We Should Have An Official Language For Earth

Your first argument is wrong due to the fact it was not agreed upon by the nations of Earth. Think about it if these languages are not pushed by government to be taught in schools how are they supposed to become common in the world for the most part those languages were privately made and the governments of he world haven't looked at them at all or paid any mind therefore nothing would ever happen with those languages they made. And to refute your bilingual argument only 66% of the world populace is bilingual so what about the other 34% and remember the definition of bilingual which is: Using or able to use two languages, so what happens when a person who knows Spanish and Japanese goes to South Africa which has 11 official languages (Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu) that person has no true means of easy communication. And what you said about "The globe-trotter set, being (if I may hazard a guess) a very small and comparatively rich fraction of Earth's population, should be able to hire translators, learn the languages they need to do business in, or find an unofficial language spoken world-wide." for one there are only two truly world wide languages that are unofficial which are violence and money, two most people of the world want to foster unity and trust for the younger generations so if they have one language in common they would have a better sense of understanding with their fellow man, and also understand that there are many different ways of communicating in our modern world rather than just going there such as Internet, phones, and mail (although slow and old it still works). Sources: http://wiki.answers.com... http://www.merriam-webster.com... http://www.answers.com... http://en.wikipedia.org... I agree with your second statement, there must be a consensus of all the world governments on the matter. And of course it would take a massive effort to get countries to agree (and we don't need every group to get along with this plan only the majority must agree). And yes it would cost a lot of money and time, but when people can communicate with each other easily it can help to create more peace in the world through understanding of one another. And for your argument about human behavior not changing is only partially true. Human behavior is attributed to the human environment very little of it has to do with nature, as you are more or less implying with your idea that human nature will not change and saying that racial prejudice will continue to divide us, prejudice is not natural it is learned from others (hence not natural). Hence by allowing for the communications between children by teaching them a standard language for the world we could put an end to perpetual racism. Just because I'm black means I should be racist against Europeans from coming to my homeland and conquering it and selling my ancestors into slavery, no, just because I'm Russian I should be racist against the Mongolians for coming and taking over Russia so long ago, no,just because I'm Japanese I should be racist against Americans for dropping Nukes on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, no, so in this light racism can be put down. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://dictionary.reference.com... And to counteract what you said about the costs and benefits, there would be no blood shed (but there would sweat, and tears of politicians and linguists working on the project), and there would be a substantial amount of time spent on the project, and several billion dollars but remember this is for the future and no god things come easy, it all comes from hard work and perseverance. And what you said about the benefits is utterly pointless in the fact that the true benefits would be: the ability for more people to compete in our globalized economy due to a standard for language, a greater sense of unity for future generations of people, and less mistranslations due to the fact we all have a standard language taught in all schools alongside national and local languages. My opponent must also understand that true peace cannot be accomplished without a standard way of communication. And I would also like to note the world has a standard system of measurement, numbers, and naming system (classify all organisms) why not one for language? Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org...