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  • Essay / Discussion on whether the world would be better if we spoke fewer languages

    In the era of globalization and modernization, many new and amazing technological products have been invented, such as smartphones and Internet, which makes our life more comfortable. These products have reduced the distances between people and stimulated global economic growth. Thanks to these products, trade is no longer limited to a certain region and international trade has played a central role in the economic growth of a country. Therefore, the ability to communicate with other people from different countries has become an important skill for the employee to access the global market. Some people argue that if more people around the world used fewer languages, such as "big languages" instead of other "small" languages ​​to improve global communication, then the world would be a better place because the language barrier would have already been eliminated . In this essay, I stand on the opposite side, that is, the world would not be better as we hope if we spoke fewer languages ​​and discussed the reasons that support my position. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Speaking fewer languages ​​would cause some of us to lose our own cultural identity and connection to our ancestors. Indeed, language carries culture and expresses its own cultural and historical elements. In Chinese we have a lot of surnames and these surnames have their history. For example, the surname "符" exists because their ancestor was the general who commanded the army with the commander's seal (represented by "兵符" in Chinese). From this example we can see that language is a bridge that connects us to our ancestors and carries a lot of historical information. On the other hand, language is also a symbol of our cultural identity. If we do not speak our languages, we will lose our cultural identity as well as the feeling of belonging to the same cultural group. Without this strong sense of belonging, we would not be able to come together to create a better and better future. Once we wanted to speak fewer languages, then we would have to use only a few, which would cause us to neglect the living nature of other languages ​​and feel a sense of prestige among them. This is a contradiction to the quote “All men are created equal” with which we persisted and ensured that everyone could be treated fairly. In the 1960s, Malaysian Chinese persisted in encouraging their children to study Mandarin by building independent Chinese schools and holding public examinations, even though they faced many obstacles, such as failing to obtain of government funds and the government tried to ban their education. works. Why do Malaysian Chinese persist in establishing their education system when this qualification is not certified by the Ministry of Education Malaysia? Indeed, they tend to preserve their own cultural identity from loss in these adverse circumstances. Thus, speaking fewer languages ​​would cause us to lose our own cultural identity and our sense of belonging to a cultural group, which would not contribute to making the world a better place. If we spoke fewer languages ​​to achieve greater communication efficiency, the world would not be a better place as we hope. Indeed, by speaking more languages, people have higher analytical and cognitive abilities than those who speak fewer languages. Our brain, similar to muscles, hasneed to exercise more, otherwise our cognitive abilities would be reduced. To learn a new language, we need to memorize the new rules and vocabulary and know them. This is why we need to pay more attention and our brain is strengthened when learning a new language. Therefore, people who learn more language will not be easily distracted by the disruption and their cognitive abilities will be improved. As the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposed, different languages ​​encode different categories and therefore speakers of different languages ​​think about the world in different ways. Therefore, if we speak more languages, then we can think from a different perspective and it helps us to take the right decision. Our cognitive abilities and analytical skills have been strengthened through learning a new language. There is a study that compared the age of symptom onset in 91 monolingual and 93 bilingual patients diagnosed with dementia. Under the same conditions, the age of onset of dementia for bilinguals was 4 years later than for monolinguals – a very significant difference. By speaking more languages, the age of dementia patients would increase and the social security budget for caring for them could also be reduced. Speaking more languages ​​can boost economic growth by providing a large workforce with higher cognitive skills, analytical thinking skills, and language skills. Speaking fewer languages ​​would not lead us to a better world, but speaking more languages ​​would. If we spoke fewer languages ​​(the “big” language), then the desired goal might not be achieved, i.e. global communication might not take place. How could you say that? Global communication is defined as the practice of communication that takes place across international borders. Since humans are a type of social animal, we must communicate and cooperate with others to meet our psychological and social needs. Nowadays, we have to communicate across international borders with other people speaking another language and from different cultural backgrounds using the “big” language, because our desire cannot be satisfied by our people and the environment in which we live. According to the hierarchy of needs theory suggested by Abraham Maslow, our needs can be classified into five types, namely psychological needs, security needs, love needs, esteem and self-actualization needs, and our motivations to do something come from these needs. Once all our needs could be met, then we would lose the motivation to do anything. If people spoke fewer languages, our population would become large enough and our needs could be met by them. At that point, we would have no motivation to interact across borders with other people from different populations. Therefore, local communication could occur instead of global communication if we spoke fewer languages. According to the 2012 Eurobarometer report, 39% of the French population speaks English. This could be because French is already a more widespread type of language and is spoken by a larger population. Therefore, their needs are already met by this population and they would lack motivation to learn English to interact with other large populations. From this example we can deduce that speaking fewer languages ​​can lead to a lack of motivation to be in contact with others. The objective of.