Government and language

Spain speaks Spanish, Germany speaks German, and Greece speaks Greek. In many ways, countries are defined by the language their people speak. Many nationalist movements in Europe originated out of a desire to carve out an independent nation for a group of people who spoke a common language. For example, Greece was formed after a nationalistic revolution to break away from the Ottomans who spoke Arabic and Turkish. Currently, Russian president Vladimir Putin has justified his invasion of Ukraine as protecting Russian speakers. 

In other cases, governments have tried to push certain languages as a “national language” to unite a state. The Philippines has over 175 languages spoken in the country by various ethnic groups. With the creation of the Commonwealth of Philippines in 1935, the Filipino government, looking to reduce dependence on colonial languages such as Spanish or English, established Tagalog/Pilipino as the national language as it was the most widely spoken ethnic language. However, even to this day, there is resistance from Cebuanos who had not accepted the selection.  

Another example of this is Hebrew which ceased to be a regular spoken language around 500 BCE. It survived solely as a language of liturgy for Judaisim and commerce between Jews. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century and the creation of Israel in the 20th century, Hebrew was revived with the help of the government as a national language, and impressively 90% of Israeli Jews can speak it.

In the olden days, it made practical sense to have all citizens of a nation speak a common language. However, in today's age, the need for a single language has come into question, thanks to the advent of advanced translation technology. Today, real-time translation services, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, can seamlessly bridge the gap between different languages. Perhaps there’s no longer a need for a national language for a country to be unified anymore.