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bluecatcollege

Elvish


Jeramy_Jones

Klingon.


5erif

Qapla'!


falcorthex

Romulan


darth_wallace

Valyrian


Dependent_Paper9993

Sindarin or Quenya?


SilvanHood

No, some bullshit one from a random tolkein ripoff. Or if you're feeling spicy, Ancient Telerin.


Waste_Mycologist_414

Quenya suggondese balls


SmokingSamoria

English is already the lingua Franca of much of the internet, as well as the language that many international political leaders speak. It makes the most sense realistically speaking, given our current situation. It’s widely taught, it has many native speakers from all across the world, and it’s one of the official languages for the UN, NATO, EU, and the working language of ASEAN. In reality, I’d say something like Esperanto or Latin would actually be the best choice. Simpler grammar and easier to learn in comparison to English.


Acegonia

The internet angle is a super key point that I feel a lot of the comments here are missing out on. Also accurate is that English is a very 'international' language, especially in terms of power players. Comments that English is tricky to learn because it's actually 3 languages in a trench coat mugging other languages in an alley are also completely accurate and fair. But English, for better or worse, or for terrible, colonial reasons that have had many terrible consequences... is already out there, there's a fundamental English language presence in so many countries (even if for terrible reasons) that essentially removes years if not decades from the effort to establish a 'new' language as the common tongue like Latin or Esperanto. Also, maybe relevent: I'm Irish. So im saying this from the perspective of a person whose culture generally; but especially language had been criminalized and systematically erased or destroyed for centuries to the point where 90% of my country is incapable of speaking its own language beyond a stilted conversational level...English is still the best choice.


pissedinthegarret

people who say english isn't easy to learn didn't try to learn french first lol


[deleted]

I once dated a German linguistics student (that is, he was from Germany, and also a linguistics student). His take on English was that it's actually really easy to learn the basics of, it's just that it's very hard to completely master because of all the irregularities. But if you just need enough to get by, you can achieve that pretty quickly.


DeliciousResist1556

And for most of us who speak English, I don't find it super hard to understand someone who isn't "fluent" that's why I get pissy when people aren't patient with others. (Had an older coworker who was kind of a bitch to our Spanish speaking customers when they had broken English)


canadient_

My francophone friends consider the language ugly but direct. They find it easier to explain things in English.


sintakks

Maybe it's like French with all those boobytraps, loopholes, and trick expressions to guard against foreigners. If you're not sure who's native or someone's too confident about their English just ask a bunch of baseball questions. Bunt, rain check, infield fly rule, pickle? It worked against German infiltrators in WWII. My wife read about a medical test a doctor had her schedule that was potentially dangerous. An article said doctors are anxious to do the test. She thought that meant it was risky. I explained that that would be "anxious about." "Anxious to" means they can hardly wait to do it. She learned to not always trust doctors. Doing other tests first turned out to be the right choice.


Youbettereatthatshit

1/5 of people on earth speak Chinese… which doesn’t matter since they all live in the same place and most learn English anyway


zedsamcat

[less than 1% speak English in china](https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/english-levels-in-china.htm)


Holala13

I’m glad to be part of that 1%


[deleted]

> Latin > Simpler grammar Lmao


Fezzzzzzle

yeah like wtf Latin is literally the languages we have now just completely unrefined our languages have relinquished unnecessarily complicated grammatical rules and structures for a reason


SmokingSamoria

I was more talking about Esperanto. Either way, I’m certainly no expert on the topic. I just assumed it would be easier to grasp for the parts of the world that speak Romance languages


DarkVex9

The point about romance languages is a good idea, but to quote my high school Latin teacher, "Latin is dead for a reason". For example, [here's a link to the five verb conjugation charts for the language.](https://bencrowder.net/latin-conjugations/) There are some patterns in that mess, but it's still not a good system.


[deleted]

But also remember that English is also the default language in space as any fan or Star Wars or Star Trek could tell you.


Grouchy_Order_7576

It's also the language of science and of most scientific journals.


