The world's better off without rare languages

　　如果所有人都说同一种语言，世界将会怎样？

　　There are around 6,000 languages in the world today. At least there were until January of 2001. Then Carlos Westez died. Westez was the last speaker of the native American language Catawba.<注1> With him passed away the language itself.

　　The death of Westez was mourned not just by professional linguists, but more generally by advocates of cultural diversity. Writing in the Independent of London, Peter Popham warned that "when a language dies" we lose "the possibility of a unique way of perceiving and describing the world." What particularly worries people like Popham is that many other languages are likely to follow the fate of Catawba. Aore is a language native to one of the islands of the Pacific state of Vanuatu.<注2> When the island's single inhabitant dies, so will the language. (Ironically, the status of Gafat, an Ethiopian language spoken by fewer than 30 people, has been made more precarious<注3> thanks to the efforts of linguists attempting to preserve it. A language researcher took two speakers out of their native land, whereupon they caught cold and died.)Of the 6,000 extant languages in the world, more than 3,000 will disappear over the next century. Linguist Jean Aitcheson believes that "this massive disappearance of so many languages will be an irretrievable loss."<注4> Popham compares this loss to the "death of untold<注5> species of plants and insects" from rainforest destruction. Warning of the "impact of a homogenizing monoculture upon our way of life,"<注6> he worries about the "spread of English carried by American culture, delivered by Japanese technology" and the "hegemony of a few great transnational languages: Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Hindi."

　　Yet the whole point of a language is to enable communication. A language spoken by one person is not a language at all. It is a private conceit, like a child's secret code.<注7> Carlos Westez might well have had "a unique way of perceiving the world," but it was so unique that only he had access to it. However happy Westez might have been talking to himself, to everyone else in the world he may as well have been talking gibberish.<注8>

　　It is, of course, enriching to learn other languages and delve into other cultures. But it is enriching not because different languages and cultures are unique, but because making contact across barriers of language and culture allows us to expand our own horizons and become more universal in our outlook.

　　Cultural homogenization is something to be welcomed, not feared. The more universally we can communicate, the more dynamic our culture will be. It is not being parochial<注9> to believe that were more people<注10> to speak English—or Spanish, Chinese, or Hindi—the better it would be. The real chauvinists<注11> are surely those who worry about the spread of "American culture" and "Japanese technology."

　　The idea that particular languages embody unique visions of the world derives from the romantic concept of cultural difference, a concept that underlies much of contemporary thinking about multiculturalism.<注12> "Each nation speaks in the manner it thinks," Johann Gottfried von Herder argued in the <注18>th century, "and thinks in the manner it speaks." For Herder the nature of a people was expressed through its Volksgeist<注13>—the unchanging spirit of a people refined through history. Language was particularly crucial to the delineation<注14> of a people, because "in it dwells its entire world of tradition, history, religion, principles of existence; its whole heart and soul."Herder's Volksgeist became transformed into racial makeup, an unchanging substance, the foundation of all physical appearance and mental potential, and the basis for division and difference within humankind. The contemporary argument for the preservation of linguistic diversity, liberally framed though it may be,<注15> draws on<注16> the same philosophy that gave rise to racial difference.

　　"Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial for a Breton or a Basque<注17> to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship than to sulk<注18> on his own rocks, the half-savage relic<注19> of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world." So wrote John Stuart Mill,<注20> more than a century ago. "The same applies," he added, "to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander<注21> as members of the British nation." It would have astonished him that, as we approach a new millennium, there are those who think that sulking on your own rock is a state worth preserving.

