Interesting article and comments. I think that comparisons between language and the natural environment are tempting. Both are “free” in the sense of our not associating any cost to their use or maintenance. When scarcity arises, the “costs” and solutions associated with each are different and the analogy fails. But it is true that relatively little economic analysis has been done of the value of a particular language, or of linguistic diversity (whether in general or in a particular setting).

In international development work in Africa, for instance, multilingual settings are often viewed as an inconvenience. Yet ignoring the mother tongues of intended development beneficiaries (or really, just leaving it up to chance and ad hoc translations when needed) has costs in terms of understanding, participation, and links with local knowledge.

In terms of education, teaching uniquely in a second language (L2) has costs to students in terms of understanding and to communities in terms of integration of the educational experience with the local culture (and in some ways, the level of involvement of parents who don’t master the L2). Students who leave school early are in the situation of having sometimes truncated abilities in L1 (mother tongue) and partial abilities in L2, with incomplete mastery of subject matter.

Usually the costs of translations into diverse languages for development or education are deemed too high, but the cost of not using L1’s more effectively is not estimated.

Obviously a lot more can be said on these topics, but the main point is that while cultural and aesthetic values of languages are extolled, there are also practical and economic values.

Thanks by the way for mentioning Bisharat.

And developing is exactly what Esperanto has done and is still doing! It was not presented as a finished product. What was produced in 1887 was only a skeletal grammar plus about 960 roots. New words are constantly being added, and grammatical latencies still being discovered as it continues to spread around the world.

By the way, the European Day of Languages is scheduled for Sept. 26 this year, and Belgium’s Journée du Bilinguisme for May 8. Are there any other such days coming up this year?

If you are interested, I am working to develop a sort of world pidgin, called Neo Patwa. It is described at patwa.pbwiki.com. There is actually an article on Global Voices, here:
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/09/20/blogging-in-neo-patwa/

But I think that a world language is something that we need to create, together, not something that I or anybody else can present as a finished project.

We recently posted about this article from the IHT which had an interesting discussion of the use of English as a universal second language:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/09/asia/englede.php

The article points out that the English used for international communication is evolving into something different from the English spoken for example in the UK.

As a native English speaker myself, I’m not sure about getting a completely free ride – I am conscious that I change my language and accent when speaking to non-native speakers, in order to help communication. If I speak with my normal regional accent people rarely understand me!

Fortunately I am also a member of a second, non-territorial, linguistic community, namely that of Esperanto. Perhaps you should look into this too, especially since the 5th Asian Esperanto Congress just ended a few days ago in Bangalore?

Prague Manifesto: http://lingvo.org/xx/2/3
Update: http://www.uea.org/info/angle/an_ghisdatigo.html