Linguist Philip Seargeant has something to say concerning the diversity of languages:
The Babel myth, which casts a long shadow over how we think about the topic, is based around the idea that linguistic diversity and multilingualism are flaws in the human faculty for language – that they are a problem, and thus in need of a solution. In reality, they are fundamental features of the system, which give language its flexibility, and upon which whole cultures and identities are built.
It is this inbuilt urge for diversity that is the main reason why all the schemes for universal languages never quite fulfilled their inventors’ ambitions. As communities shift and grow, so do their linguistic habits. And while language is, of course, a means for communicating with others, it is also a means for differentiating yourself from others. So technologies that find ways to bypass or render invisible this diversity will have significant ramifications for human society. [“Is artificial intelligence about to free us from the curse of Babel?” NewScientist (30 December 2023, paywall)]
His suggestion that languages differ because we like to have something which differentiates us from “others” is a bit of balderdash with nothing suggesting proof.
Here’s an experiment, which should be possible using computer simulators: Spread a human population speaking a single, relatively immature language over a geographically diverse area, with a slow transmission speed, meaning no electronic communications such as radio, and limited and even hazardous travel. Give the agents an urge to survive, propagate, perhaps even prosper. Give the population a few hundred generations to develop.
The varied geography will, one should hypothesize, lead to the development of differing vocabularies, because language isn’t only about communication, but also about the lens through which we view the world as modulated by our common but distinct interests.
Look at me: An obsolete software engineer. Show me a randomly selected seed and I’ll say, “It grows a plant, doesn’t it?” Show it to a farmer and they may identify it down to the exact variant of barley into which it’ll develop. I won’t even remember the words used to describe it. They’ll glare at me if I make a joke about, say, wavelet data structures using their words.
I dare to say that his suggestion may be more reflective of the individualistic mindset of today than anything else.
But his assertion that Babel, so to speak, isn’t a curse remains interesting. It may simply be inevitable.
