Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
theguardian.com
Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
1–10 of 170 posts
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#2Reverse example: I've only [1] let my child consume Swedish media (mostly the SVT app Barnkanalen, while we live in the US) and their accent is really good, and they often correct me and remind me of how something should be said.
[1] Not 100%. They still watch e.g. Moana in English, or sometimes watch shows in German, French, some English ones, etc.
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#3I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, yes, it's a pity to see a cultural artifact like a language fade away. I get that. But on the other hand, having the world Balkanized into thousands of mutually incomprehensible linguistic ghettoes is a bad thing, because it makes it harder to get things done on large scales. Things would just be easier if we spoke a manageable handful of languages.
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#4I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, yes, it's a pity to see a cultural artifact like a language fade away. I get that. But on the other hand, having the world Balkanized into thousands of mutually incomprehensible linguistic ghettoes is a bad thing, because it makes it harder to get things done on large scales. Things would just be easier if we spoke a manageable handful of languages.
There's a middle road, you know: being bilingual. To run with the Icelandic example, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who speaks it but not English.
Where I live, there's also a local language (Frisian) spoken beside the 'bigger' language (Dutch). And here too, lots of people speak English. Or if not, you might get lucky with German.
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#5I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, yes, it's a pity to see a cultural artifact like a language fade away. I get that. But on the other hand, having the world Balkanized into thousands of mutually incomprehensible linguistic ghettoes is a bad thing, because it makes it harder to get things done on large scales. Things would just be easier if we spoke a manageable handful of languages.
Icelanders pretty much all speak english. Having a common language does not mean having a single unique language.
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#6I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, yes, it's a pity to see a cultural artifact like a language fade away. I get that. But on the other hand, having the world Balkanized into thousands of mutually incomprehensible linguistic ghettoes is a bad thing, because it makes it harder to get things done on large scales. Things would just be easier if we spoke a manageable handful of languages.
There's a middle road, you know: being bilingual. To run with the Icelandic example, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who speaks it but not English. Where I live, there's also a local language (Frisian) spoken beside the 'bigger' language (Dutch). And here too, lots of people speak English. Or if not, you might get lucky with German.
That's the first half of a language dying. If everyone speaks Dutch and it's on signs and menus etc then learning Frisian has limited value.
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#7This has been discussed for as long as I remember myself (am 30 now). First it was the influence of english in TV (we only dub childrens shows and movies). I came unscattered from my youth and really doubt that my children won't be as good or better at icelandic than me.
Everyone has learned icelandic, basic danish and advanced english at age 16. From the age 16-20 majority of kids add a fourth language which is either french, german or spanish. I'm now extra grateful for all the languages that I was exposed too in school even though I didn't find them interesting at the time. It's easy to communicating and understanding the basics when travelling.
And I really love my language and I'm sure that it'll hold up just fine for the next decades. I know few examples of families with children that have grown up abroad and yes, their grammar often is strange but they speak quite well and they feel a connection back "home" through the language.
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#8This is bullshit and you can mostly write the same article for any non-English language.
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a middle road, you know: being bilingual. To run with the Icelandic example, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who speaks it but not English. Where I live, there's also a local language (Frisian) spoken beside the 'bigger' language (Dutch). And here too, lots of people speak English. Or if not, you might get lucky with German.
That's the first half of a language dying. If everyone speaks Dutch and it's on signs and menus etc then learning Frisian has limited value.
I don't think so, or the language would have died out already. I'd argue it's more about whether children learn it as their primary language.
Also, because of concerns of linguistic extinction, similar to the ones mentioned for Icelandic in the article, you see somewhat of a counter-movement as well. This caused e.g. a special status of the language by law (see e.g. [1]), and also:
* it's a mandatory school subject
* you are entitled to using it in government interactions, e.g. in court
* a small part of the public television is in Frisian, and there's also a regional tv/radio channel using it exclusively
* place name signs are often at least bilingual, and sometimes Frisian-only.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_for_Regional_...
Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'
#10I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, yes, it's a pity to see a cultural artifact like a language fade away. I get that. But on the other hand, having the world Balkanized into thousands of mutually incomprehensible linguistic ghettoes is a bad thing, because it makes it harder to get things done on large scales. Things would just be easier if we spoke a manageable handful of languages.
Do we really want billions of people who all talk the same, think the same, and have the same values? I don't see how that could possibly be a good thing. The world is already bleeding ridiculous amounts of accumulated knowledge and wisdom. It may be true that the average person today knows and understands more about the world than the average person in the past, but we all know the same things today.