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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?

#31

Post by japhyr »

DanAndersen wrote: post #20
japhyr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Because each language holds concepts that are unique. A language is more than a collection of symbols that can be replaced arbitrarily with another language. Languages, particularly indigenous languages, contain ideas and ways of understanding that are not directly translatable. When we lose the language, we lose that people's take on the world. It is a sad thing, intellectually and spiritually, to lose the uniq…

Would you be able to provide some examples of these untranslatable concepts or ways of thinking? I suspect that the fact that you can provide them, in English, means that English is as capable as any other language to at absorbing that idea and making it expressible. If different languages contain unique ways of thinking that can't be expressed in other languages, then what benefit is there to the preservation of tha…

I'll try to share some examples in a bit. Short reason this approach is "lossy": it's a huge game of telephone. Translation retains most of the translated concept, but not all of the concept's subtleties. The farther removed we get from the original, the less faithful the translation. We see this most clearly where it takes a paragraph of English to start to communicate the meaning contained in one word from some languages.

Simple example: translate namaste into one English word.

I come at this from a context of living in Alaska, and seeing firsthand the value of language retention, and the tragedy of language loss. I've also had great benefit from digging into other cultures' world views, and each of those experiences was heavily dependent on paying attention to the nuances of older languages. These concepts are hard to grasp if this whole topic is approached from a strictly academic context.

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

#32

Post by japhyr »

maaku wrote: post #19
monocasa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're a child, language acquisition isn't a zero sum game.

Nonsense, of course it is. I'm raising bilingual children and every one of them has developmental delays. Of course the plural of anecdote is not data, but as a result I've been quite motivated to keep up with the research. My family is not exceptional among bilingual families. Developmental delays are common, as are poor performance in elementary school as multi-lingual children struggle to integrate disjoint system…

Are the developmental delays long term, or just focused in primary/ else tardy grades? I've been envious of my peers who grew up bilingual; none appeared delayed when I knew them in late middle school and beyond. In fact, they seemed more academically capable than my monolingual peers.

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

#33

Post by S4M »

maaku wrote: post #19
monocasa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're a child, language acquisition isn't a zero sum game.

Nonsense, of course it is. I'm raising bilingual children and every one of them has developmental delays. Of course the plural of anecdote is not data, but as a result I've been quite motivated to keep up with the research. My family is not exceptional among bilingual families. Developmental delays are common, as are poor performance in elementary school as multi-lingual children struggle to integrate disjoint system…

An anecdote to counter yours: I am French, my wife is Japanese and we live in Barcelona in Spain where the school is in catalan. Our four years old understands Japanese and Catalan quite well (similar to a monolingual kid) and can speak French, English and Spanish a bit (I speak to him in French, adn with my wife we speak English) but not as well as a monolingual kid. Ofmcourse we have to see how it will turn out for him, but to me in terms of languages he's pretty much like a sponge.

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

#34

Post by jkot »

redacted wrote: post #22
maccard wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Gealic is not mandatory. English-only schools in west of ireland are underfunded. Parents could sign their children into English school with 50 another kids in single class, or into Geelic school with 20 children in class.

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

#35

Post by sumedh »

maaku wrote: post #19
monocasa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're a child, language acquisition isn't a zero sum game.

Nonsense, of course it is. I'm raising bilingual children and every one of them has developmental delays. Of course the plural of anecdote is not data, but as a result I've been quite motivated to keep up with the research. My family is not exceptional among bilingual families. Developmental delays are common, as are poor performance in elementary school as multi-lingual children struggle to integrate disjoint system…

> as are poor performance in elementary school as multi-lingual children struggle

I am too lazy to google but I am pretty sure that I read multilingual kids have slightly better performance compared to monolinguals.

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

#36

Post by lbarrow »

maaku wrote: post #19
monocasa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're a child, language acquisition isn't a zero sum game.

Nonsense, of course it is. I'm raising bilingual children and every one of them has developmental delays. Of course the plural of anecdote is not data, but as a result I've been quite motivated to keep up with the research. My family is not exceptional among bilingual families. Developmental delays are common, as are poor performance in elementary school as multi-lingual children struggle to integrate disjoint system…

The theory that raising children in a multilingual environment impaired development was common in the 70s, but since then an overwhelming amount of evidence has debunked it. The commonly held view now is that raising a child in a multilingual environment will have no impact on how fast the child reaches developmental milestones.

A good introduction to the topic from Paul Bloom (a professor of developmental psychology at Yale) is here: http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110/lecture-6.

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

#37

Post by DanAndersen »

japhyr wrote: post #31
DanAndersen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be able to provide some examples of these untranslatable concepts or ways of thinking? I suspect that the fact that you can provide them, in English, means that English is as capable as any other language to at absorbing that idea and making it expressible. If different languages contain unique ways of thinking that can't be expressed in other languages, then what benefit is there to the preservation of tha…

I'll try to share some examples in a bit. Short reason this approach is "lossy": it's a huge game of telephone. Translation retains most of the translated concept, but not all of the concept's subtleties. The farther removed we get from the original, the less faithful the translation. We see this most clearly where it takes a paragraph of English to start to communicate the meaning contained in one word from some lan…

Why does it need to be translated into a single English word? This is the power of "preserving language as reference": I can look up the meaning and cultural context of "namaste," gain that information, and then I can use the word "namaste" as a loanword if there's not a suitable short word in English that conveys the same idea. That's how loanwords happen.

Words aren't these indivisible blocks that exist in the universe outside of us. When we first learn what, for example, a "fish" is, we don't do a lookup in a mental dictionary for the brain-word that means "fish." We learn that whole paragraph about how fish are animals that swim in water and have gills and fins, etc. Then we come up with a name for that swimmy-water-animal-thing, and move on.

If a foreign word or concept is not sufficiently similar to anything readily available in a language, that language grabs the foreign word as a loanword and moves on. That's what languages do. This means it's valuable to have this as a reference, but perpetual storage -- redundancies and all -- in the brains of generation after generation seems inefficient and burdensome to the brains who actually have to expend effort to store it and also compete in a global society. If they want to, more power to them, but I don't know if that's the best mandated investment of resources/time.

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

#38

Post by sumedh »

I just feel that the whole humanity should speak one common language. Now whether you like it or not that language is going to be English.

I just dont understand why do we need multiple languages anymore. If anyone says we need them to preserve the culture, I dont understand that either.

My native language is not English, just in case anyone feels I want to force English down your throat.

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

#39

Post by jacquesm »

LesZedCB wrote: post #5
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…

> because my culture is incredibly widespread and probably isn't going anyway.

Give it some time.

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

#40

Post by gizmo686 »

yrlson wrote: post #14
bkurtz13 wrote: post #10

Earlier 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.

The question isn't can a language be revived, it is should a language be revived. I am of the opinion that it was a mistake to revive Hebrew, as doing so has needlessly introduced language barriers.
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