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How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#41

Post by jotm »

tokenizer wrote: post #29
tokenadult wrote: post #13

The interesting article kindly submitted here reports: "His finding: Less than five percent of languages in use now exist online. "Much of that gap can be attributed to the fact that the languages people use vary widely, in terms of scale and geography." Well, yes, little-used languages, and especially languages with small numbers of speakers that are also geographically limited to places with limited provision of th…

> If diversity in language diminishes a little bit, while humankind enjoys better health, longer lifespans,[1] and other benefits of increasing worldwide prosperity, I will feel wistful about that, because I am curious about all world languages, but people should be at liberty to decide what languages they use, and when. And who's to say that having less languages in the world is a bad thing? I mean, from a cursory v…

No, having less languages is not bad - far from it. Even the Bible (which I think is a rather useless relic of the past) says that multiple languages were made to stop people from working with each other and reach heaven.

Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#43

Post by gcp »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #23
mullingitover wrote: post #6

Another way of titling this would be, "How the internet is uniting humanity." Languages are tools for communication, and while it's sad from an anthropological/historical perspective to be losing languages, from a humanist perspective it's fantastic news. The more people can communicate without barriers, the better it makes the world for everyone.

On the one hand, I'm very much inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, I'm a monolingual English-speaker. I personally gain much and lose nothing in this scenario, I have no real conception of what it feels like for the hundreds of millions of people who do speak minority languages; so I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge.

>I have no real conception of what it feels like for the hundreds of millions of people who do speak minority languages

Being understood by most people (instead of almost none) is pretty handy.

Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#44

Post by nly »

ronaldx wrote: post #40
Nux wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't upvote this enough. A united world needs to speak the same language. Down with the borders, of any kind.

I understand the sentiment but I disagree. I think language is a clear representation of culture - your first language directly informs how you see the world. The world would be a lesser place if everybody grew up with the same linguistic experience.

There will always be regional dialects, accents, terminology, slang etc.

Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#45

Post by DanAndersen »

spodek wrote: post #36

The internet doesn't "kill" languages. People choose what language to speak. If they -- rather, we -- have a choice of languages, why do we choose common ones instead of uncommon ones? We are actively choosing to speak common languages, not some abstract network of computers is killing something. If linguists or anyone else says we're doing something wrong and losing something valuable, why do we keep doing it? Is it…

I think this is an important take on things. When talking about the fate of languages, it's important not just to view it in terms of "languages" as if they're these nebulously-existing things that are living or dying, but rather to think about it in terms of people who are or are not using a particular language to communicate with others.

Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#46

Post by DanBC »

Nux wrote: post #8
mullingitover wrote: post #6

Another way of titling this would be, "How the internet is uniting humanity." Languages are tools for communication, and while it's sad from an anthropological/historical perspective to be losing languages, from a humanist perspective it's fantastic news. The more people can communicate without barriers, the better it makes the world for everyone.

Can't upvote this enough. A united world needs to speak the same language. Down with the borders, of any kind.

I welcome your attempts to learn and speak Mandarin as that single global language.

Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#48

Post by dkeskar »

spodek wrote: post #36

The internet doesn't "kill" languages. People choose what language to speak. If they -- rather, we -- have a choice of languages, why do we choose common ones instead of uncommon ones? We are actively choosing to speak common languages, not some abstract network of computers is killing something. If linguists or anyone else says we're doing something wrong and losing something valuable, why do we keep doing it? Is it…

The Internet does accelerate the death of languages. Isolation created divergence, instant participatory communication will erase those differences. There is simply too much overhead to continue translating new terms (e.g. smartphone) which build on other English connotations. I wonder how the Académie_française does its job.

Movies and TV did this too, but being broadcast media, they could - with state support - throw a fig leaf for "regional" languages.

Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#49

Post by jamoes »

rmk2 wrote: post #33
mullingitover wrote: post #6

Another way of titling this would be, "How the internet is uniting humanity." Languages are tools for communication, and while it's sad from an anthropological/historical perspective to be losing languages, from a humanist perspective it's fantastic news. The more people can communicate without barriers, the better it makes the world for everyone.

> Languages are tools for communication Exactly, that's why different languages can spawn different communication. Certain things cannot be translated, whether they are idioms or grammatical constructions. It's not just "sad", it means a unifying and, in some case, simplification of thought. Now, with English becoming more dominant, I guess it depends on your background and ideas whether this reduction to "things tha…

> Certain things cannot be translated, whether they are idioms or grammatical constructions.

The cool thing about languages though is that they evolve. English is a prime example of this: things that can't be translated just end up being imported and becoming new English words.

The end result is a more powerful language, where you can express the combination of certain ideas and concepts that simply couldn't be expressed in a single language before.

Re: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

#50

Post by infruset »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #23
mullingitover wrote: post #6

Another way of titling this would be, "How the internet is uniting humanity." Languages are tools for communication, and while it's sad from an anthropological/historical perspective to be losing languages, from a humanist perspective it's fantastic news. The more people can communicate without barriers, the better it makes the world for everyone.

On the one hand, I'm very much inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, I'm a monolingual English-speaker. I personally gain much and lose nothing in this scenario, I have no real conception of what it feels like for the hundreds of millions of people who do speak minority languages; so I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge.

Thank you for this comment. It would be interesting to know, among all those embracing everyone speaking english, how many are native english speakers and how many are monolingual; that might put things in perspective. In other words, it's easy to claim that everyone doing things your way with no effort on your part is the right way to go.
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