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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)

#191

Post by danieltillett »

sanoli wrote: post #189
danieltillett wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Out of the total number of human concepts that have ever been communicated, the majority are only available to English speakers. Wait, I'm not sure if I agree with the rest of your post, but this last sentence is surely an exaggeration, no? You mean over 50% of human concepts that were ever communicated are only available to english speakers?

Yes because so much of novel human knowledge is tied to science and technology. Sure there are millions of novels, movies, poems, etc in thousands of different languages, but the range of ideas contained within them is rather limited.

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

#192

Post by galactus »

greggman wrote: post #151
eropple wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is a good one, and that utilitarian idea that unilingualism is good because you can hire people is a claim borne of the kind of short-sighted technocracy that bedevils tech and tech culture. In the appendices of 1984, Orwell was speaking of conscious linguistic malformation to make it difficult to communicate concepts that the manipulators of Newspeak (née English) wished to stamp out. It's not better when…

Well another way to look at it. Japanese engineers get paid very poorly. If they spoke English they could easily leave the toxic Japanese work environment but they don't speak English or any other language so effectively they are prisoners of the only country that speaks their default language

I find it hard to believe Japanese engineers don't leave Japan because of the language. Perhaps most of them simply don't want to leave their country?

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

#193

Post by mchaver »

greggman wrote: post #151
eropple wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is a good one, and that utilitarian idea that unilingualism is good because you can hire people is a claim borne of the kind of short-sighted technocracy that bedevils tech and tech culture. In the appendices of 1984, Orwell was speaking of conscious linguistic malformation to make it difficult to communicate concepts that the manipulators of Newspeak (née English) wished to stamp out. It's not better when…

Well another way to look at it. Japanese engineers get paid very poorly. If they spoke English they could easily leave the toxic Japanese work environment but they don't speak English or any other language so effectively they are prisoners of the only country that speaks their default language

That is a big assumption. They would still need to get a work visa and have the desire to leave. There is a lot of culture at play as well, which would still be there if everyone in Japan was a native English speaker. English is certainly a valuable skill for traveling and moving abroad, but I hardly see Japanese people as trapped in their own country. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan there are 1.3 million Japanese citizens living abroad.

Unfortunately I could only find statistics information in Japanese.

http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/page22_000043.html

http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/000162700.pdf (page 11)

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

#194

Post by brc »

douche wrote: post #99
biswaroop wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey and Indonesia do not use Arabic for communication. There's an Arabic continuum, and Saudi Arabic is rather different from Moroccan Arabic. There are subtle cultural differences preserved in the diversity of language. England, Kenya, and India all speak English, but English is merely a common language, and a lot of cultural differences come from the linguistic diversity in each of those countries. Culture is a…

It takes a few weeks of practice to be able to intelligbly understand someone from India, Kenya, England, the US, or Australia, if you're from one of the others. Cadences and idioms are all off.

I think this is truer than most people realise.

We often modify our speech for the audience - put someone in a party situation where they are the odd one out and it will be harder for them to follow along.

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

#196

Post by Chris2048 »

zephyrfalcon wrote: post #37
Chris2048 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That's the MS way! ;-D

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

#197

Post by Chris2048 »

sp332 wrote: post #141
Chris2048 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

The moral argument is simply one of valuing equality. You don't deserve to have your chosen language canonized, and I don't deserve to have mine relegated to a cultural dustbin.

Valuing equality is valuing equality, not pretending it has virtues that it doesn't. Trying to trick people into doing something by misrepresenting it as beneficial is a sure way to lose trust, and the moral argument (respecting autonomy).

When did 'deserve' enter the argument? Do I deserve to have two arms and two legs?

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

#198

Post by thanatropism »

technomancy wrote: post #124
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. And all turing-complete programming languages are technically equivalent; what's your point?

Philosophy for one is full of untranslatable subtle distinctions.

German has "Seiendes" x "Sein". French has "l'étant x l'étre". English has just "being"; and then people think Heidegger is gibberish.

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

#199

Post by Chris2048 »

mablap wrote: post #29
Chris2048 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

True, but it's a burden on mods (read: dang) to have to make that distinction, are far easier, in this case, to self moderate. No problems in any case :-)

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

#200

Post by Chris2048 »

mablap wrote: post #33
Chris2048 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I suppose - although a language would probably die out if children couldn't learn it - or the unlearnable parts in any case.

The clause "with little effort" is not counteracted though - for a computer this represents a short download-and-install of a compiler/interpreter.

Even writing a compiler may take the same amount of time it takes to learn a language from scratch.

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