the people of the world adopt a single language for communication. In fact years ago a language called Esperanto was highly touted as one that could be used. It was created in the late 1870s and early 1880s by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, who did so, he said, to create peace and harmony in the world. Estimates are from several hundred thousand to a few million people speak Esperanto, and those who do meet regularly to continue to foster its use. In fact Esperanto was recommended by the French Academy of Sciences in 1921, and it was recognized in 1954 by UNESCO, which recommended it to its member states in 1985. Some religious groups, such as the Baha'is continue to espouse the need for a universal language.
Linguists do not know for sure how many languages are spoken in the world, but estimates are at 6,909 distinct languages, but many languages are disappearing and overall languages are being lost at a rapid rate. Scientists say that at one time there may have been 12,000 distinct languages. And that's when the population was 5 to 10 million, a small number compared to the numbers of people in the modern world estimated at 7 billion people.
Perhaps the need for universal language will be touted by world leaders, given the misunderstandings through translations that can occur, but at the rate of the demise of languages to some of the religious it might appear God is lifting the original curse.
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