Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014) • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by jackarg » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:36 AM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #163

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…

+1. Yes, cultural diversity is good. But we have plenty of ways to have that without needing 1000 languages : - art; - food; - social constructs; - city organisations; - and slang if you really want your tongue to be part of it. We don't need to spend time and energy to save old ways of communication. Let's us it to make communication better now. What's more, anything that live eventually dies, which is something we…

You would willingly give up the french language if asked to and replace it with english? As a french person too, this is inconceivable for me. I don't think cultural identity is really possible without languages. French culture would not be the same french culture if everyone spoke English.

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

#172

Post by takshak » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:36 AM UTC

A language carries its philosophy inside the words. Not all philosophical concept can be easily translated in other language. Take a Hindi/Sanskrit word "Aatma/Ātman" for example, it is translated into english as "soul". But it is wrong translation as plant, animal don't have "soul", while even bacteria have "Aatma/Ātman". If Sankrit is lost then the concept of "Ātman" will also be lost.

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

#173

Post by jugbandjames » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:41 AM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #163

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…

+1. Yes, cultural diversity is good. But we have plenty of ways to have that without needing 1000 languages : - art; - food; - social constructs; - city organisations; - and slang if you really want your tongue to be part of it. We don't need to spend time and energy to save old ways of communication. Let's us it to make communication better now. What's more, anything that live eventually dies, which is something we…

It's not always that "natural" of a selection. Many native Americans were basically kidnapped and forced to learn English. Governments in the past have intentionally tried to eradicate languages with the mistaken belief that one language is superior and more communicative and another is barbaric or degenerative. This still happens in the form of dialect prejudice, which is institutionalized in the American public school system. People tend to project their prejudice towards a particular group of people onto their language. This has been proven many times with dialect perception experiments. I think we have an obligation to preserve cultures and languages that have been eradicated due to ignorance and prejudice, and we need to learn from the past and stop trying to enforce linguistic standards in school. If a single homogenous language is necessary, it should emerge naturally.

Having said that, languages do die naturally for socioeconomic reasons too, and I agree that it's unnecessary, and probably harmful to try to force people to use a language that they have no socioeconomic incentive to use.

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

#174

Post by proteinbased » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:44 AM UTC

drauh wrote: post #108

sanoli wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually, the people who espouse such views are never the speakers of dying tongues. I'm not saying your view is the wrong one, or that it isn't rational. The sentence in the beginning of my post was spoken by an anthropologist who studied a tribe who was losing its language, and yet didn't completely grasp the other, mainstream language, fully. I never forgot that sentence. The youths of the tribe, he said, were in a…

Additionally, there is a richness of thought and experience that other languages bring to the human experience. Just google for "untranslateable words that should exist in English" or something similar. Not to mention that even computer languages have a similar quality: different languages allow one to think about things in different ways. How much would computer science suck if the only language available was Fortra…

I'm not so sure about the richness, though I get your point. (I recently pondered about the german word "jenseits" not in the sense of heaven, which it may mean, but rather as a pompous form of beyond).

I agree with the FORTRAN 77 part. But this is a misleading example. This "small" language has a very specific audience in scientists and engineers (not even computer engineers). I think the point the top comment makes assumes we all wrote something like python with C and FORTRAN extensions used when appropriate.

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

#175

Post by TheHexagon » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:45 AM UTC

A quote that I love regarding this:

 “Every  language  is  an  old-growth  forest  of  the  mind, a  water shed  of  thought,  an  ecosystem  of  spiritual  possibilities.”

In  one  or  other  old‐growth  forest  of  the  mind,  we  need  to  watch  the  trees  grow. 

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

#176

Post by danieltillett » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:49 AM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #166

danieltillett wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that you can’t in principle express any concept in any other language, just that in most cases the vocabulary doesn’t exist in that language. In Newton’s time it was not possible to write most scientific papers in English as English lacked the required terms and concepts (everyone wrote in Latin). For a whole series of historical reasons English has become the international language of science resulting in…

> just that in most cases the vocabulary doesn’t exist in that language. Again you keep insisting that certain vocabulary doesn't exist in other languages, right after I provided some examples of vocabulary that do/did not exist in English! If a language decides to incorporate, say, "science" into its vocabulary, does that make it any more limited than English when English itself took the word from French/Latin? The…

I think you have missed my point. On your final point I don't think the world would be be an insanely dull and boring place with just one language. It would be a different world, but not dull.

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

#177

Post by philh » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:50 AM UTC

chousuke wrote: post #16

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…

From an utilitarian viewpoint, sharing a single, global language is probably useful. but I feel that such a world would likely also suffer from less variety in culture and viewpoints. Languages tend to accommodate the way of thinking prevalent in the cultures that speak it, and vice versa the language also shapes the speakers. To learn another language as a non-native speaker, especially one that is sufficiently diff…

> Before reading the article, had you ever considered that there might exist a word describing exactly why cat videos are popular?

I feel like that word is pretty close to "squee".

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

#178

Post by pvaldes » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:52 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #156

mablap wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Please provide examples to support your baseless claim.

Pick any scientific paper at random. No other language other than English has the terms and concepts required to write the paper - you can’t translate most scientific papers into another language since the complete set of terms and concepts don’t exist in any other languages. It is not that you can’t write scientific papers in other languages (many are written in other languages), just that we have settled on English…

Well, paraphrasing your post...

Pick any scientific paper related with biodiversity at random. No other language other than latin (or maybe greek) has the terms and concepts required to write it - you can’t translate Oegopsida or Metasequoia glyptostroboides (Taxodiaceae: Conipherophytina) into english, or another language since the complete set of terms and concepts don’t exist in any other languages.

It is not that you can’t write scientific papers in other languages (lots of basic concepts in chemistry or physics developped between 17th and 19th centuries were written and expressed in french and deutsch without any effort), in fact you must use other languages. Consider writing the main parts of your work using math language. There is not much scientific articles or technical ideas developped exclusively in pure english.

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

#179

Post by danieltillett » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 9:55 AM UTC

swang wrote: post #165

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…

> I have yet to come across any concept in any human language that can’t be expressed in English. Well, no shit? The only language you speak is English. Any concepts that are foreign or difficult to explain in English would probably be out of your realm of understanding.

You don't know what languages I speak (other than English of course), but this is irrelevant. It is not if I can find a concept that can not be expressed in English, but if anyone I speak to can come up with one. Do you know of any?

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

#180

Post by tonyjstark » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 10:00 AM UTC

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…

I have to disagree here. Maybe 'Glück' has more than one meaning (happiness and luck) but you also have particular words for happiness like 'Fröhlichkeit'. Of course in a day to day context you would not use all those different words but still I think German can be used as a language to describe things very precise.

As a native speaker of German I feel often more comfortable to advertise products in English but that is probably because I'm so used to English advertisements and I'm not so exposed to that particular vocabulary in German (or maybe German is too precise to really shine in advertisements). I don't think I could translate an Apple keynote into German and still sounding so 'magical'.

Maybe there are some words you can't translate literally or they don't sound as nice (contrarian: Querdenker, Nonkonformist) still you would miss other awesome things like the German way to combine nouns to infinite length.