FR> While we're engaged in philosophical debate about fictional
 RT> characters,  FR>> how many cultists in this forum would like to argue
 RT> that learning more  FR>> than one language is contrary to the wishes or
 RT> desires of their gods?
 FR> After all, in the Christanic mythologies, the pantheon of
 RT> deities  FR>> created a multitude of languages specifically to keep
 RT> humanity
 FR> ignorant. When we learn to speak alien languages, aren't
 RT> believers in  FR>> the Christian gods in direct discord with the desires
 RT> of their deities?
 FR> I would be interested in learning if there are other gods and
 RT> goddesses  FR>> which were also responsible for the multitude of
 RT> languages.
 FM> There's a direct challenge you've set up for yourself.  Perhaps you
 FM> could, in all of your superior wisdom give us the specific, scientific
 FM> reason why homo sapiens has been for so long and for the foreseeable
 FM> future locked into a multiplicity of languages?
 RT> For the foreseeable future? I'm not sure about that Frank. With the
 RT> advent of global communications it would seem we are heading down a road
 RT> of unification of languages, and to be quite honest, I think that would
 RT> be a major step forward to a closer knit world community.
   You MUST be kidding.  The multiplication of computer languages is already
swamping us and that is on top of the still quite active, living cultural
languages of the world.  Do you KNOW the fate of all attempts to formulate 
nd
activate ONE global language?  
 RT> We take a single population and isolate them on two island, cut then off
 RT> from the rest of the world and each other and allow them to evolve. They
 RT> have no further contact with anyone not of their own island. We wait
 RT> from a couple of hundred years, to maybe a thousand or two and then we
 RT> go back to the islands to see how they speak. We find that the languages
 RT> have evolved in two different directions. Why would this be do you
 RT> think?
 RT> You might find "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker (ISBN
 RT> 0-14-017529-6 [Penguin] 8.99ukp) to be an excellent non-technical
 RT> grounder in the mechanics of language evolution and structure if you
 RT> have further interest.
   I wasn't talking about the "mechanics."  I was talking about the reality.
The drive to reproduce seems to be accompanied by the drive to divide into
camps, each with its separate language.  We try to salve this phenomenon with
modern myths about "world peace" et cetera.  Intellectuals DO make decided
attempts to overcome these separations, often with amazing success as with
technical fields and mathematics.  In centuries ahead globalization might 
ven
make some headways but as the boundaries of the cosmos (universe) are pushed
back other cultural entities may emerge to offset it.  That, we simply do not
know yet.  
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
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