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Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

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Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#21

Post by mablap »

ggreer wrote: post #14
mablap wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to stop speaking, reading, thinking, writing in English and use Mandarin? And what about the fact that some concepts and words are enunciated more succintly or clearly in different languages? I mean, you have the perfect example in front of you: why are there so many programming languages? Could it be that some language constructs are more difficult in one language vs the other? Why invent new program…

The reason we have lots of programming languages is because: 1. They're not that different. Once you've learned a few, picking up new ones is pretty easy. 2. They're much easier to learn than human languages. To answer your first question: I probably wouldn't stop using english myself, but I don't think I'd teach it to my children.

Have you read the article? The condition has to be stronger than simply not teaching it to your children. You have to absolutely and completely remove the worldview, cultural heritage, geographic knowledge etc that comes with it.

Thus to get my (and the article's) point, you need not just stop teaching it to children, you have to completely erase the underlying knowledge the language holds and start over in a new language. This is the point: you lose much more than what appears on first glance.

And concerning programming languages, I don't see how picking up brainfuck for example is easy, but someone still put the effort into creating it. Imagine a universe in which you'd have to solve every single programming problem in C. You could dream up all sorts of programming language concepts, but you could never use any other language than C. I bet you'd find that a bit boring and tedious...

Make no mistake, I'm not advocating for languages to keep their purity. I think it's a good thing they mix and borrow concepts and words. But I do find the idea of having one world language an utter absurdity.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#22

Post by jfaucett »

As much as I feel sad about losing so many amazing languages, these arguments are weak emotional appeals at best.

The only legitimate argument you can make for keeping minority languages around is to basically reframe the context and say your goal as a society is to promote cultural and linguistic diversity because society needs it more than it does a highly effecient raw information processing system.

As a programmer, when you think how much easier everything would be if there were only 1 OS, 1 Web Browser, 1 programming language, 1 data exchange format, 1 byte order, etc, etc. and then you think about languages its clear how much easier everything would be.

Of course, we have different OSes, Browsers, Image Editors, because they are all better at different things and we aren't one organism - we as humans have different needs & preferences - which we bring to the table everytime we choose from one of the zillions of different options available to us.

Its the same with languages, when you want to be amazed by poetic eloquence and the rhythm and rhyme of words you read Pablo Neruda in Spanish, when you want to delve into highly analytical thought processes you read anything by the German Think Tanks such as Freud, Marx, Nietsche, Gauss, in German. When you want to talk to a superior in a formal setting, you adapt a different tone, appearance and language, as opposed to when you are splurting out your particular workplace jargon with collegues. The list goes on and on virtually forever, its even the case that the language we speak i.e. English, Spanish or whatever it may be - is completely unique to ourselves like a fingerprint which can identify us from all the other people on the planet.

Social Scientists study these aspects of our humanity, believing they give us insight not only into how people function but also into the optimization of more subjective qualities of that functioning such as happiness, group behaviors, moral motivations, etc.

But why does society need diversity more than efficiency? Someone else can give that one a try :)

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#23

Post by Chris2048 »

mablap wrote: post #10
ggreer wrote: post #5

It's not a well-liked view, but I'm very glad that humanity is on the path to speaking only a few languages (or perhaps just one). If you disagree, consider this thought experiment: Imagine if the entire world spoke a single language. Would we ever want to invent new languages, making mutual communication harder? It would be silly. I do feel for the speakers of these dying tongues, but in the long run, this is a good…

Are you willing to stop speaking, reading, thinking, writing in English and use Mandarin? And what about the fact that some concepts and words are enunciated more succintly or clearly in different languages? I mean, you have the perfect example in front of you: why are there so many programming languages? Could it be that some language constructs are more difficult in one language vs the other? Why invent new program…

> Why invent new programming languages when you've got C?

The practicalities of PLs aren't at all like spoken natural languages. For one thing, all computers can run any PL with little effort.

Secondly:

> Are you willing to stop speaking, reading, thinking, writing in English and use Mandarin?

What the OP thinks is irrelevant, it's whether this would be desirable or not. It would also not be a "do this now" thing and more of "in years to come, humanity will do this".

I think mankind will one day set foot on mars, and this effort will be a good thing - this does not mean I should be willing to be put on a rocket today.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#24

Post by Chris2048 »

mablap wrote: post #21
ggreer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason we have lots of programming languages is because: 1. They're not that different. Once you've learned a few, picking up new ones is pretty easy. 2. They're much easier to learn than human languages. To answer your first question: I probably wouldn't stop using english myself, but I don't think I'd teach it to my children.

