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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)

#31

Post by miguelrochefort »

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.

Quebec is trying to save French through some crazy laws:

- You can't have a company whose name isn't French.

- The company I work for had to replace all keyboards by French keyboards, had to switch to an HR software available in French, had to switch all OSes to French, had to put French stickers on the microwave oven, etc.

- I can't send my kid to an English school if I haven't been to one myself.

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

#32

Post by Kenji »

mablap wrote: post #15
Kenji wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am willing to give up my language in favour of a world language - in fact, I have already done that. I think in English. I write all my poetry, stories and dreams in English, I only communicate in that language unless it's with family or coworkers. I pretty much gave up on my native language. I feel like English is superior in many ways because it has words that my language does not, which forces me to describe awk…

Erm, Tillich could have chosen a better example: in French you also have isolement and solitude.

I think Tillich wanted to make a point about solitude and loneliness, not the superiority of English. I find his point interesting in both contexts.

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

#33

Post by mablap »

Chris2048 wrote: post #23
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…

> 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…

    For one thing, all computers can run any PL with little effort.
A counter example to this is that any children can be taught any language. The fact that an adult can't learn new languages as easily speaks more to the architecture of the computer (brain) than to its capacity to run various languages.

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

#34

Post by stretchwithme »

Our awareness of language diversity is artificial. It only exists because of the same forces that are reducing it: modern communications and transportation.

Most languages will be fully understood by artificial intelligence soon enough. Anybody that wants to learn them 1000 years from now will be able to.

And once we enhance our own brains with technology, people will be inventing new languages with ease. And integrating the unique features of old ones.

There are probably millions of languages throughout the universe. We may not be the only species that uses language on Earth either.

We are really just at the beginning of discovering language diversity.

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

#35

Post by freyfogle »

lugus35 wrote: post #6
youngbullind wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in England we speak a mix of English and French words. Have done since around 1066.

It's a problem of speed of changes, old people can't have a true discussion to young people anymore.

This is nothing unique to French, it is just the generational evolution of language. Listen to a news report in any language from the 1920s. It is vastly different in tone, style, vocabulary and possibly accent than a news report today. Change is the only constant.

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

#37

Post by zephyrfalcon »

Chris2048 wrote: post #27
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?

You have a point, although technologies don't necessarily win because of merit either. In fact, they often don't...

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

#38

Post by jvanloov »

Kenji wrote: post #13
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…

I am willing to give up my language in favour of a world language - in fact, I have already done that. I think in English. I write all my poetry, stories and dreams in English, I only communicate in that language unless it's with family or coworkers. I pretty much gave up on my native language. I feel like English is superior in many ways because it has words that my language does not, which forces me to describe awk…

English has these words that your language does not, because it borrowed heavily from several other languages in the past. Having only one language would kill off that source for diversity.

Dutch also has one word for happiness and luck ("geluk"), although in Flanders you can use "chance" to express "luck" specifically (borrowed from French).

In some ways, English allows for more specificity compared to German, but the reverse is also true.

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

#39

Post by Rexxar »

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.

And half of this English words are used completely differently than in English or even don't exist in English (parking, shampooing used as names for example)

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

#40

Post by wvenable »

freyfogle wrote: post #19
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…

yes, of course we would invent new languages. We do this continually. In any big language there are many different dialects. This is a way to signal group identity. Over time they become new languages. Latin becomes French, Spanish, Romanian, etc. If you disagree why do you not speak your English with a (choose those that don't apply:) English / southern / Indian / Scottish / Irish / South African / Jamaican / New En…

This is still somewhat historical. Latin becoming French, Spanish, Romanian, and all accents are all a product of geography. France, Spain, Romania, etc. It's not group entity, it's location identity. But the generations aren't separated by geography anymore.

Well there may well be intellectual advantages for multilingualism, different unilingualism typically just leads to conflict.

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