A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved? • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by _ak » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 8:54 PM UTC

67726e wrote: post #46

JulianMorrison wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of these cultures (including their language) were forcefully banned, obliterated by law, lynching, displacement. discriminatory treatment, and the stealing of children. I do not exaggerate. So don't pretend they are dying of natural causes when the knife is still sticking out of their back.

To play the devil's advocate, maybe they deserve to die out. If they would have innovated and conquered first, their language could have lived and ours could be the one on its deathbed. Survival of the fittest, if you will.

I knew I'd stumble upon Social Darwinism pretty soon here.

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

#52

Post by crusso » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 8:54 PM UTC

It would be nice if the human mind were flexible enough to use different spoken languages the way that we use different computer languages.

Would we discover that like computer languages, certain languages are just better at expressing some concepts? Would we talk about love in French and about science in English or German?

Or would our easy use of language just encourage us to merge the best of all languages into some optimized hodge-podge general-use language?

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

#53

Post by _ak » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

gizmo686 wrote: post #40

yrlson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also turned out to be a consensus language for Jews from around the world that moved to Mandatory Palestine and later Israel.

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

#54

Post by MrPatan » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

To all the tourists that want to stop people from talking to each other in order to have the vague aesthetic feeling that "the world is diverse" or whatever floats your tourist boat: Why don't you go and do that with your own child?

Go on, raise them in a language that will limit their life choices and potential. See how that works for them. Then have them tell us how that went. Oh, sorry, that won't happen so easily, now, would it?

"Linguistic diversity" Is just another way to say "Communication barriers".

Funny how is is always something that should happen to other people.

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

#55

Post by kazagistar » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

codewithcheese wrote: post #13

Some descriptive YouTube videos about the Selk'nam people with English subtitles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psJ5tg6Pqcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAgcA0JEQkk

Holy shit, they actually had a real Patriarchy: All the guys were in a secret conspiracy to keep the women down?

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

#56

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 9:22 PM UTC

MrPatan wrote: post #54

To all the tourists that want to stop people from talking to each other in order to have the vague aesthetic feeling that "the world is diverse" or whatever floats your tourist boat: Why don't you go and do that with your own child? Go on, raise them in a language that will limit their life choices and potential. See how that works for them. Then have them tell us how that went. Oh, sorry, that won't happen so easily…

I would agree with you if it wasn't easy to learn five languages as a child.

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

#57

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

>"Mohawk isn’t just a form of speech,” he said. “It’s a holistic relationship to the cosmos.”

What's that supposed to mean? Apart from as a tautology because we're part of the cosmos.

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

#58

Post by EdwardDiego » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 9:47 PM UTC

MrPatan wrote: post #54

To all the tourists that want to stop people from talking to each other in order to have the vague aesthetic feeling that "the world is diverse" or whatever floats your tourist boat: Why don't you go and do that with your own child? Go on, raise them in a language that will limit their life choices and potential. See how that works for them. Then have them tell us how that went. Oh, sorry, that won't happen so easily…

> raise them in a language that will limit their life choices and potential.

False dilemma. You can raise a bilingual child, in no way limiting their life choices and potential. In fact, there is evidence that suggests that bilingualism provides cognitive benefits later in life.

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

#59

Post by EdiX » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 10:01 PM UTC

lesu wrote: post #21

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 benef…

Storing away all of geocities for future reference is a good thing. Having every children memorize passages from geocities would be pointless and no one does it. Having them learn a dead language is cruel, you are wasting their time to make them learn something that will only serve to keep them isolated.

And it's all in vain, making a language alive is the opposite of preserving it because live languages change.

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

#60

Post by vorg » Sat, Mar 28, 2015, 10:09 PM UTC

> The mother tongue of more than three billion people is one of twenty, which are, in order of their current predominance: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, German, Wu Chinese, Korean, French, Telugu, Marathi, Turkish, Tamil, Vietnamese, and Urdu.

Arabic listed as one language? Can Gulf Arabic and Moroccan Arabic speakers understand each other? I've heard people speak to each other where one speaks Spanish and the other Brazilian Portuguese. The main difference between Hindi and Urdu is the different script. Don't those languages have more justification for being counted as one than those of Arabic? It's even a bit iffy to count English as one language -- put 3 people speaking Indian English, Ebonics, and Geordie in a room together and see how well they communicate!