Re: Aww, happy to oblige : )

In any case, being as you're apparently trying to get me to see something about linguistic diversity, but when someone provides a link in which the meaning isn't immediately obvious withouth giving any indication to what part of the link they are referencing, I tend to lose interest.

The Charter of the French Language (eventually by the way declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada) is the most encompassing modern project of socially engineering a monolingual space. Québec's first separatist government thought a monolingually French Québec would be quicker to declare independence from Canada and passed this law, aimed at once at Anglo-Quebeckers and third-language ethnic minorities (Italians, Chinese, etc...). It succeeded in raising the status of French, especially in business and higher education, and in increasing the number of young Anglo-Quebeckers and new migrants who took up French. It failed in weakening English and other languages and generated a social backlash inside and beyond Québec. I am accusing you and others of wanting to create a monoligual space, the deaf be damned...

...however, as your other paragraph makes clear:

But as per linguistic diversity, I think it bears simply mentioning that one* reason commonly givine as to how China remained somewhat unified, despite civil wars and other things that would usually tear a country apart, was the common language.

Unlike you, I do not see the unity of large spaces as countries, empires or civilisations as being good more than it is bad. I think the disadvantages of large units outweigh their benefits.

I *do* agree with you that the Chinese language is one great factor of China's unity - I won't discuss that. What is more, I'll throw back at you more instances of the same: Greek and the Hellenistic World; Latin and Western Europe (especially through the Middle Ages); Arabic and the Islamic World; even Sanskrit and India (notwithstanding the huge language variety of India); and of course, German and the Gross Deutsch space in the 19th century. But I don't think China's (or anyone specific's) unity is such a greater value that the means (language unity) is justified. I consider language diversity to be a greater positive, and multiplicity of spaces (Balkanisation if you want, meh) a greater value.