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| Loss of Language | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 19 2009, 08:56 PM (733 Views) | |
| Quagmire | Feb 19 2009, 08:56 PM Post #1 |
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Senior Carp
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I was hearing on NPR this evening that there's concern over languages becoming extinct. There's roughly 6000 languages spoken in the world. About a third of them are spoken by only a handful of people. There's a movement to get gov't action involved as the only way to preserve these dying languages. The fear is tragic loss of culture, folklore, history, etc. that would disappear along with these languages. When I first heard this, my gut response was: oh geez gimme a break, gov't intervention? shees! But upon further reflection, I'm not sure. I've always thought that species becoming extinct was part of the natural order (like living things dying) and artificially preserving them could disrupt the larger order. You think language could be the same? Is saving dying languages always good? Or could it upset a higher order not apparent to us. Is the benefit from saving them enough to justify government spending? If there's only a handful of people speaking them, arent they already virtually removed from the mix? Wuddya think? |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 19 2009, 09:06 PM Post #2 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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We seem to have survived the loss of Assyrian and Hittite and Old Icelandic without any noticeable adverse effects. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Quagmire | Feb 19 2009, 09:11 PM Post #3 |
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Senior Carp
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I'd say some people around here speak this quite fluently. |
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| Horace | Feb 19 2009, 09:13 PM Post #4 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I don't have an informed opinion and unfortunately in this case, the people with the most informed opinions, those who study languages for a living, would be most prone to giving biased self serving answers as to whether we should spend gov't resources preserving languages just by virtue of their rarity. I'd give it a trial run, take some random small subset of those dying languages spoken by a handful of people and let the language huggers wring them dry of everything of any possible cultural significance. Then present a report to some objective observers and ask if "more of this sort of stuff" is worth preserving. I would guess the answer from those objective observers would be "no" but maybe not! |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| NAK | Feb 19 2009, 09:17 PM Post #5 |
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Senior Carp
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I think a loss of language is a step in the right direction. The sooner we all share a common tongue, the sooner we'll get back to work on the Tower of Babel. |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 19 2009, 09:17 PM Post #6 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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As well as Cretan. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| jgoo | Feb 19 2009, 09:20 PM Post #7 |
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Administrator
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And then have to go through multiple languages all over again! A vicious cycle!
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| Quagmire | Feb 19 2009, 09:23 PM Post #8 |
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Senior Carp
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How about possible benefits to letting them die. As NAK suggests half sarcastically, but perhaps not without merit. Languages evolve, so lets use the genetic metaphor. Genes selected against are removed from the mix, and for good reason. Could keeping obsolete languages around allow an influence that could be counterproductive to the evolution of language? Toward a more fit linguistic order, whatever that may mean. |
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| Quagmire | Feb 19 2009, 09:28 PM Post #9 |
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Senior Carp
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Thats so Gaelic. |
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| Horace | Feb 19 2009, 09:30 PM Post #10 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I think the number of people who actually speak those languages will dwindle to zero in their own time regardless of this intervention. I took the intervention to mean a study and capture of the language in some academic form, where it would sit on some dusty shelf and maybe be available to future scholars. Surely if there was only one language, say english, there would be a huge amount to learn if we met an alien species who spoke/wrote chinese. Language is so linked to how we think, there is a ton to learn about some important stuff by studying it and the different ways it can evolve. But the amount that can be learned from these languages spoken by a handful of people is probably much much lower than my theoretical example. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 19 2009, 09:43 PM Post #11 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Ge'ez that's a bad pun. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Phlebas | Feb 19 2009, 09:44 PM Post #12 |
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Bull-Carp
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I hope we never lose the click languages. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1w |
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Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D | |
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| JBryan | Feb 20 2009, 05:03 AM Post #13 |
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I am the grey one