Have you read the article? The condition has to be stronger than simply not teaching it to your children. You have to absolutely and completely remove the worldview, cultural heritage, geographic knowledge etc that comes with it. Thus to get my (and the article's) point, you need not just stop teaching it to children, you have to completely erase the underlying knowledge the language holds and start over in a new lan…

> Have you read the article?

'Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."'

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#25

Post by Chris2048 »

jfaucett wrote: post #22

As much as I feel sad about losing so many amazing languages, these arguments are weak emotional appeals at best. The only legitimate argument you can make for keeping minority languages around is to basically reframe the context and say your goal as a society is to promote cultural and linguistic diversity because society needs it more than it does a highly effecient raw information processing system. As a programme…

> But why does society need diversity more than efficiency? Someone else can give that one a try :)

You'll soon find yourself in dangerous territory here.

The current mantra is diversity is not only morally good, but also actually beneficial - but the former shrinks to the latter whenever challenged, with an extra helping of bad-faith accusation...

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#26

Post by Animats »

mrob wrote: post #8
ggreer wrote: post #5

It's not a well-liked view, but I'm very glad that humanity is on the path to speaking only a few languages (or perhaps just one). If you disagree, consider this thought experiment: Imagine if the entire world spoke a single language. Would we ever want to invent new languages, making mutual communication harder? It would be silly. I do feel for the speakers of these dying tongues, but in the long run, this is a good…

We probably would invent new languages, or at least new dialects, to signal group membership. If somebody has made the effort to learn the language then they're probably serious about being part of the group. As a practical example, consider the revival of the Hebrew language, which happened mostly as an expression of Jewish identity. Strengthening group identity is the main motivation for preserving rare languages.

The maintenance of Yiddish is an extreme example. It's explicitly used to prevent ultra-orthodox Jews from "straying off the path" and joining the larger society.[1] In Israel, the ultra-orthodox speak Yiddish, not Hebrew, and often don't even know Hebrew.

This is the use of a dying tongue as a means of social control.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/off-the-path-of-orth...

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#27

Post by Chris2048 »

Kenji wrote: post #9

If computer scientists made similar emotional arguments: Save EBCDIC because diversity. No. Full stop. It's the adherents' of these cultures (speakers' of these languages) duty to compile and/or translate their cultural insights and knowledge. If they fail to do that - good bye, it probably wasn't that important, otherwise the culture or language would have been dominant.

No, it's not the same. The natural languages that "won" did so because of colonisation, not meritocracy - or should computer scientists compete by oppressing their competitors?

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#28

Post by avar »

lugus35 wrote: post #2

French is one of those dying tongues. In France we don't speak french anymore, we speak franglais, a mix of french and english words.

French is currently unique in that it's the previous lingua franca, so much so that the term for "world language" in English is a French term.

That French is now using loan words from English doesn't mean that it's dying. Have you tried to speak English without French / Latin / Norse loan words? Good luck.

It just means that French is like any other language now, aggressively borrowing from the current world language. Nothing wrong with that.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#29

Post by mablap »

Chris2048 wrote: post #24
mablap wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read the article? The condition has to be stronger than simply not teaching it to your children. You have to absolutely and completely remove the worldview, cultural heritage, geographic knowledge etc that comes with it. Thus to get my (and the article's) point, you need not just stop teaching it to children, you have to completely erase the underlying knowledge the language holds and start over in a new lan…

> Have you read the article? 'Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."' https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Noted. However I think the tone I used is different than what is given as an example. I was really asking the question, since depending on the answer, our disagreement would be on a different level.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#30

Post by DanBC »

ggreer wrote: post #5

It's not a well-liked view, but I'm very glad that humanity is on the path to speaking only a few languages (or perhaps just one). If you disagree, consider this thought experiment: Imagine if the entire world spoke a single language. Would we ever want to invent new languages, making mutual communication harder? It would be silly. I do feel for the speakers of these dying tongues, but in the long run, this is a good…

Like, if we all spoke English?

glesga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xan2xU-ZFic

Irish "What's filim?" https://youtu.be/UJ1Akr-UBis?t=57s

Geordie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4TT3VtR8o

120 miles from Glasgow to Newcastle. 250 miles from Glasgow to Westport, Ireland.

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