Linguist and political commentator John McWhorter questions whether it would be “inherently evil” (2009, 67–68) if the world was reduced to a single spoken language. He suggests that language death is really just “a symptom of people coming together” (ibid). While McWhorter represents a minority position, his question forces us to critically evaluate the value of language. (219)
McWhorter, John. “The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The Universality of English.” World Affairs 172, no. 2 (2009): 61 - 68. https://doi.org/10.3200/WAFS.172.2.61-68.
If we imagine language to form at a basic level within a community as people interpret their reality, we begin to understand how language loss means losing the space for ways of thinking “which are idiomatic to that language” (Shank Lauwo 2019, 88). (221)
Shank Lauwo, Monica. “Ubuntu Translanguaging and Social Justice.” In Language and Social Justice in Practice, edited by Netta Avineri, Laura R. Graham, Eric J. Johnson, Robin Conley Riner, and Jonathan Rosa. New York, NY: Routledge, 2019: 88–96.
As George Steiner observed, every “language maps the world differently”, thus when “a language dies, a possible world dies with it” (1998, xiv). (221)
Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998.
Church historian Neal Blough argues convincingly that in the context of the imperial project of Babel, the common language was not about communication, but was “an attempt to impose a universal point of view and way of speech upon humanity” (2002, para. 10). (223)
Blough, Neal. “From the Tower of Babel to the Peace of Jesus Christ: Christological, Ecclesiological and Missiological Foundations for Peacemaking.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 76, No. 1 (2002).
God’s response, rather than inflicting linguistic diversity upon humanity as a curse, may rather be seen as a gracious restoration of the right order (Yoder 1997, 62–63) — allowing language to form and be formed by our unique experiences rather than through “enforced uniformity” (ibid, 63) (whether that “enforcement” comes from heaven or earth). (223)
Yoder, John Howard. For the Nations: Essays Evangelical and Public. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1997.