Language barrier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Language barrier is a figurative phrase for the difficulties faced when people who have no language in common attempt to communicate with each other. Typically, little communication occurs unless one or both parties learns a new language, a taxing and time-consuming prospect. People traveling abroad often encounter a language barrier. English speakers, in particular, sometimes visit European countries with insifficient preparation and are surprised to find that most local residents have little knowledge of English.
People who come to a new country at an adult age, when language learning is a cumbersome process, can have particular difficulty "overcoming the language barrier". Similar difficulties occur at multinational meetings, where translation services can be costly, hard to obtain, and prone to error.
Since the late 1800s, auxiliary languages have been available to help overcome the language barrier. These languages were traditionally written or constructed by a person or group. Originally, the idea was that two people who wanted to communicate could learn an auxiliary language with little difficulty and could use this language to speak or write to each other.
In the first half of the twentieth century, a second approach to auxiliary languages emerged: that there was no need to construct an auxiliary language, because the most widely spoken languages already had many words in common. These words could be developed into a simple language. People in many countries would understand this language when they read or heard it, because its words also occurred in their own languages.
This approach addressed a perceived limitation of the available auxiliary languages: the need to convince others to learn them before communication could take place. The newer auxiliary languages could also be used to learn ethnic languages quickly and to better understand one's own language.
Examples of traditional auxiliary languages, sometimes called schematic languages, are Esperanto, Ido, and Volapuk. Examples of the newer approach, sometimes called naturalistic languages, are Interlingua, Occidental, and Latino Sine Flexione. Only Esperanto and Interlingua are widely used today, although Ido is also in use.