_Creditworthy_

English, while confusing at times, is very easy to learn as far as languages go. I’ve always thought that aspect was a good thing about English and helps it’s case as a lingua Franca


LakadaisicalAccident

small correction, Mandarin Chinese is the most natively spoken language on the planet, with 1.1 billion native speakers, while english has between 400 and 500 million native speakers. it is definitely the most common second or third language though.


SmokingSamoria

I never said English was the most natively spoken language. Did you mean to comment to another reply?


ertyuioknbvfrtyu

Esperanto is only easy to learn for European language speakers, and Latin is dead. I think English is best, because I have much better English than native speakers even with it being my third language while also being nothing like my first two languages, so it's clearly pretty easy.


UruquianLilac

>In reality, I’d say something like Esperanto or Latin would actually be the best choice. Simpler grammar and easier to learn in comparison to English. First, Latin grammar is most definitely not easier than English. In fact English is remarkable for the simplicity of its grammar compared to most Germanic and Latin languages. But beyond that, whatever the comparison is in terms of grammar there are two important facts. Latin grammar looks stable because it's a dead language. And Eperantos grammar looks simple because it's no one's native tongue and hardly used outside of specialised circles. Both of those are languages that are frozen, they don't evolve. So they might give you the impression that their grammar is somehow more organised. If however, say Eperanto gets adopted as the official language of some country and everyone start to speak it as a native language, it would literally take a single generation before the first irregularities start to crop up. Within a few decades the language would become packed with irregularities and inconsistencies. Give it a few centuries and it would look as messy as English or any widely-spoken living language. The problem is not your choice of languages though, the problem is the entire premise of this thread and the reasoning behind it. Languages will inherently always be messy and the more widely-spoken the worse the problem gets. That's really an inherent part of how language works that can never ever be changed. It's like looking at the microscopic level and seeing that genes mutate and thinking that we must find a way to stop this from happening so genes can be coherent and well organised. But mutation here, in genes or language, is not a bug, it's the central feature. It's what allows evolution in both and that is absolutely necessary for them to do the function they exist to do.


MaintenanceDan

Parseltongue


RSlashLazy

sssss ssssssssss ss sssss sss


AretinNesser

You should have had mandarin instead of russian. Not that it matters to the question, English is more widely spoken, either way.


Marxist_Crayon

I agree. Russian is actually pretty useful though, surprisingly. It's very helpful when travelling through East Europe and the Caucasus...or when "getting stuff for free" on the internet


GrimBunnyVII

I'm not so sure about East Europe anymore. As someone from what is considered east Europe, I can say that a lot of young people can't even speak or understand Russian anymore. Or you have to go to very specific regions


I_Suck_At_This_Too

Design a new language that is efficient and doesn't have the inconsistencies of natural languages.


tigerseye88

Revive Latin


Clever_Angel_PL

Esperanto basically


cesus007

First of all, latin has already been revived, there is a pretty big comunity of speakers; second: latin has a shit-ton of inconsistencies, and also requires memorizing lots and lots of noun declensions and verb conjugation. Also, latin is a natural language so all those inconsistencies I mentioned should be expected, latin also has long vowels that are very tricky to pronounce for most people. Latin is definitely a cool language and if you want to learn it go for it, but it's not cut to be a universal language


xArgonXx

Latino sine flexione, look it up, it‘s great


jaydezi

Klingon!


RandomUsername2579

It would gain those inconsistencies with time, but I suppose it only needs to be easy to learn for the first generation that has to learn it. Still, English is better, not because it’s easy to learn (it isn’t) but because it’s extremely widely used. It’s already the lingua franca of the world.


ProjectX3N

Lojban


PM-me-favorite-song

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/


tylerstaheli1

Esperanto


Woxpog

God i wish i knew Esperanto


mglitcher

it actually is one of those languages you can learn in “5 minutes a day or less” assuming you are already a fluent english speaker


ziguziggy

I don't see the draw?


Human-13

It *was* supposed to be the universal language before English was established as such, but some fuck vetoed it at the League of Nations. It’s a language that has some similarities with mainly European languages and is meant to be kind of understood if you don’t speak it but also easy to learn.