　　阅读感评

　　-侯毅凌

　　先说一说我脑子里关于集市的画面：就说它是个露天市场吧，各种各样的货色都摆在摊架上，逛市的人来来往往，心情想必是轻松的，看到抢眼的东西会停下来，觉着合意就掏了腰包，一般不会太费踌躇，即使讨价还价，多半也是图个乐趣，毕竟这种市场上不宜摆大件儿，而买东西的人大抵也不会计较可退可换、三年保修终生维修之类的商家承诺。

　　我说的这幅画面自然是跟我要评论的文章有关。在英语和汉语中都有这样的表达，一个作者要读者接受自己的某个观点，你可以说He's trying to sell a point(他想推销自己的观点)，因此，“市场”的比喻在这里应该不算牵强附会。至于我选择集市而非——譬如说——精品店的比喻，并非由于文章短小而将之视为廉价小商品(精品店也卖小玩意儿)，我的用意是想说明一种情形。有一个事实可以决定集市的比喻更为恰当，那就是文章作者的立场和态度，可以看得出，作者的字里行间透出对另一种文化立场的反感以及嘲讽。在其眼里，那种文化立场是精英式的，是保守主义的。

　　显然，作者意欲谋求大众的共鸣，而他也颇懂得市场之道，文章拦腰之处，一句“Yet the whole point of a language is to enable communication”的确有干脆利落之风，与“the possibility of a unique way of perceiving and describing the world”和“the impact of a homogenizing monoculture upon our way of life”这样的词句相比，大概是要“抢眼”得多，有一种长驱直入的效果。正是以这个具有共识效应的句子为前提，作者以三段论的逻辑形式推出了他的结论，即一个人或少数人的语言死不足惜。从逻辑的角度上看，这一结论的有效性有赖于我们以它为前提接受。如果说作者所谓的communication不仅仅局限于交际功用这层意思，他的前提我是愿意接受的。但事实是，他说的communication仅仅也就是交际的意思，说得更彻底，这个交际就是大家都说一样的话。非若此，他就不会得出他的结论。

　　交际固然是重要的，但仍然也只是语言这个问题的一个层面(用英语来说，它是part of the whole picture)，虽然这个层面也许是最显现的。作为文化的产物和载体，语言承载的不仅仅是交际功用，而且也承载着认知、审美等诸多价值。由于地域环境的差异、族群历史的不同等诸多因素，在各个族群间自然生成的语言所包涵的认知方式、审美意识也会有所不同。正是这些差异的总和构成了整个世界的文化意义上的语言生态，而多样性是任何生态形式得以保持健康活力的基础。

　　在作者看来，文化趋同对我们人类生活方式的影响非但不足以忧惧而且简直是人类生活的福音。他看到的欢乐景象是个大同世界，它的诞生是因了语言交际的畅通无阻。文章中，作者几乎是按捺不住地要呼吁英语(作者的母语)一统天下，要不是他还无法忽视人多势众的汉语、西班牙语和印地语而在英语之后加了个“或者”。说实话，我惊讶于作者的天真。在他的头脑里，语言和交流想必是划上了绝对等号的。果真是这样的话，在英语国家里，白种人和其他肤色人种是否因说同样的语言而肝胆相照、亲密无间了呢？

　　作者当然也注意到了division and difference within humankind和racial difference，而他认为造成这种现实的思想根源来自18世纪德国浪漫主义运动的文化差异观念。也许是我的浅陋，我看不出“in it [language] dwells its [a particular people's] entire world of tradition, history, religion, principles of existence; its whole heart and soul”这样的话有什么问题，也无法了解作者的思维过程(thought process)中如何将Herder所说的Volksgeist(民族精神或民族特性)变成了不同种族脑智潜力(mental potential)的基础。在他的文章里我只看出这样一个逻辑：只要实现语言大同，种族文化差异就得以自然消除，而人类之间也就了无嫌隙。

　　在文章的最后一段，作者引用了英国功利主义哲学家John Stuart Mill的一段话，这使我们有理由再次确认作者在这篇文章中是以功利观为出发点的。假如作者仅仅是以功利观在市场上讨个巧倒也罢了，而他在结尾处的一句评论所透露出的不加掩饰的文化/文明沙文主义心态却使我不免瞠目悚然。我想，作者断不会不知道这样一句话：One man's meat is another's poison。