Less is better

The debate about language is one of the most confusing that our already confusing political world offers. To begin with, the debate is several debates, all of them held in needy intellectual scaffolding: equality of languages; conceptions of the world associated with languages; language rights; positive discrimination of languages; benefits of linguistic diversity; own languages All these issues are sustained in a steamy conceptual plot that covers policies that are sometimes intelligible and always incompatible with elementary considerations of efficiency and equality. A circumstance that justifies repeating some elementary considerations.

The language serves to communicate. If it is not an instrument of communication, it is not a language. It can fulfill other functions, but if it ceases to be a communication tool, it ceases to be a language. It happens as with a car, which can serve as a home, to block roads, hold and a thousand other things, but if it does not serve to move, it ceases to be a car. Therefore, a language with a single speaker is not a language. Therefore, it cannot be said that the roncalés died in 1976, with his last speaker (or so they said) Antonia Anaut. Therefore, it made sense to create the artificial Basque batúa, which unified the various variants - the various dialects - of Basque, and that is why the concern is reasonable because the various variants of Catalan do not end up becoming different languages , with compression problems between Your speakers In such cases, in order to facilitate communication, it is decided to avoid diversity, the development of what are or can be diverse languages ​​and even the rights of speakers are sacrificed. If we are interested in understanding each other, the fewer languages ​​the better. Another thing is that for the philologist the diversity of languages ​​has an academic interest, as animist societies may have for the anthropologist, as a reason for study.

Having a common language is important for democratic and egalitarian societies. The Mandarins retained their power for centuries because two Chinese, who did not understand each other speaking, could do so by writing that they controlled and that required years of learning. The democratic revolutions, beginning with the French or those that accompanied the processes of independence in Latin America, had as a priority that citizens share the same language: it facilitated communication , participation, knowledge of the law, their rights, and equal access to social positions. While a seventeenth-century monarch brought carelessly what language was spoken in their territories, French revolutionaries sought in compulsory and free education for children aged 6 to 13 (Bouquier law of December 1793), in addition to the teaching of republican virtues, linguistic uniformity in a simplified French: "Ensure horizontal and vertical communication within the nation: whatever its geographical and social origin, all members must understand and use it. It must allow expression of any idea and of all reality "(AM. Thiesse, La création des identités nationales ).

In illiterate populations, in rare dealings with the administration, if there was administration, and without mass media, the laws that imposed languages ​​(the inaccurate nationalist interpretation of the New Plant Decree) were wet paper. An eighteenth-century peasant did not open checking accounts or deal with notaries. Traditionally, language extension processes responded to their practical functionality, either as prestigious languages, or, above all, as means of interaction, in an invisible hand process that, through feedback, leads to using codes with more users . An example of the first is the use of Greek, the language of diplomacy, among Roman elites or that of Castilian, the language of culture, among us, as it confirms that in the sixteenth century in Catalonia more books were printed in Spanish that in Catalan, among which, by the way, the poetry of Ausiàs March was included, edited earlier in Spanish (1539) than in Catalan (1549), or that, in 1641, in full independence from the "Spanish occupant", according to the nationalist mythology, the funeral panegyric of Pau Claris, "president" for a few days of the only really existing Catalan Republic, would be written in Spanish.

In any case, the mechanism of extension through prestige affected very limited segments of the population, the literate. Another thing is that prestige officiates as a positional advantage, the advantages of being the first to be installed, such as those that led to the triumph of traditional VHS video systems or Microsoft: the newcomers opt for the same as those who are already. From a certain moment, an invisible hand mechanism is imposed, similar to the one that leads us to choose, among different systems of weights and measures (leagues, bushels, etc.), the one with more users (meters, kilos, etc.) . Nobody forces us, but it suits us given the nature of the activity: exchange, understand each other. The processes are fed back, like the one that leads to opt for the most cleared path: each with his decision to walk comfortably along that path, makes the path more comfortable, an argument for the next to do the same. Nobody is prevented from choosing another path , but it does not seem reasonable that, for him to go comfortably wherever he wants, his path be imposed on others. Each one with their free decision helps to consolidate an equilibrium that is interesting to everyone, as we all find it interesting to drive on the right while others do the same. This is how conventions and social norms work. That is why no one can be surprised that, since the sixteenth century, 80% of the peninsular people use Castilian as a language of communication, considering that in the fifteenth century, Castile, which included Galicia, Biscay, Alava and Guipúzcoa, it had 4.5 million inhabitants and the Crown of Aragon 850,000. Something that did not happen elsewhere. In France, at the time of the revolution, only one in three French spoke French; In Italy, in 1830, only 3% of the people spoke what would later be called Italian, the Tuscan.

From the point of view of a moral politician, there is little to blame for these processes. The end result, the consolidation of some paths and not others, is the result of voluntary decisions. No one forces anyone, although reasonably everyone will choose a language that allows them to understand each other with more people. The right to choose is respected, if you want to say so. It happens frequently and it seems good. I have the right to pair, but that does not mean the right to pair with whomever I want, among other reasons, because Natalie Portman also has the right to choose. The right to use a language does not imply a right to have interlocutors.

It is true that, in the end, exclusive speakers of a minority language will see their possibilities reduced. But as long as they are not imposed, there is nothing to regret. Their situation is a consequence of everyone's action, but it is not the will of anyone. Nobody's right to speak as they wish is violated. In fact, the result is a consequence of everyone having that right. From the moral and political point of view, it is important to know how the process has been. It is not the same if it is the result of an imposition than of the free decisions of individuals. Radio amateurs do not complain because, with the internet, the number of colleagues with whom to spend the afternoon has decreased. The last of the party can not be regretted because he has no choice but to try to pair with another balance like him because the others have been pairing before and they have stayed the last. Each has chosen freely and no one has interfered in the decisions of others. It is the difference, important, between Tinder and the arranged marriages.

The important equality - the only intelligible one - is between people. From the point of view of what matters, democracy, equality and the possibility of understanding, it is better that we all manage in the same language. An obvious that, like some others, in these upset times, is considered a scandal. If these things concern us, the reasonable thing would be to promote the use of the common language. Another obvious thing that also seems like a scandal. Languages ​​do not suffer, suffer or die. They are not animal species that we should conserve. The use of requirements associated with "own languages" in the access to social or labor positions, regardless of merit or talent, in order to ensure their conservation, violates elementary considerations of equality and, incidentally, good allocation of public resources. That, of course, if we focus on people. If we put it in the language, if we assume the fanfare that "we must preserve endangered languages", that is, that languages ​​have the right to have speakers, the implications are different. As a mental exercise, I have thought about what I should do if, having assumed the conservation objective, I had to govern Papua New Guinea: 838 languages ​​competing for a limited number of speakers. Tired, I have decided to terminate this article.

Félix Ovejero is Professor of Ethics and Economics at the University of Barcelona. His last book is the reactionary drift on the left (Indomitable Page).

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Alava
• Biscay
• Tinder
• Natalie Portman
• Microsoft
• Italy
• Guipúzcoa
• Galicia
• France
• Catalonia
• Aragon
• LOC

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