SUL (Part 1)

How many times have you encountered the language barrier? I have many times. Trying to explain the waiter in Bangalore that I want a glass of water, and he got me a glass of whiskey! This I suppose happens to all those non-polyglots. Isn’t there a way out of this? Why do we not have a universal language?

The Barrier

Try running the Google search with language set to all languages. You will find at least a few thousand Japanese, Korean and Chinese sites. Well you can always run the language filter. But see the amount of information blocked by the language bottleneck. And we still don’t have a good enough translator.

Let English Be

The most obvious question you might ask is why not make English the universal language? Some might even say that English is already the universal language. But I can assure you it is not. Of course half of the world population can understand it. But what about the other half? They might as well accept English provided America conquers the world. But lets finds a more peaceful i.e. a non-American (sorry ;)) solution.

La Universale

What is then the universal language? Let me put forward some points that the ideal language should have. But before that let me tell more about types of languages. Languages are mostly three types.

1^st is Symbolic language. Like English, Spanish, and all European languages. Now don’t ask me why. (Try to pronounce Rough, Cough as bough or Dough.)

2^nd is Phonetic language. Like Hindi, Sanskrit, etc. and I think all other popular Indian languages. This is superior to the one above for a very simple reason that, even any odd sound can be represented in it accurately, and the words are written and pronounced in the same way.

The 3^rd is a very special one and I will come back to it later.

What then is the aim of any language? Simple question isn’t it? To effectively exchange feelings, and of course information. The later is easier than the earlier. Our language or rather the scripts are utter failures in exchanging expressions and feelings and emotions. Think of online chatting. You never know the mood of the other one unless he/she uses ‘smileys’. How crude!

Well not all languages could become universal languages. The best test for a universal language is, if it can be understood and represented WITHOUT prior training in it. Impossible many will say. I say not. I will give one small example. Go to any where in the world and gesture ‘food’ (hand moving to an open mouth). Every one will understand. And such a language should be 100% efficient in expression of feelings. The lack of a script can be adjusted for the time being. So any ideas?

I have one.

You will understand the third type of language very well if you have read the book ‘Eragon’ by Christopher Paolini. It is very close to universalization of communication. What I mean is communication by images (the way Eragon and Saphira communicated). But the most important thing is that the images should not be contaminated by exposure to the outer world. Get it? Telepathy, Brainwave communication, you can call it whatever you like. That will be universal I think. A Bengali, a Marathi, a Spaniard all can of course recognize a cow when they see an image of it, unless of course it is polluted by the ever present human schemata (prejudice in a layman’s language).

The topic is open for discussion, so please join in and hope the 2^nd part comes soon. And before Time signs out let me ask one thing to everyone. (Alsotry to guess what SUL is.) Remember the attempt in 1980s to contact alien life forms in outer space by sending a magnetic disk, with images and sounds of earth (and simple human words in English)? O please don’t laugh. Let me put you in their shoes; tell me what could be the best thing we can send them? See how the lack of a universal language pinches?