perhaps this has happened in a way already. generally I've found that in business the language is english. for a personal example, whilst working in India, Korea, Israel (Aus/NZ/UK) all the business discussions have been in english. in each place the local engineers/business people speak in their own language or more often (eg India) in english. also numbers in these places use roman numerals also, so you can always read the numbers in different places. I come from Australian yet working for UK company background, and I imagine it's similar for the Americans/Canadians. I read that India will be the largest population of english speakers within a couple of years. I've seen plenty of notices for 'learn english now' schools/classes. and even people in the street stop to talk to you to practice their english. I find it strange that we're not encouraged/forced to learn hindi (or one of the many other dialects), or hebrew or korean, but that's the 'power' of the influential western countries I suppose in business (& the dollar). (I try to learn some during visits but I'm not that good with languages). even in daily life I've found most people speak some english.
so I think numbers are the universal language. but of course no one wants to use a string of numbers (or hex codes) to talk so it's not really a practical language for most people. also when you stay in places you pick up the local language or you can work out what people are talking about from gestures, where they are etc, so communication still happens even if you can't read or write or speak the local languages. you might miss out on things initially but if you're interested in the local culture and try & ask questions then I've found there's no problems at all. kath On 19/03/2008, Ron Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > If you posed an universal language of symbols, my guess is that a > majority of Americans would think it stupid and demand that all 6 > billion learned their language. > > > -- http://www.aliak.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
