I'm wondering if the people who are railing against saving languages are equally against organizations such as the Internet Archive? My thinking is that, as tech-savvy computer whizzes, many folk on Hacker News are happier to preserve something that makes sense to _them_ (media or website snapshots) than things that don't (languages and foreign cultural history). It's difficult to say what is useful without the benefit of hindsight, by which time it is a moot point -- the resource is long gone and will never be again. Anyways, just my two cents as an incredibly biased amateur archivist.
A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
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Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#22In 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…
The scots preservation of Gaelic is much less than in Ireland. When I was in school, I took Irish classes from when I was 5 until I left, as do the vast majority of children. Most Irish people have at least a handful of words and phrases they know. All of the road signs and government communications are translated into Irish.
(Disclaimer: I am Irish, and I do not agree with the mandatory nature of Irish lessons.)
The fact that 12-13 years of taking Irish classes daily leads to most Irish people having a few words and phrases is a damning indictment of our education system. It is also a perfect example of how saving a language that has fallen out of use is incredibly difficult. All that effort teaching a language to a country and, because it is almost never used outside of the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking areas, mostly in the west of the country) it has been my experience that most people very rapidly lose their ability in Irish after leaving school.
I have long held the position that forcing children to learn a dead (or at the very least, on advanced life support) language is doing more harm than good. It instilled antipathy towards Irish more than love for Irish in my peers. Making it an optional subject would mean only people who cared would study it, and they would perhaps be more likely to try and use it.
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#23Should 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.
That's a good point. I think there's a tendency to conflate the idea of "lost knowledge" with "inactive practice" when it comes to dying languages. Record, preserve, archive information about a language, as much as possible, but to say that all languages must remain "alive" means that we're saying that some portion of humanity must expend the time and effort to remain multilingual in languages that they may not receive practical benefits in. Maintenance costs of "in-brain preservation" are relatively high, and in doing so that's allocating time that may or may not be spent in pursuits that are beneficial to the actual people whom some want to be vessels for a dying language.
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#24Should 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.
The limited amount of Chinese that I learned and remember from a multi-week workshop that I attended in 4th grade has been more useful than whatever else would have been done during that time.
After having a child, I've become far more conscious of people who have lots of concerns about everyone's children. If learning Gaelic or Navaho instead of something else is a problem, it's not one that I'm worried about. Well rounded education is more important to me.
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#25I'm wondering if the people who are railing against saving languages are equally against organizations such as the Internet Archive? My thinking is that, as tech-savvy computer whizzes, many folk on Hacker News are happier to preserve something that makes sense to _them_ (media or website snapshots) than things that don't (languages and foreign cultural history). It's difficult to say what is useful without the benef…
I see that as an apples to oranges comparison. When we say "saving languages," do we mean archiving them, backing them up, creating stores of references and recordings that can be easily recalled yet inexpensively preserved? If so, then I am definitely for that. If "saving languages" means accepting nothing less than the descendants of the speakers of a dying language needing to expend mental energy and time to remain active speakers of that language, placing them at a disadvantage when compared with those who have free time for other pursuits and contributing to segregating that group from others, I don't know if that's as beneficial.
In general, all knowledge should be preserved when possible. The question is whether it's better for it to be stored on hard drives or in brains.
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#26In 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…
Side note: A couple of years ago I found myself working with a Welsh engineer who told me he learned English first as a teenager. Still almost can't believe it but he was very serious about it.
In Ireland, we have the Gaeltacht [1], which are areas where Irish is the primary language. I know a couple of older people who grew up in a Gaeltacht and only learned English in school, never using it at home. This would be much less likely nowadays, hard to avoid English on the Internet etc
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#27Should 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 no general answer to this question.
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#28Should 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's a substantial scientific literature arguing that learning multiple languages as a child actually confers many cognitive benefits. I don't know how credible it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_advantages_of_biling...
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#29Should 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.
UGTR :)
Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's not really reasoning, just self-fulfilling prophecy. Hebrew was revived, and I can't see a solid reason why the same could not be done on a smaller scale.
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