A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

Should a dying language be "saved"? Preserving cultural heritage is all very well, but expending a child's language-acquisitive resources on a language which won't connect them to the rest of contemporary humanity seems far too high a price.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#5

Post by LesZedCB » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

waqf wrote: post #4

Should a dying language be "saved"? Preserving cultural heritage is all very well, but expending a child's language-acquisitive resources on a language which won't connect them to the rest of contemporary humanity seems far too high a price.

My girlfriend is a linguist with a particular passion for dying languages and cultures. I often find myself asking the same question every time she talks about it. I think the more important factor than usefulness in society is the fact that, like the article said, being the last of anything is lonely. For me, at least, that is a particularly hard position to empathize with because my culture is incredibly widespread and probably isn't going anyway. So, while I can't or don't understand the feeling, I think it's important to allow these people at least the little justice of trying to respect and preserve their cultural heritage.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#6

Post by christophmccann » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

In Scotland, there is a big movement to preserve the teaching of Gaelic. Whilst I think it is important to preserve culture and to preserve history, I don't think, in terms of youth education, that should outweigh the utility of skills and languages necessary for the modern world.

It seems slightly obtuse to me that whilst do not teach computer science, programming, engineering or science particularly well in schools, we should worry about the preservation of teaching of old languages. That being said, I think it is extremely important to teach kids (and the public in general) about history as a way of avoiding past mistakes so I don't think we should eliminate it - I just think there are more important things we need to fix first.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#7

Post by intopieces » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

waqf wrote: post #4

Should a dying language be "saved"? Preserving cultural heritage is all very well, but expending a child's language-acquisitive resources on a language which won't connect them to the rest of contemporary humanity seems far too high a price.

This comment is predicated on an assumption that I'm not sure has a foundation in science: that a child's "language-acquisitive resources" are finite in some way, or that a child learning a minority language won't "have room" for other subjects because of it. Because many, many children in the world speak one language at home and another at school, I'm not sure there is any foundation for this assumption.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#8

Post by benbreen » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

intopieces wrote: post #7

waqf wrote: post #4

Should a dying language be "saved"? Preserving cultural heritage is all very well, but expending a child's language-acquisitive resources on a language which won't connect them to the rest of contemporary humanity seems far too high a price.

This comment is predicated on an assumption that I'm not sure has a foundation in science: that a child's "language-acquisitive resources" are finite in some way, or that a child learning a minority language won't "have room" for other subjects because of it. Because many, many children in the world speak one language at home and another at school, I'm not sure there is any foundation for this assumption.

Agreed (in fact, given my anecdotal experiences with polyglots from places like Switzerland or Scandinavia, I wouldn't be at all surprised by the finding that learning one language at a young age actually increases facility in other languages).

And taking another tack, I think it's important to keep in mind that languages are also vehicles for irreplaceable cultural information that might not be translatable. When we talk about the loss of a language, we're also talking about the loss of conceptual models, epistemologies, turns of phrase, oral traditions, jokes, etc that may be the result of tens of thousands of years of cultural continuity.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#9

Post by bsho » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

waqf wrote: post #4

Should a dying language be "saved"? Preserving cultural heritage is all very well, but expending a child's language-acquisitive resources on a language which won't connect them to the rest of contemporary humanity seems far too high a price.

“The older people are the only ones who can tell you what their youth stands to lose,” he said. “The young are the only ones who can articulate the loss of an identity rooted in a mother tongue that has become foreign to them.”

I work in Navajo language education. Most insecurity in Navajo adults derives from this single disconnect. It seems later in life, in those that have connected "to the rest of contemporary humanity" at the expense of learning their language, give up because of the complexity of the language, especially the verb.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#10

Post by bkurtz13 » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

waqf wrote: post #4

Should a dying language be "saved"? Preserving cultural heritage is all very well, but expending a child's language-acquisitive resources on a language which won't connect them to the rest of contemporary humanity seems far too high a price.

There is a particularly human egotism with respect to "saving" things that have outlived their usefulness and purpose, or preserving things that should be changing. If language can be viewed through its evolutionary purpose, these dying languages are simply experiments that did not pan out, and should be allowed to become extinct.