Instead of 6,000 languages, just one

If I were to say "doctor", many of you would instantly think of a person wearing a white coat. The words "astronaut" and "soldier" probably will have similar results. But what if I said "linguist"? What image comes to mind? None, for most people. Linguists are not the kind of people we see on the covers of fashion magazines, so we don't know what they look like. Actually, in real life, a linguist might look like this or this or this. Generally — and one should be careful making general statements — being a linguist is not a sexy job, so the profession doesn't attract people who look like Lady Gaga.

But then there's John McWhorter. He's a linguist and a lecturer in the Department of English at Columbia University in New York. He's also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think thank. And many people think that he's rather handsome.

The reason I like him has more to do with his politics than his looks. McWhorter is one of the few intellectuals who are not afraid to talk about race, and he is one of even fewer who call on black people in the US to replace what he calls "the cult of victimology" with a sense of purpose and pride in their communities. He's even politically incorrect enough to say that most hip-hop music is offensive and destructive.

 The Universality of English

McWhorter is in the news at the moment because of a wonderful essay he wrote for the current issue of World Affairs, titled "The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The Universality of English". In it, he asks, "Would it be inherently evil if there were not 6,000 spoken languages, but one?"

The title of the article, of course, tells us which "one" language John McWhorter believes it would be best to speak. Read the essay and then tell me if you think he's right or wrong.