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I heard something like that coming from under my car while I was driving the other day. Maybe I ran over one of these people. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| Mikhailoh | Feb 20 2009, 05:19 AM Post #14 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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It'll all come out in the Welsh. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| VPG | Feb 20 2009, 05:25 AM Post #15 |
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Pisa-Carp
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"As well as Cretan" Funny the language died but every where you look you see Cretans. (mostly in Congress) |
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I'M NOT YELLING.........I'M ITALIAN...........THAT'S HOW WE TALK! "People say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look." Ronald Reagan, Inaugural, 1971 | |
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| Mikhailoh | Feb 20 2009, 05:26 AM Post #16 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Language is a tool like any other. For that matter so is culture. There have been far more that have risen and fallen over teh centuries. The USA's own language English has greatly evolved over our lifetime, and is largely unrecognizable from what it was 1000 years ago. I don't see the big deal. record them for history's sake, sure. But try to preserve them in use? That's just silly. They are just antiques. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| TomK | Feb 20 2009, 05:32 AM Post #17 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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It's all Bush's fault anyway. Globalization, New World Order, he was planning this all along. |
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| JBryan | Feb 20 2009, 05:33 AM Post #18 |
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I am the grey one
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You mean we will some day be all talking like him? |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| Klaus | Feb 20 2009, 05:43 AM Post #19 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Languages are not just a tool for communication, in my opinion, but to a great deal a reflection of the culture and mentality of the native speakers. I guess if it is your own language, you won't notice this, but as the example I know best I find it quite remarkable how many typical American character traits are reflected in American-English usage. Hence if a language gets forgotten, it is not just the death of a grammar and dictionary, but also the end of the preservation of a culture that is reflected in that language. That said, there is little one can do about those languages that are only spoken by a handful people. There is a lot that can be done for more common languages, though. For example, many German schools offer courses in local dialects of German. On a more global scale, it is also useful to have mandatory 3rd or even 4th foreign languages at school - which relieves the pressure to have only one global language. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| Mikhailoh | Feb 20 2009, 05:45 AM Post #20 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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We're a long way from a global language. But we'll likely get there someday. Language is constantly evolving as is culture. To try to fight that inevitable tide is, IMO, folly. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Feb 20 2009, 05:50 AM Post #21 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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I agree with you about language but not about culture. It's not always a bad thing to try and hang on to old traditions. (Not always good either but you get my meaning.) |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| Mikhailoh | Feb 20 2009, 05:57 AM Post #22 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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I do. But what mechanisms do you set up to maintain ones that seem to be naturally fading away? I think culture change has kept pace with technological change, and will continue to change quickly. Unlike scores of generations, we can also increasingly see beyond our own environs. Changes from one culture to another are far more quickly adapted, leading to a homogenization. If old ways are falling by the wayside, is that necessarily bad, and how do you prevent it without enforcing anachronisms? |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Feb 20 2009, 06:21 AM Post #23 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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Family and communities.
It's not necessarily bad, but it is if the cultural traditions that are being lost have something of merit to give an individual. To me it's a fine line between integrating yourself with your surrounding culture, and holding on to your own cultural history. I don't think this is something the government should have any hand in of course, but I would hope that families and communities understand the importance of this balance and work to keep it stable. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| Klaus | Feb 20 2009, 06:45 AM Post #24 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I don't think we are very far away from a global language. In most branches of science we already have a global language: English. This is likely to have a wideranging impact. In advertisements, more and more English creeps into the language. I work at a university in Denmark, and guess what language a majority of courses is in: English. I few years ago I worked for a big German electronics company, and the department I worked in had just renamed itself from "Zentralabteilung Technik" to "Corporate technology". In advertisements etc. one might argue that it is a fashion thing (just as French was fashionable 100 years ago), but I believe that the fact that English is nowadays the language of science will have wide-ranging impact. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| Phlebas | Feb 20 2009, 06:58 AM Post #25 |
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Bull-Carp
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Well, shoot! That doesn't make any sense at all. |
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Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D | |
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