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When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

hopesandfears.com

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Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#11

Post by skj »

intopieces wrote: post #8
analyst74 wrote: post #7

Languages were invented as means of communication, so if all languages disappear except one it'll be tremendous boost to humanity. But once you link disappearance of language with words like endangered, dying, extinct, all of sudden it sounds terrible. Power of the words.

Replace "language" with "race" in that sentiment and you'll understand how dangerous your sentiment is. Languages are not mere vessels for communication. They also hold within them cultural histories and ways of thinking. To want all of them eradicated but one is to proclaim one language "superior" to all.

"race" is just how humanity likes to self-segregate.

"language" is a tool used to communicate, and it would be wonderful if any two arbitrary people could successfully communicate.

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#12

Post by walterbell »

iagooar wrote: post #4

I am a person who, as a polyglot, feels a lot of passion for languages, and can get really upset when I hear about languages that are dying. Guess you could compare the feeling with those of animal species getting extinct. I often ask myself if I, as a programmer, could contribute to helping preserve at least some information about that of dying languages, or even prevent them getting extinct at all? Any ideas?

How about organizing an effort to collect entries like the ones in Untranslatables, for endangered languages? This could be done as a CC-licensed dictionary with source on github. A markdown template would be useful, and a way to collect all submissions into a nicely typeset PDF.

http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Untranslatables-Philosophic...

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#13

Post by walterbell »

There a PBS documentary on deciphering the glyphs of the lost Mayan language, which has been so valuable to the history of the Mayan people that they began teaching the lost language in schools: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ppfC6y-5s

There's also a corresponding book, Breaking the Maya Code, http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Maya-Code-Third-Michael/dp/05...

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#14

Post by Afton »

analyst74 wrote: post #7

Languages were invented as means of communication, so if all languages disappear except one it'll be tremendous boost to humanity. But once you link disappearance of language with words like endangered, dying, extinct, all of sudden it sounds terrible. Power of the words.

> Languages were invented as means of communication, so if all languages disappear except one it'll be tremendous boost to humanity.

It isn't at all obvious that it would be a straight-up boon. It would help some things, hurt others. And in a few generations, we would have dialects and languages again. It's just how brains and (by extension) communities work.

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#15

Post by Dewie3 »

analyst74 wrote: post #7

Languages were invented as means of communication, so if all languages disappear except one it'll be tremendous boost to humanity. But once you link disappearance of language with words like endangered, dying, extinct, all of sudden it sounds terrible. Power of the words.

Everything can be looked at as a mere tool. To other people, it's more than that - an identity, a culture, a history, self-expression.

It might have felt like a drag if I was forced to learn to play and listen to jazz, like in music classes. But I don't try to project my personal feelings of how playing and learning jazz feels like work and drudgery onto actual jazz musicians. Now imagine if a jazz musician woke up one day and there were no one left to jam with - just curmudgeons like myself who don't appreciate jazz. Man, what a drag.

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#16

Post by BjoernKW »

iagooar wrote: post #4

I am a person who, as a polyglot, feels a lot of passion for languages, and can get really upset when I hear about languages that are dying. Guess you could compare the feeling with those of animal species getting extinct. I often ask myself if I, as a programmer, could contribute to helping preserve at least some information about that of dying languages, or even prevent them getting extinct at all? Any ideas?

Researching and preserving endangered languages for posterity is mostly field work. For the most part, hardly any online records (apart from those collected by researchers) exist. It's very interesting work because documenting endangered languages means studying them in their 'natural habitat'. It's probably as Indiana Jones as a linguist's work can be.

That said, computational linguistics and especially statistical language models (HMMs etc.) are very useful for finding and describing distinctive language features once the data has been retrieved in the field. This is an area of expertise you might get involved in.

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#17

Post by walterbell »

Afton wrote: post #14
analyst74 wrote: post #7

Languages were invented as means of communication, so if all languages disappear except one it'll be tremendous boost to humanity. But once you link disappearance of language with words like endangered, dying, extinct, all of sudden it sounds terrible. Power of the words.

> Languages were invented as means of communication, so if all languages disappear except one it'll be tremendous boost to humanity. It isn't at all obvious that it would be a straight-up boon. It would help some things, hurt others. And in a few generations, we would have dialects and languages again. It's just how brains and (by extension) communities work.

> It's just how brains and (by extension) communities work

Any recommended references on this process of language forking and dialect creation, especially in the context of neuroscience?

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#18

Post by XaspR8d »

walterbell wrote: post #12
iagooar wrote: post #4

I am a person who, as a polyglot, feels a lot of passion for languages, and can get really upset when I hear about languages that are dying. Guess you could compare the feeling with those of animal species getting extinct. I often ask myself if I, as a programmer, could contribute to helping preserve at least some information about that of dying languages, or even prevent them getting extinct at all? Any ideas?

How about organizing an effort to collect entries like the ones in Untranslatables , for endangered languages? This could be done as a CC-licensed dictionary with source on github. A markdown template would be useful, and a way to collect all submissions into a nicely typeset PDF. http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Untranslatables-Philosophic...

Google partnered with several research foundations to back http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/ It's not as specific as a dictionary, but it does provide a simple way to find particular languages and upload source material for them.

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#19

Post by Htsthbjig »

Good riddance.

When I have traveled the world I got to the conclusion that the main problem of the world is people speaking different languages.

Americans, or Japanese or Chinese believing whatever their media trows at them only happens because those people do not understand the rest of the languages of the world.

Those countries are so big, the people living there believe they don't need other languages in order to live, so they live in their own bubble.

For Americans it gets compounded because they also believe the world should learn their language and not the other way around.

Languages are the main cause of conflict in the world today as without understanding them you are at the mercy of other people's interest.

The person that yesterday was a friend, today could become an enemy just because media tells you so(because it is in their own interest). It is very hard for media to do that when people could actually travel their selves and understand reality talking to the people that supposedly hates them without intermediaries.

People have the natural tendency to fear what they don't know about, and this could be used against them in order to justify mass surveillance, emergency measures, also called "total control of the ruling's elite".

This was said by Goering in Nuremberg: "the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Not different today. War is created by media. Living in a language bubble is dangerous.

Most of the languages that are going to disappear are not that different from others that will survive. People that live near other people copy the best thing their neighbor has.

Re: When there's no one left to talk to: a guide to endangered languages

#20

Post by XaspR8d »

d4mi3n wrote: post #5
iagooar wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want you to see this as a personal attack, but isn't it your father's fault not having taught you to speak this "dialect" (which, I guess, is a language called despectively a dialect)?

Blaming people contributes to this discussion how?

Well I'm not sure of iagooar's intent, but there is an important distinction here that only community members have the actually power to save a language. It isn't their 'fault' by any means because they have to balance the conformative expectations of the larger (usually oppressive) society with the desire to keep their culture alive, and none of us can really say which is the 'right' choice.

The important battleground here is misinformation. A lot of people think teaching their children a native language will impede them from learning the matrix language, but tons of evidence shows that this is not the case. Bilinguals might think slightly differently than monolinguals, but on most tests they actually perform above average. If we could make sure they know that, and provide resources to record media and train educators directly in the communities, a lot more languages would survive.

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