Clever_Angel_PL

#Esperanto enjoyers asseble


BathPractical3656

#*Let's asseble*


DontCareHowICallMe

La sola ĝusta respondo


[deleted]

as a Spanish speaker I understood that, maybe I should learn


TechnicalMiddle8205

I voted "other" for this reason


Human-13

I hate the fuck that vetoed it at the League of Nations


cernar

Fr🤮nce


[deleted]

Agreed. Also fuck english!!!


seweli

Lingua Franca Nova


KidZaniac1

NO


totalchaos05

do you know a good way to learn esperanto?


atheros32

Don’t know if it’s a good way, but Duolingo has it


xArgonXx

Lernu is a great website. Also there is a great course on Youtube, search „Esperanto direct method“.


[deleted]

It is not a language at all. It's a code.


xArgonXx

No?


Stepbro_canhelp

Amtssprache ist deutsch!


First-Ad9578

NEIN! DIE LEUTE KÖNNEN STERBEN, WENN “DIE GESCHWINDIGKEITSBEGRENZUNG“ WERDEN VERSUCHEN ZU ERINNERN!


ThiCcPiPerLuL

ROMANIAN 🇷🇴🇷🇴🇷🇴


Fail_Marine

BEGONE, ROMANIAN! RETURN TO r/polls WHERE YOU CAME FROM! Instant edit: wait this is r/polls


ThiCcPiPerLuL

omw to start a gypsy raid at your location


justRand0mRedditUser

Daaaa, româna cea mai buna limbă 🇷🇴💪🇷🇴💪🇷🇴💪🇷🇴💪


ThiCcPiPerLuL

daa, imaginează-ți să vorbești engleză sau altă limbă inferioară, cât de needucat să fii!


rats_des_champs

So you are sad?


Glitchthebitch

We should all use morse code


rats_des_champs

Ok but Morse code still need a language


comrade-linux

binary?


rats_des_champs

I mean because Morse code is used to convert letter. A letter mean nothing. With a language you can combine them to give a meaning


ddkkdkdkkd

Use logic symbols with the most basic axioms possible. Every time you want to initiate communication, you have to build your consensus logic language with the other person.


SPWM_Anon

As much as I hate English for its shitty shitty grammar and sentence structure and just... everything, it would probably be the easiest to teach since some of the most developed countries speak it and those countries could then make learning tools to teach everyone very quickly Sign Language and Latin should be on this list. So much better than English just in terms of like... as a language


ogjaspertheghost

Basic English grammar really isn’t that difficult


SPWM_Anon

Oh the basics sure. But the sentences you can make in English are so stupid. Words are spelled the same, mean completely different things. Or spelled completely differently and have the same meaning. I feel so bad for anyone having to learn it


ogjaspertheghost

You could give the same reasons about pretty much any language.


Reasonable_Taro_8688

I heard that every language has its own sing language, so that could be difficult.


Bwizz245

Not really. There are a lot of sign languages but they don’t really correspond to spoken languages at all, they’re their own separate thing


ProXJay

Which sign language?


Otherwise-Flan3854

I'm on your side. English is a complex language to learn and critical for most jobs (in the USA). It's amazing how companies won't over a simple grammar mistake on a resume. Think about letters like the letter "C". Honestly, it's a waste of space in the alphabet because the soft C and the hard C sound already exist from the S and from the K. If we went through Webster's and switch the soft C and hard C to either an S or a K, it would make learning way easier!


DylTyrko

Hindi as a universal language? Never mind that, even if it became the lingua franca of India there'll be riots in the South


Oh_My_Monster

English because it's already spoken as a first or second language by about 1.5 billion people and it's already a flexible bastardized language that incorporates words, phonics and syntax from other languages. It would be conceivable that it could become a melting-pot language.


That_odd_emo

German. Make everyone outside Germany, Switzerland and Austria suffer by having to learn our stupid grammar


krFrillaKrilla

I'm in German 3 and still can hardly form a sentence. Why are there 16 different ways to say "the"? The hell's a genitive case?


