On balance, the world would better if there was one language everyone could speak

C1-Fairness The top 10 ranked universities in the world are located in either the UK or the US, yet they have applicants from across the world. (1) These countries both have heavy English language majorities and almost every class is taught in English. This is really unfair to those who cannot speak English, who would have otherwise been accepted to one of these schools. English is also considered to be the dominant language of business, science, of aviation, computers, diplomacy, tourism, media, and the Internet. (2) This encourages people around the world to learn English as it is required in many jobs on the international level or to enjoy certain forms of media in their purest form (movies, books, and websites). (2) This automatically puts native English speakers at an unfair advantage compared to the others and those who struggle learning English. Not being able to speak the language spoken by the majority in an area also can hurt one's chance at employment. The Brookings Institution found that in the US, you were less likely to be successful if you did not speak English. (3) In fact, in the US there are many circumstances in which English only policies can be adapted in the workplace. (4) This hurts immigrants to these countries who will probably need to learn English to be successful, while native speakers know it from birth. However, all the examples I mentioned could be made much more fair if the language barrier didn't exist. Therefore, if everyone could speak one language, the world would be more fair. C2-Efficiency Canada, which has English and French as its official languages, was found by the Fraser Institute to spend $2.4-billion a year on bilingualism. (5) This is an extremely inefficient way to spend money, but if everyone could speak the same language, this money could be spent better elsewhere (e.g. healthcare). As mentioned above, many people have to learn certain languages to be successful or enjoy certain forms of entertainment. However, many people would have much more time if they didn't have to spend potentially years mastering a language. Also, several people need to hire translators due to the language barrier. This makes conversations longer and leads to greater risk of a communication error. However, without the language barrier, conversations could be shorter, flow better, with much less risk to an error in communication. C3-Discrimination Many Asian people (Chinese specifically) are discriminated against for Chinese languages in Western countries. (6) If everyone could speak the same language though, that would be one less form of discrimination in the world. Also, as mentioned above many employers in the US favour people who speak English. However, this form of discrimination would end if everyone could speak the same language. Also, the British Empire discriminated against the Scots language, considering it to not be "a suitable medium of education or culture". (7) However, if everyone spoke the same language that would not be of concern. A similar thing happened in the Balkans when Slobodan Milosevic demanded that Albanians speak Serbian, but their refusal led to war. (8) This war very well could have been avoided if everyone could speak the same language as Milosevic wouldn't have made that demand. Today in certain places in Africa, school children who speak their mother tongue are subject to abuse or ridicule. (9) This isn't a one off example. When German teachers were trying to make school children in Wrze"7;nia speak German instead of their native language (Polish) in school, they would subject the children to corporal punishment if they spoke Polish. (10) One final example of someone's language being discriminated against was in Syria prior to its Civil War. It was illegal for anything to be published in Kurdish. (11) With the Internet and other advanced communication, people from across the world can share communicate and share ideas. In fact, the University of Berkeley says "the progress of science depends on interactions within the scientific community". (12) The technology mentioned above makes the potential for a greater amount of interactions in the scientific community possible. However, the language barrier could potentially prohibit this, as a communication breakdown might occur. Also, many people use forums on the Internet for their hobbies and interests, so they can communicate and share ideas with people with similar interests. However, these forums are typically run in only one language. If everyone spoke the same language, however, forums would have much larger website activity. Also, the Internet allows people to market their products across the globe, but if not everyone speaks the same language the potential that is provided from the Internet for marketing is wasted. 1-http://www.topuniversities.com... 2-http://www.experienceenglish.com... 3-http://www.southcoasttoday.com... 4-http://www.forbes.com... 5-http://news.nationalpost.com... 6-http://en.wikipedia.org... 7-http://en.wikipedia.org... 8-http://harvardmagazine.com... 9-http://thisisafrica.me... 10-http://en.wikipedia.org... 11-http://en.wikipedia.org... 12-http://undsci.berkeley.edu...