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

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

#211

Post by ktRolster » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

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…

The Illiad is doing just fine in the many different languages it has been translated into

I've never heard a translation that captures the rich rhythm of the original.

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

#212

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

khedoros wrote: post #154

thaumasiotes wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to your interpretation, it would be just as fair to say "it takes a few weeks of practice to be able to understand someone from the US, if you're from the US". I feel justified in not interpreting it that way.

If you're an American to whom general-audience American television doesn't make complete sense, and who misses many of the cultural references, then I'm quite relieved that I have a different interpretation. I've seen a fair amount of British TV, and I'm fairly comfortable with the idioms and vocabulary differences. Less so than American TV, but I think that's fair, since I'm not immersed in the culture. I've seen mu…

> I don't understand what is so controversial about the idea that other places use the language slightly differently, and it can take some time to become accustomed to the differences.

Nothing. What's controversial is equating "other places use the language slightly differently, and it can take some time to become accustomed to the differences" with "it takes a few weeks of practice to intelligibly [sic] understand someone from another place".

The first of those, yours, is a very weak claim. The second is a very strong one.

I said "this is dramatically overstated" and you're trying to contradict me by saying that a much weaker version of the claim is true. Yes, it is, that's what "overstated" means.

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

#213

Post by havefunwiththat » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

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…

If this was intended to be a troll post, it was very successful.

What you are advocating is, essentially, linguistic and cultural genocide. It's an appalling point of view.

In all seriousness, I would suggest you learn another language, or maybe several, and then revisit your perspective.

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

#214

Post by mablap » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #135

mablap wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process you describe is effectively translation. This works with natural languages as well.

The process I describe of installing a translation method in seconds, bringing about instant understanding, doesn't work with natural languages.

Just because it takes more time does not mean the process is fundamentally different.

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

#215

Post by mablap » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 4:32 PM 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…

What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Do you even speak another language than English? Millions of people each year have their graduate education on languages other than English and are doing fine. They do learn English for broad communication, but what you're implying is that they couldn't even think in their own language since it's inadequate.

I'm sorry to say but you're full of it if you believe what you wrote. It's an absurdity only someone who has never travelled or been exposed to the world could say.

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

#216

Post by mablap » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #181

pvaldes wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a modern scientific paper in classical Greek or Latin these days as the vocabulary just doesn't exist in these languages. Sure scientific papers borrow terms from other languages, but today you can really only write most papers in English - the required terminology and concepts are missing from most languages. There really is a world of ideas only accessible in English. As you rightly point out there…

    You can't write a modern scientific paper in classical
    Greek or Latin

You're comparing modern day English with languages that have died more than 1500 years ago. Your arguments are incoherent and suggest a serious lack of judgment.

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

#217

Post by derriz » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #191

sanoli wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You know that English only became a lingua franca in the 20th century? Before that, hardly anything of scientific significance was expressed or published in English? The seminal works in physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology were written in German, Latin, etc

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

#218

Post by khedoros » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #212

khedoros wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're an American to whom general-audience American television doesn't make complete sense, and who misses many of the cultural references, then I'm quite relieved that I have a different interpretation. I've seen a fair amount of British TV, and I'm fairly comfortable with the idioms and vocabulary differences. Less so than American TV, but I think that's fair, since I'm not immersed in the culture. I've seen mu…

> I don't understand what is so controversial about the idea that other places use the language slightly differently, and it can take some time to become accustomed to the differences. Nothing. What's controversial is equating "other places use the language slightly differently, and it can take some time to become accustomed to the differences" with "it takes a few weeks of practice to intelligibly [sic] understand s…

What I'm saying is that you took the strongest possible interpretation and knocked it down as a strawman. If there are several possible interpretations of someone's argument, and one of them is obviously flawed, then it's not very generous (or constructive, IMO) to attack the flawed interpretation.

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

#219

Post by coldtea » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #93

coldtea wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. We do something similar to that already. Kids make up their own lingo when playing, subgroups invent new slangs within a single language, areas make their own dialect, we invent new cultural languages (e.g. music ge…

>you really don't know what actual cultural diversity is // So a young nomadic Mongolian girl and I (UK, middle-age, male, working in craft/retail) don't represent different cultures because we can both speak English? Go on, explain, clearly I don't understand. Didn't you already explain that there were vastly different subcultures within the population of English language speakers? Don't you think there's more to cu…

>So a young nomadic Mongolian girl and I (UK, middle-age, male, working in craft/retail) don't represent different cultures because we can both speak English

If the Mongolian girl lives in Englang and speaks English as a first language (e.g. second generation immigrant), then obviously she is far less different culturally to you than a Mongolian girl that just arrived from Ulan Bator.

Cultures have degrees. Losing the language of your culture means you lose a lot of connection to it (can't anymore follow its arts and letters for one, or even casual conversations between people from that culture).

And after a few generations in a different country you're mostly a token X (where X your original culture), except if you (and your family) went to great pains to maintain the connection (the default is losing it).

>Didn't you already explain that there were vastly different subcultures within the population of English language speakers?

Vastly different cultures in arts/consumerism/urban lifestyle/etc, but not vastly different national cultures.

A 3rd-gen British Mongolian can be a spiky haired punk, something totally different from a 3rd-gen British Italian dubstep fan, but they're both hardly major representatives of Mongolian and Italian cultures.

>Don't you think there's more to culture than mutual unintelligibility?

Given that all culture is made into some language or another, and more especially in some national cultural context or another, then, yes, there is something more, but not much.

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

#220

Post by kazinator » Mon, Jul 04, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

mablap wrote: post #214

kazinator wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process I describe of installing a translation method in seconds, bringing about instant understanding, doesn't work with natural languages.

Just because it takes more time does not mean the process is fundamentally different.

Right, it's fundamentally different for other reasons. For one thing, no two "installations" of a natural language are identical. The natural language learning process isn't like loading a program into a machine, but a "reverse engineering": forming a refined set of hypotheses about what the rules are, from examples. Thus after years of learning, still no two competent, even native speakers will agree about all the fine points of what they learned.

By contrast, we can easily install the same version of a programming language interpreter/compiler and run-time onto countless machines and get the same behavior. The machines do not have to guess what the language is by forming hypotheses and testing them against more competent "speakers", to obtain either approval or correction. They just receive a ready-made software image.

In essence, a million installations of the same programming language are just manifestations of one image, whereas a million speakers of a language are individuals (not just as people, but as speakers of that language).

If people could receive a language as an image dumped into the brain, it would be a game-changer. It would still be a game changer even if it took five years to complete, rather than an hour. It would make fledgling languages more viable.

Because languages are hard to learn and even harder to learn very well, people tend not to be so interested in fledgling languages that can't be used outside of a small locale with a small number of speakers. Not as a second language, that's for sure.