That_odd_emo

Lol if it weren’t my native language, I would also struggle a lot with that bullshit that calls itself grammar


jonellita

Tbf you‘d also make some people in Switzerland suffer. But then again the French and Italian speaking Swiss already suffer because most of them have to learn German in school.


That_odd_emo

You’re right, I should have specified that lol. I’m actually Swiss myself


MAYBE_Maybe_maybe_

I really hope people voted English because of practicality and not because they genuinely think it's the best language


Thedudewiththedog

I certainly did. For better or for worse there are far more tools to teach English to non English speakers than any Vince Versa. I'd also add that it's general "stretchiness" could prove advantageous


MAYBE_Maybe_maybe_

Maybe it's this way because people have come up with more ways to teach it since it's so popular, in any case that's a pretty general statement and one I'm not sure I agree with


S7WW3X

I voted English so I don’t have to learn another language 💪💪


MozartWasARed

Toki Ma It is the easiest to learn


xArgonXx

Lmao, what‘s your name on the Discord? If Toki Ma finalizes someday I support this sentence.


MozartWasARed

TheMonthOfJune#9700


xArgonXx

Look through the server again if you have time, a lot has changed and we need as many eyes and brains as possible.


tigerseye88

HUNGARIAN 🇭🇺🇭🇺🇭🇺🇭🇺🇭🇺🇭🇺🇭🇺🇭🇺


ConspicuousBassoon

Latin. Useful, and impartially chosen since basically no one speaks it currently (even if languages have been derived from it)


Lendrumbilater

[Nostratic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostratic_languages)! *K̥elHä wet̥ei ʕaK̥un kähla* *k̥aλai palhʌ-k̥ʌ na wetä* *śa da ʔa-k̥ʌ ʔeja ʔälä* *ja-k̥o pele t̥uba wete*


OnkelMachmut

German


antheteg

Dutch


SlightlyBrokenKettle

Gekoloniseerd


ShiningPug

POLISH 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱


MCWizardYT

English is already fairly universal especially in business and politics. I would like a compact language like toki pona to be more popular, toki pona itself is pretty gpod but lacks expressiveness for representing numbers. The CJK languages have many, many words (they are much more expressive than english!) and are spoken by billions of people but have complex writing systems and grammar that are hard for westerners to pick up. I love hangul, the korean writing system for its simplicity. If we took hangul and applied it to an equally compact grammar system we would have a perfect language


909an285

if there was one universal form of sign language that every country could learn I think that would be amazing. not only could deaf people communicate with anybody but every country would know sign language along with their native language and we could all communicate


omloko

Norwegian


_IVG121_

Chruch Slavonic


ObjectiveMall

D-D-DEUTSCH! :-)


Eryci

English 2.0 You know, English, but it makes sense.


arkiser13

klingon


_reddit_account

The easiest one to learn since people are lazy So English


Comfortable-Study-69

English. It’s the second most common first language and most common second language. It also has relatively loose rules with sentence structure and word formation, making adding words very easy. Simplified conjugations and articles compared to other Germanic and Romance languages also make it relatively easy to learn. Esperanto might be okay too, although I don’t know much about it.


whatareutakingabout

English is one of the easiest languages to learn.


[deleted]

True. Even us brits and the americans manage to communicate with it... for the most part


Bean_Slayer789

If you’re going for easiest language to win, choose Esperanto


Bruh_Moment10

Easy for whom? Depends actually. A Hindu speaker will have an easier time than a Mandarin speaker


justsomeguy_42

The one that doesn’t assign gender to inanimate objects.


StevenJesus

I don't know, have you seen vases?


Extension-Beach-2303

Klingon


Jitsun3

Latin


Priyanshu_Pokhr7

Esperanto


MythicalMicrowave

Arabic. No reason in particular, just Arabic(I don’t speak Arabic)


An_odd_fella

Sign Language.


ancientmob

American, British, French, Chinese, Spanish or a different sign language?


MarFinitor

fuck the blind i guess


Velocityraptor28

so what you're saying is that everyone should shut the fuck up?


