Your examples are based on Spanish. I like that language a lot, and wouldn't mind if the world would be Spanish speaking, but I still think it's a good thing to standardize the choice of language in some areas, no matter what language you pick. Try to imagine that every sign is written in one out of 100 languages, chosen randomly. What would the point be?
In Europe, we have 12-15 working languages. Most documents produced in the administration have to be translated to all languages. If you write a small note about something, there will be 12-15 translators translating your note.
Also, you can write a letter to the administration in any language you want, and you will get the answer in the same language. If a Dane writes a letter in Danish to EU, and a french guy who speaks French, German, English and Spanish fluently, has to handle this letter, a translator will translate it from Danish to one of his languages, and another translator will translate the answer back to Danish.
This system works - but it would be much better if we had only 1-3 official languages and all Europeans were taught to know one of them well.
Denmark already tries this by teaching all children English, but still 20% are not able to use the English language well.
I am aware that there will always be people who cannot handle one of the official languages well - but the additional costs of doing translation for those people should not burden society.
And besides that, you should remember that Carl is natively speaking Danish, not English. So everything you say about Spanish also applies to Danish in this context. Carl does not want his native language to be an official language of California.
Dybdahl. |
