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New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

nytimes.com

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Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#101

Post by pg_1234 »

chaostheory wrote: post #97
Bjorkbat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language is pretty foundational to culture. When you lose a language you lose more than a way of speaking, but also the subtleties and emotions behind the "shape" of certain words, not to mention those words that reflect something so unique to that culture that you can't really translate them. The death of a language is the death of a world. Saying there should be fewer spoken languages is frankly a very unempathetic…

Saying there should be more different languages shows an ignorance to both history and psychology. Having less major cultures has the same effect on potential conflict

And there's the cost of keeping a dying language alive.

You're basically asking people to sacrifice their lives to a less useful language, a mere social utility, so you can maintain a sort of "cultural linguistic zoo" ... and yes you are by this analogy relegating them to the role of animals in a theme park.

Think of what that entails: "No, you can't be taught in the language that will get you into university and get you the best jobs. You must dedicate a significant portion portion of your life to something we already know is a dead end for you personally, because we have decided that it is more important that a legacy tool be kept alive than that you prosper as a person."

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#102

Post by jutrewag »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #61
sdrothrock wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a heads up: "crypto Jew" is also an antisemitic buzz word, which is why I suspect the linked article says "hidden" instead.

That is getting so tiring. How are normal people supposed to navigate in this world where normal words[1] and expressions are constantly being re-analyzed as fascist dogwhistles? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-Judaism

[flagged]

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#103

Post by ansraliant »

VeninVidiaVicii wrote: post #40

This is my dialect! We’ve always attracted linguists because of our unique mix of cultures. For instance, we have lots of words for turkey - guíjalo/guajalote (and various combinations of the two), pavo, ganso real, cócono, and yes, even torque.

in Argentina pavo also is used to refer to someone that is not very intelligent.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#104

Post by jutrewag »

decremental wrote: post #100
watwut wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true. They use these terms among themselves to denote things. Their opposition is not intended audience at all. Moreover, when unopposed, nazi and antisemitism do not die out. Instead, they get stronger and larger in numbers. It is an actual ideology and those who believe it are actively trying to spread it.

[flagged]

Anything spreads easily if there is enough propaganda directed towards it.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#105

Post by scoofy »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #68
chaostheory wrote: post #57

I don’t feel that this is a bad thing. Not being able to speak and understand each other’s languages just helps increase conflict due to less empathy. While there are cons to less spoken languages, overall the world would be better off with less spoken languages.

Language is pretty foundational to culture. When you lose a language you lose more than a way of speaking, but also the subtleties and emotions behind the "shape" of certain words, not to mention those words that reflect something so unique to that culture that you can't really translate them. The death of a language is the death of a world. Saying there should be fewer spoken languages is frankly a very unempathetic…

>not to mention those words that reflect something so unique to that culture that you can't really translate them

You've inverted the role of language. Language is what we use to communicate the things we feel, we gain essentially nothing from the words themselves. Even when you think you're communicating something very specific with the words you are using, there's little reason to believe that the person on the other end of the conversation really gets what you're trying to communicate. In a practical sense, you can easily communicate, but these deep, almost mystical, meanings you're implying... it's just not really something that can be known.

The is the point of the indeterminacy of translation illustrated by W.V. Quine.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#106

Post by ars »

watwut wrote: post #99
ars wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no such thing as a "local language" there. They spoke a very wide variety of language - one article collected 40 different languages spoken there. Mandatory Palestine was not a country at that time, and had nothing unifying it. The reason all those migrants switched to Hebrew is that it was the only common tongue among all of them. Why in the world would they pick a European language? If anything maybe Yidd…

The migrants moved there with explicit plan to create dominance. The dominance did nit happened through kumbaya happy agreement of everyone that one language is known by all.

That's BS. They moved there because it was their homeland.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#107

Post by anthk »

ttfkam wrote: post #15
fcatalan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bit of "accentism" in Spain. Speaking with a southern accent will (wrongly) mark you as "lazy", "uncultured" or "unsophisticated" to some people. I was born in Castile, so I usually speak "accentless" standard Spanish, but my mother comes from Extremadura, just a couple hours drive to the south, and when I speak to her I involuntarily switch to the extremaduran accent. I don't notice it but other people hea…

I have never heard of Castilian Spanish referred to as "accentless" before. The lisp always sounds odd to me. That and vosotros. The vast majority of Spanish speakers worldwide use neither.

Not a lisp but proper differentiation. It really helps to avoid mistakes:

za, ce, ci, zo, zu -> tha, the, thi, tho, thu. As in 'think'. That's it.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#109

Post by anthk »

mejutoco wrote: post #35
Turing_Machine wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask anyone who has a "hillbilly" accent how they're treated by "educated" people.

Interestingly, I have often seen in movies with hillbilly characters dubbed to Spanish, their accent is dubbed in andalusian accent. I alway found it quite offensive.

It shouldn't be. Most of the people who went from Spain overseas was from Andalucia, the South American accent came from the Southern Spain. Also, lots of spelling traits in Southern English from the US map 1:1 to Andalusian Spanish, such as omiting vowels between consonants and speaking really fast.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#110

Post by midoridensha »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #68
chaostheory wrote: post #57

I don’t feel that this is a bad thing. Not being able to speak and understand each other’s languages just helps increase conflict due to less empathy. While there are cons to less spoken languages, overall the world would be better off with less spoken languages.

Language is pretty foundational to culture. When you lose a language you lose more than a way of speaking, but also the subtleties and emotions behind the "shape" of certain words, not to mention those words that reflect something so unique to that culture that you can't really translate them. The death of a language is the death of a world. Saying there should be fewer spoken languages is frankly a very unempathetic…

How many dying languages/dialects have you personally learned and worked to keep alive?
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