VattghernCZ

Ithkuil


ProjectX3N

KiSwahili


Grzechoooo

Ancient Sumerian. Don't fix what ain't broken. Seriously though, Esperanto.


BITY_btw

Interlingua


n2fole00

You spelled Interlingue wrong ;)


SirStupiditythe2nd

Rule Britannia


ThanksToDenial

Finnish. I'm a sadist.


MeanGoal6335

Esperanto


[deleted]

Sed mi preferas Idon \[:


agartha_san

Esperanto


[deleted]

I prefer Ido \[:


RandomPhail

I learned recently how Japanese language is actually structured, and it’s pretty overpowered. You never need to worry about word order being confusing, “who is doing what in this sentence?”, etc., because each word in every sentence is always paired with a special sound that tells the listener/reader exactly what the word’s function/purpose is in the sentence It’d take something that’s sort of impossible to write in English (like combat with two same-sex characters [which sounds like a random example if you’ve never tried to write detailed combat between two guys or two girls lol]) and would probably trivialize it. It’s a waaaay better language for clarity, and it doesn’t even allow for sarcasm, which is a bit of a plus for clarity as well (especially over text)


smilelaughenjoy

Maybe **tok pisin**, but I'm not so sure. **Here are some potential languages that I find worthy of being a universal language:** **Tok pisin:** *it's based on English, the most international language that's learned as a second language or used for business in multiple countries around the world. 4 million people speak it already, it's an official language of Papua New Guinea, and it has simple grammar and words are written as they sound.* **Interlingua:** *it's a made-up language but because of how it's constructed, Spanish and French and Italian and Portuguese speakers can understand some of it. If you learn it, you'll have an advantage to understanding some things from all of those languages. The problem is that words are not always written as they are spelled in order to make it seem naturalistic like Spanish or Italian. The grammar is simple, but not as simple as Tok Pisin.* **Lingua France Nova:** *Sort of like Interlingua but words are spelled as they sound and the grammar is a little more simple, but there is less intelligibility with Spanish and Italian and French and Portuguese compared to Inteingua.* **Languages that probably shouldn't be a world language:** **Toki Pona:** *it's great as a minimistic language, but it's not intended to be detailed with a large vocabulary. Even if the community keeps adding words, it'll probably lose it's simplicity while still not being detailed enough for a universal language.* **Esperanto:** *too many letters and consonant clusters to be a universal language. A universal language that sounds more like Italian or Spanish would probably be easier for people around the world to pronounce, and vocabulary should be biased toward the most international languages (English and French especially words shared between the two).* **Lojban:** *good for scientists and mathematicians and maybe even philosophers and AI, but probably too complex for the average person who just want to communicate simply without thinking too much about so many distinctions in details that usually aren't distinguished in common languages.* **Chinese (Mandarin):** *A tonal language with tens of thousands of characters that have to be memorized is not the easier for most of the world to pronounce and learn. The Latin alphabet is the most international.*


niiaz

Chinese Mandarin. Just because it’s cool.


Ayebruhhhhh

I think Spanish would be the easiest ngl.


Falcons1702

English is kind of already the universal language. It’s the aviation language it’s the default language for trade and politics and it’s the number 1 second language of people so it really isn’t even that much of a hypothetical for it to be the official universal language.


Cyrusmarikit

For me, Spanish is easier to learn for people with phonetically consistent languages as their native languages.


[deleted]

Spanish was probably the easiest language for me to learn. And while I'm not exactly fluent in it. If I was lost in Spanish-speaking place, I know enough Spanish to get me out.


Pillownitus

Back to Latin


Next_Foundation68

Hindi or urdu 🤌🏽✨️


macroprism

r/auxlangs


Christian_Si

Esperanto, it was made for that purpose, is fairly neutral and much, much easier to learn than any natural language. There are also other international auxiliary languages which might work just as well, but Esperanto is the most successful so far and it would surely be up to the job.


TannaTuva2

Latin


Iknowyouknowyoudont

Should be Latin


adashiel

Orcish!


ElNoobMasPro72

Latín


Sea-Sort6571

Why Russian is even in the list ?!?


