Steps should be taken to preserve minority and dying languages.

Haha, ooo lala! I think I will enjoy this debate. First off I'm sorry, I should really review my arguments before I submit them, I am getting bad at doing so. Leads to confusing paragraphs like the one you cited. What I was attempting to say: We should get rid of the language barrier. Learning every language so one can fully communicate with the rest of the world is rather difficult. Thus developing one universal language would be the better choice. So now I am going to quote you a bit and write my responses. "I disagree, because a language is not only a language. It is a culture, something that goes along with a lifestyle. For example, the people that only know Maori do not lead the same lives as those that speak Piraha." >>Yet I disagree. Say you took the people who spoke Piraha and gave them a different language to speak. You wiped their memory of their old language and replaced it with a different one. Even replace it with Maori if you'd like. Would this change anything in their society? I argue it will/would not. And I support this with 2 points. 1. This is an example. Envision yourself as a tribal man. You wake up each day, and go on a hunt. Most days you catch something and bring it back to your village where you cook and eat. You spend some time with your children each day teaching them to hunt. And you spend a little time with your wife each day. Suddenly a wise man comes to the tribe and teaches you a new language. Does this change your culture? I argue that the only thing it does do is take an hour out of your day to learn the new language. It doesn't actually influence your past at all. 2. This is an example from my personal life. I grew up speaking English, as I live in the U.S, however during my years in high school I also learned to speak Spanish. Has this changed my culture in any way? No definitely not. I am still the same as I was before I knew Spanish. "Language is a central component of cultural identity. It acts as a binding force and marker of group identities." >>Language is often a way that culture identify themselves yes. However changing the language, to something else, doesn't change the culture. For example my people are twork because they speak tworken. Suddenly we change our language to worken now we are work. Despite the fact that language has changed we can still identify ourselves as a people using language. (More on this soon) "By helping to forge these communities language contributes to social stability." >>Keep in mind language is not the end all. There are other things that can forge a community. For example many modern day clubs all wear an article of same colored clothing to demonstrate the fact that they are a special community. (Political parties are a good example in the U.S red vs. blue) "A shared language aids social cohesion by providing speakers with a ready-made support network. This in turn has been linked with reducing feelings of social dislocation and related problems, such as crime. " >>Si, but this helps my point also, as I am arguing for a universal language. Universal = shared by everyone = even less crime (more on this later) "I completely agree that languages make a culture, and vice versa. " >>Languages can help keep a cultural identity. They don't persay actually create a culture. A culture will find new ways to survive without language differences. Once again look to my club example. So here is my argument on this. There are somewhere around 200 countries on this earth (recognized by the U.N anyways) right? You tell me language helps to keep a culture together and draw the distinct lines between all of these countries and I totally agree with you on that point. However I don't see this as a good thing, as you do. The fact that we have so many different countries has created almost every problem our world has had in the past. These countries act as interest groups that almost always are trying to further their own interests even if at the expense of another country. This creates an unstable world community. Now lets take a moment to evaluate your point saying that social disclosure creates crime. Why is this? My argument is that an individual does not feel as if he/she is part of a community. This leads him/her to do anything that well help him/her even if it hurts the community. However this is the smallest scale situation. Lets go to a slightly larger scale with this. Individual finds some more people who feel socially disclosed and forms his own community. Now we have two communities. The community individual formed feels it is superior because the individuals are a part of it (small scale nationalism). Therefor this community puts its own needs before the other community and will harm the other if need be. This of course would be considered crime. Now lets say the communities both grow to a great size and form their own countries. Once again they both feel they have allegiance to their own community over the other community. (Want another example? Look to 9/11. 3000 Americans killed, we turned around and killed how many Afghans? Whats worth more, American or Afghan life?) What can this lead to? A war. When two communities compete over a resource that they both feel they need at times it can become a war. You say that feeling your part of a community can decrease crime and a very much agree with you! If you feel you are part of something then you probably don't want to bother hurting that something. Example: 4 random people are more prone to hurt each other than 4 people who all feel they are each others friends. But this is where your idea actually hurts the world. What humans don't seem to realize is that we are all part of one large global world community. We still as humans divide ourselves into separate countries and seem to think of ourselves as different than the other countries in some way. This thinking is flawed. I am a human, as is every other person on this world, they are not somehow worth less than me because they are in another location, or speak another language. This flawed way of thinking lead to arguably the greatest mistake in human history, being the holocaust. Where Nazi Germany felt that its community was somehow greater than that of the rest of the world. My advocacy is to create one global language. This will better help everyone feel that they are part of one global community and understand the point. Leading to, as you said, lesser crime and on a large scale fewer wars. If everyone is attempting to benefit the global community instead of their small interest group/country we will not have the problems we see today. While the creation of communities has decreased crime it has still allowed for crime between communities. Having only one community does not allow for such.