Just a thought for communication.
Foolish. Unrealistic. I don't know. I thought it would be good to start in schools now, and teach all the students Spanish, Mandarin and American Sign language. I'm thinking about the US at the moment, and thinking that if one speaks Spanish and Mandarin, they would then be able to speak to some of the larger second language minorities, and if they spoke ASL, not only would they be able to communicate with the deaf, they'd be able to communicate with each other when they needed to be quiet, or something had limited their speech. Learning to read Mandarin, would also give access to Chinese characters in many written Chinese languages. Even just gaining access to tonal language might help people to see the world in a different way.
I suppose, if everyone learned braille, in a similar fashion to learning sign language, not only would hearing people be able to communicate during a performance, or between sound-proof glass, and with deaf people (who knew ASL), then in the dark, braille might become more common and, thus more friendly to blind people, but also for everyone who had learned to read it.
I'm not sure which problems this would solve. While the majority of Chinese speakers I met in the US, spoke Mandarin, I had met one who only spoke Cantonese. ASL isn't universal, even between English speaking countries. British Sign Language requires the use of both hands. But it would give generations additional tools. Esperatno, might be cool, but why not start with the language in the world which has the most number of speakers. If one learned English and Spanish, they would also get some of the most widespread. If you speak English and Spanish, it might not be to much of a trifle to learn French and Portuguese. If one, when he or she were older, wanted to expand into other languages, considering I left out languages like German and Russian, or entire families of languages, like African languages, then he or she might well have an aptitude for learning languages, already being multilingual. Going to Africa, interested in learning Twi? Having some knowledge of Mandarin would give some idea of how a tonal language works.
I don't think it would be impossible. But I think it would take the investment of time. People teaching Mandarin, Spanish and American Sign Language would have to already know something about it. They could learn with their students and over the years get better at it. And future generations would be better still. Welsh is a language which damn near died out. These days, I have heard people converse in it as native speakers, even though, no one really speaks only Welsh. If a society can re-discover and revive a language, why can society as a whole pick up new ones?
Of course, by "society," I was only thinking or mentioning the U.S. What it it was everyone? What if you are in Africa, and you don't speak Twi, but the person you are speaking to can manage a bit of Mandarin and clarify with ASL? The ASL alphabet wouldn't be easily translatable to Chinese characters, but other concepts would be. Among my favorites? I love you. Not that you would say this to a stranger in Accra with regularity, but it amused me that metal bands in the eighties would make a similar gesture, intended to symbolize the horns of the devil. Fans would sometimes forget to put their thumb in and were signing back, "I love you."
I suppose, if everyone learned braille, in a similar fashion to learning sign language, not only would hearing people be able to communicate during a performance, or between sound-proof glass, and with deaf people (who knew ASL), then in the dark, braille might become more common and, thus more friendly to blind people, but also for everyone who had learned to read it.
I'm not sure which problems this would solve. While the majority of Chinese speakers I met in the US, spoke Mandarin, I had met one who only spoke Cantonese. ASL isn't universal, even between English speaking countries. British Sign Language requires the use of both hands. But it would give generations additional tools. Esperatno, might be cool, but why not start with the language in the world which has the most number of speakers. If one learned English and Spanish, they would also get some of the most widespread. If you speak English and Spanish, it might not be to much of a trifle to learn French and Portuguese. If one, when he or she were older, wanted to expand into other languages, considering I left out languages like German and Russian, or entire families of languages, like African languages, then he or she might well have an aptitude for learning languages, already being multilingual. Going to Africa, interested in learning Twi? Having some knowledge of Mandarin would give some idea of how a tonal language works.
I don't think it would be impossible. But I think it would take the investment of time. People teaching Mandarin, Spanish and American Sign Language would have to already know something about it. They could learn with their students and over the years get better at it. And future generations would be better still. Welsh is a language which damn near died out. These days, I have heard people converse in it as native speakers, even though, no one really speaks only Welsh. If a society can re-discover and revive a language, why can society as a whole pick up new ones?
Of course, by "society," I was only thinking or mentioning the U.S. What it it was everyone? What if you are in Africa, and you don't speak Twi, but the person you are speaking to can manage a bit of Mandarin and clarify with ASL? The ASL alphabet wouldn't be easily translatable to Chinese characters, but other concepts would be. Among my favorites? I love you. Not that you would say this to a stranger in Accra with regularity, but it amused me that metal bands in the eighties would make a similar gesture, intended to symbolize the horns of the devil. Fans would sometimes forget to put their thumb in and were signing back, "I love you."