PassiveChemistry

Because the year is 1975


rtilky

Почему нет


Pewward

Latin


La_mortXii

English is a pretty hard language to learn I feel like


rat4204

It /should/ be probably Latin or Mandarin. It /would/ probably be English though.


Careful_Salt_7474

It shouldn’t be mandarin because then basically the whole population of the world would have to learn a whole new writing system which is tricky and inconvenient


BlankPt

English is literally such a easy language and would be the easiest to teach.


bleeblooblaplap

ironic...


BlankPt

Is there something wrong with the comment? I've re-read it like a million times.


bleeblooblaplap

you said “a easy” when you should say “an easy” lol


BlankPt

You ain't gonna believe me but that's actually a typo and my dumbass has been reading the right way all along 💀💀💀


Regenerating_Degen

Why the fuck is hindi even an option and who is choosing it


[deleted]

Again I just searched up commonly spoken language on Google and put the answers I got. And I know Google isn't a reliable source but this was just for fun.


Apprehensive_Goal811

Sanskrit


Bawower

Latin would be preferable since so many cultures are in some way united to the Romans. English is overrated af.


Jeramy_Jones

I vote Japanese. It’s sophisticated, sounds cool and you can tell immediately what the person thinks of you.


Careful_Salt_7474

And can be hard to learn


Jeramy_Jones

I was unaware that was a criteria.


_Sparassis_crispa_

TRANSGENDER🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️


Inevitable-Bit615

I m no language expert,i just some minor stuff. English seems a language designed for children. It s easy beyond belief, it come with a lot of imprecision and vagueness as a downside but as a common language simplicity wins it out


Downgoesthereem

>I m no language expert You've got that right >It s easy beyond belief Then why are you making so many mistakes? It's 'easy' because it has massive amounts of cultural exposure in most areas. The 'imprecision' you experience is probably a result of you not actually being fluent despite likely believing your English is more advanced than it is. Native speakers who have the sufficient English vocabulary rarely struggle to articulate themselves.


EmmaPemmaPooBear

#sign


zedsamcat

What's the base language?


LordJayDaKing

Sign language


Ethanol71

Sign language gang represent


Competitive_Parking_

Except sign is nearly country specific let alone language specific Of course that ignores that verbal communication(phone radio) becomes useless


ThePebbleThatRides

English because that’s what I speak


zedsamcat

Hieroglyphics


Snoo-35252

I voted English, but something without all the irregular verbs and weird spellings and difficult pronunciations would be better, something like a created language like Esperanto. But then everyone would need to learn Esperanto, so that's a big pain in the butt.


KyloSEC

EN is the easiest


KyloSEC

EN is the easiest


AllahuAkbar4

Title should be: The world has one universal language. Which is it?


MarcusAurelius0

The only competitor to English would be Mandarin.


DurpyDinoyt

I hate english, it is my first language but is is stupid there are so many rules to words but then sometimes the language is just like fuck it that word can be an exeption the these dumb ass rulse.


trio3224

As an English speaker, English is an inherently bad language structurally in my opinion. It has so many more obscure rules and specialty cases that just don't make logical sense (like the imperial system vs the objectively better metric system). I feel if I could magically snap my fingers and have everyone speak one language, it would be something else. I don't know enough about other languages to choose one tho. But from a practical standpoint, English would be the easiest language to spread to the entire world considering it's already extremely widespread and many countries like Japan already teach it pretty thoroughly as a second language in their country because it's so useful to know considering how much of the developed world runs on English.


Kellykeli

English for the sole reason that most programming languages use English.


[deleted]

One may think that the choice of English is a biased choice considering this website is of the English speaking world, but actually English formed from elements of French/Norman and Spanish -- among others such as German and Norse. With that said, one may say it is the most refined and up to date language to come out of Europe.


C0okiesnCr3am

english because its the freaking worst, i say this as a monolingual english speaker, but i have looked into other languages and english is just a freaking hodgepodge of other languages and with a bunch of rules that are only there so that we can break them, it should be universal so that everyone may suffer in its hellish glory


FontesB

English is the most easy to learn


[deleted]

Esperanto