Si per computatrum in colloquium venis cum hominibus ex multibus civitatibus, saepe Anglice loqui necesse est. Sed non omnes homines modo per “Discord” aut alium modum Anglice loqui volunt. Alii linguam Anglicam non intellegunt aut fortasse credunt se Anglice loqui non posse. Alii loqui possunt sed non volunt. Solum linguam suam inter se loquuntur, fortasse Italice, Batave aut Francogallice. Sed plurimi homines linguam Italicam, Batavam, et Francogallicam non possident. Quoniam per computatrum Anglice loqui solent.
Tibi rogo: potesne priores sententias Latinas legere? Fortasse si linguam Latinam Graecamque studuisti in universitate. Si sententias meas intellegis sed dices mihi “nemo in colloquium Latine venit cum computatro”, ego tibi dico “non solum amicibus meis scribo Latine, sed etiam frequenter loquor cum eo per computatro et si theam bibimus in domo”.
Fortasse vis textum Anglicum? Si respondes “certissime!”, intelligas casum quem tibi scripsi.
Amica quia textum meum corrixi, eae gratias ago.
To any reader who insists on using different languages than English in multilingual servers, do you understand what I wrote above? If not, you get why people want only English in many chat servers. For you have none to little understanding of what I wrote and would want me to speak in English or another language you speak. If you understand or can translate Latin, you have understood my explanation of why we speak English online. And if you tell me nobody ever ever writes in Latin anymore, let me refer you to the Latin poems written by our current-day Hebrew philology lecturer Martin Baasten. And there are Youtube vlogs in Latin. But these are things people seek out, instead of it randomly appearing in our chats. So what about chat servers that are not for language nerds?
Why English?
McLuhan argues that we humans are shaped by our technology , whether we understand this technology or not. This, I argue, is also applicable to the language we use in our technology. Not knowing the language others use can discourage us from entering the online world and connecting over vast distances. This has effects for the size of our worlds, which can shrink or enlarge based on our knowledge of a community’s lingua franca. Add the group cohesion a common language provides in solely written communication and the pertinence of a common tongue becomes clear: if all understand the language spoken, the medium says “you belong”.
This idea of a community united by one language goes back a long time. As a Religious Studies major, I’d like to quote Genesis 11:5 and 11:9:
11:5-7: But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. “The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
11:0: “That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”
So I leave you with this. I , as an atheist, would implore you to listen to the advice the Bible gives on Genesis 11. Speak a language that allows you to communicate with everyone. All people involved willl benefit from better communication. And if you don’t, I just might reply in Latin.
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