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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)

#111

Post by miguelrochefort »

jeromegv wrote: post #66
miguelrochefort wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

- You can't have a company whose name isn't French. That's much more nuanced than that. See article: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-cracks-down-... - 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. It's about having the language of the…

No, the French police forced us to made these changes.

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

#112

Post by sanoli »

danieltillett wrote: post #100
Razengan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the view of someone who has never been exposed to more than one language. If one were to try applying that idea to programming languages, they would get laughed off HackerNews. They'd be told to just "pick the right tool for the job." Perhaps you meant that we should only have a few or one dialects of each [major] language, which is more reasonable. No one language, or any system of communicating int…

I have yet to come across any concept in any human language that can’t be expressed in English. Sure in some languages some concept can be expressed more subtly or poetically, but the concept can be expressed provided the assumed knowledge is present. It is the lack of assumed cultural knowledge that prevents these Japanese expressions from making sense in English, not that they can’t be expressed in English in princ…

Sure, you can express pretty much any concept from a foreign language in English, and vice-versa if the language is thorough enough. What you lose is the power and conciseness that comes from having a single word expressing a concept that would take 10 or 18 words to be correctly expressd in English. I have memorized a few interesting ones in some languages: 'Litost' (czech), 'Prozvonit' (czech also),'Tartle'(scottish), 'Mamihlapinatapei' (an idiom from Tierra del Fuego), 'Ya’aburnee' (arabic), and my own language's 'saudade', which to some is just translated as 'longing for something you have lost', but is, for native speakers, of course, something else.

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

#113

Post by DonaldFisk »

wolfgke wrote: post #91
DonaldFisk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandarin Chinese does much the same as German. English prefers to borrow words from other languages. Curiously, it has borrowed hardly any words from Mandarin Chinese.

> English prefers to borrow words from other languages. Curiously, it has borrowed hardly any words from Mandarin Chinese. Besides that there had been much less contact between English speaking countries and China than to, say, German, French or Spanish speaking countries (at least until the Chinese economy began to boom) there is another reason that I can imagine. Since the Chinese dialects/languages are tonal langu…

Yes, probably down to historical lack of contact. I don't think that tones are part of the reason. There has been somewhat more borrowing from Cantonese into English, e.g. ketchup, dimsum, kumquat, and cheongsam, and substantial borrowing from Chinese into Japanese and Korean. The tones are simply dropped.

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

#114

Post by danieltillett »

sanoli wrote: post #112
danieltillett wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to come across any concept in any human language that can’t be expressed in English. Sure in some languages some concept can be expressed more subtly or poetically, but the concept can be expressed provided the assumed knowledge is present. It is the lack of assumed cultural knowledge that prevents these Japanese expressions from making sense in English, not that they can’t be expressed in English in princ…

Sure, you can express pretty much any concept from a foreign language in English, and vice-versa if the language is thorough enough. What you lose is the power and conciseness that comes from having a single word expressing a concept that would take 10 or 18 words to be correctly expressd in English. I have memorized a few interesting ones in some languages: 'Litost' (czech), 'Prozvonit' (czech also),'Tartle'(scottis…

English is very interesting in that if a word makes sense to use (rather than a phrase) then English will borrow that word without hesitation.

Actually because the language of science and technology is English there are lots of concepts that can’t be expressed in any other language. Sure any emotion a human can feel can be expressed in any language, but most higher level scientific concepts can’t be expressed in any language other than English. Out of the total number of human concepts that have ever been communicated, the majority are only available to English speakers.

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

#115

Post by jlg23 »

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…

> Imagine if the entire world spoke a single language. Would we ever want to invent new languages [...]?

First: Very few languages are invented but a lot of individual languages fragment over time - the more widespread they are, the more they fragment[1]. Sranan Tongo[2] and Papiamentu[3] are two nice examples of new languages that were quite recently created by speakers of some dominant language. Influences mix, people adapt words from languages spoken nearby or just make up their own words and they stick.

Second: Wittgenstein said that "the limits of my language are the limits of my world". Different languages allow us to think different concepts. Trying to translate something from one language into another that does not have a 1:1 translation is usually a very thought-provoking thing for me and forces me to reflect on my own culture. Great examples are the Japanese "tsundoku" (pile of unread books [4]) or the German "Feierabend" (the time after finishing work for the day).

In summary: I think the desire to have one "global" language is only a technocrat's unrealistic dream and its pursuit would be the attempt to streamline thinking at the expense of everyone's culture and philosophical potentials. Rather, at least superficially, learn a few more languages.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1580745/English-will-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sranan_Tongo

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papiamento

[4] http://www.openculture.com/2014/07/tsundoku-should-enter-the...

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

#116

Post by cmrdporcupine »

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…

It's an interesting thought that under the Romans (vulgar) Latin displaced a whole variety of Celtic and Germanic languages in France, Spain, and Belgium. Like, within a couple hundred years of the Roman conquest of Gaul the Gaulish language, and its culture, were extinct.

Anglo-American-Capitalist dominance is performing similar functions today.

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

#118

Post by loblollyboy »

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…

I am learning Russian and was just thinking the same thing. That said, I think that the differences between Russian and English lead to a different way of seeing the world (you think in your language, and some ideas that are easy to convey in one language might be harder in another. That said, the vast majority of ideas will be easily expressed in any (universal). I think English is pretty sweet but wouldn't want to have to learn it.

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

#119

Post by beloch »

gkya wrote: post #89
beloch wrote: post #72

"What’s more, languages are conduits of human heritage. Writing is a relatively recent development in our history (written systems currently exist for only about one-third of the world’s languages), so language itself is often the only way to convey a community’s songs, stories and poems. The Iliad was an oral story before it was written, as was The Odyssey. “How many other traditions are out there in the world that…

Off-topic: Why are code blocks are used for quotes by many people here? They just scroll horizontally forever and are a burden to read.

When you're quoting a fair bit of stuff, it gets hard to tell what is quote and what is not. I'd love it if there was a
equivalent.
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