When pride is the barrier, try Esperanto.

What do you think is holding you and I back from communicating with the world? Can't figure that out? It is the national pride.

It is the national pride of each country that its citizens must be proficient in the language of its mother tongue or that of the ruling party. Visit other countries and take a look at their sign boards. Most of the time you would not be able to read them because they are printed in the native language of the country. That can be very scary when you need directions and you cannot get them from the locals because neither share a common language to communicate.

Come to think of it, language barrier is not only scary, it can be frustrating and most likely the cause of many kind of disputes be it personal, cultural or political. Businesses in global trade or tourism could be retarded if not lost.

Don't let me scare you about your future if you are only able to communicate in your mother tongue. As I have said, all problems that you may encounter have been experienced by others before you and resolved.

And in this case, I discovered the solution from Brian Barker who commented on my post on "Mind Your Language - For Indians". Brian suggested picking up Esperanto as a common language.



I like the idea that you can learn it free at the following links:

http://esperanto.net/
http://en.lernu.net/

Will it be easy to learn? As its purpose is to make Esperanto a common second language of the world, (international auxiliary language), it is made up of words from:

1) Romance or Romanic or Neolatin languages that descend from Latin.
2) Germanic languages which cover English, German and other northern, western and central Europe speakers.
3) Slavic languages spoken in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.

Just give it a shot. You may find, to your advantage, that it is easier to learn other foreign languages after picking up Esperanto.