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Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

theguardian.com

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Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#91

Post by schoen »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #87
ocschwar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jersey Dutch died out completely in the US, without any suppression by the government. Cajun French is on its last legs despite government support. And it was purely the result of broadcast radio.

The US culture/society also tends to kill off non-English languages. Spanish is large enough and with a 'renewable' resource of Spanish speakers from other parts of the Americas that it manages to survive, but other languages do not fare as well.

I don't think that's quite right. Chinese is a notable counterexample in a lot of places, as well as Vietnamese and Tagalog and some others. But Spanish definitely has a more universal geographic distribution in the U.S. than any other non-English language.

This article and map were pretty interesting:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/05/langua...

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#92

Post by pauljaworski »

deong wrote: post #65
cal5k wrote: post #13

Just got back from Iceland! (I'm Canadian) Outside of the touristy parts of Reykjavik, everybody will assume you speak Icelandic until you respond in English. Then they'll switch to almost perfect English, with remarkably few exceptions. It was pretty amazing. In small towns like Akureryi, there's a lot of local pressure to keep signs mostly in Icelandic. I was actually surprised by this since there were a lot of Eng…

Akureyri isn't really a "small town" by Icelandic standards though. Once you get into the actual small towns over on the eastern side of the country for example, English proficiency is much, much lower. But yeah, certainly the more populated areas are extremely English-friendly. My folks in Arkansas probably see more non-English speakers in the average month than I did in Reykjavik.

That was not my experience. I spent 3 weeks in Iceland, and only met one person who was not fluent in English (even they were plenty conversational).

You're right that Akureyri is not a small town for Iceland, though.

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#93

Post by curun1r »

powercf wrote: post #21
radagast wrote: post #7

This 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 eith…

My problem is that, as time goes by, English use will become more common, and Icelandic less. The spread of the English language (e.g. the children in the article who '“know what the word is” for something they are being shown on the flashcard, but not in Icelandic.') is accompanied by the spread of US culture (TV, film, music). While US culture isn't neccessarily better or worse than any other, I get a lot of enjoym…

I find the debate over English superseding other languages to be somewhat comical. On the one hand, sure, there are parts of different cultures being lost. But they're being replaced by possibly the best example there is of a language evolving over time due to power dynamics.

The accusation is often leveled against American cultural imperialism. But the language being imposed isn't a Native American language...it isn't Navajo that's being spread across the globe, it's the language that replaced so many Native American languages when the American continent was conquered. And while American English has undergone some cosmetic changes, it's largely the same language that was brought over by the colonists/invaders. So if it's an English language, it must have originated in England, right? But no, it's derived from the Germanic and Norman conquests with a smattering of classical Greek and the original Anglo-Saxon language. And its Latin origins even come by way of the Roman conquest of Gaul. Even the alphabet used comes from the subset of English characters used in German printing presses.

This notion that languages are something that need to be preserved is antithetical to the purpose of language and the history of the development of languages. We have many languages because, historically, we had many groups that didn't have regular contact with each other. And whenever there were groups that had regular contact with each other, language adapted to that fact and evolved. And now with globalization and the internet, we're beginning a phase where everyone has regular contact with everyone else. It's silly to think that language won't do what it's done every time you mix people who speak different languages throughout history. It isn't a process that happens overnight, but over the course of generations, languages that cannot impose a power dynamic will be lost to history or rendered irrelevant in the way that, say, Welsh is today.

We can be sad about it or try to fight it, but it's an inevitability and fighting that is ultimately futile.

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#94

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

ocschwar wrote: post #24
krapp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because people share the same language, it doesn't mean they think the same, or share the same values. Many people around the world speak English, but they don't become culturally American or British because of it.

I used to think that. Then an Englishman asked for my John Hancock.

And an American went missing.

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#95

Post by demosito666 »

bjourne wrote: post #57

Same thing with Swedish. :( I feel kind of guilty myself because as a developer, I write almost exclusively in English. Most software related terms simply don't exist in Swedish and with everyone using English no new words are being invented. It's even worse with the younger generation. They can't even use Swedish idioms so they switch to English. For example, they might know and use "You're on thin ice" but don't kn…

This is actually quite odd. I'm learning Swedish myself as a second foreign language with English being the first one. I'd say my Swedish level is B1-B2, i.e. intermediate, so I'm very far from being fluent. But I understand the idioms you mentioned perfectly. I'm having a hard time imagining native speaker not getting them. Maybe they just think those idioms are old-fashioned?

Also, it sounds weird indeed when you use English phrases in your casual speech when direct translation exists. Like I was watching some old movie and a teen girl there said something like "Du, jag ska ha födelsedagskalas på fredag. I want you to come.". I even didn't catch it first.

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#96

Post by nisse72 »

bjourne wrote: post #57

Same thing with Swedish. :( I feel kind of guilty myself because as a developer, I write almost exclusively in English. Most software related terms simply don't exist in Swedish and with everyone using English no new words are being invented. It's even worse with the younger generation. They can't even use Swedish idioms so they switch to English. For example, they might know and use "You're on thin ice" but don't kn…

When I studied computer science in Uppsala ~ 25 years ago I remember a number of textbooks (in particular, from Pagina) that used Swedish words for absolutely everything ("betjänt" (server) comes to mind, I can't think of others at the moment). but a lot of those terms sounded odd to us and I don't remember anyone using them except perhaps to be funny.

But many words have more natural sounding translations that we did (and do) use, things like kompilator (compiler), kö (queue), träd (tree) etc. I left Sweden many years ago but still often use gurka as a metasyntactic variable.

BTW your "even funnier idiom" is well known in english as well (although I don't remember the last time I heard anyone say it):

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cat_that_ate_the_canary

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#97

Post by meheleventyone »

pauljaworski wrote: post #92
deong wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Akureyri isn't really a "small town" by Icelandic standards though. Once you get into the actual small towns over on the eastern side of the country for example, English proficiency is much, much lower. But yeah, certainly the more populated areas are extremely English-friendly. My folks in Arkansas probably see more non-English speakers in the average month than I did in Reykjavik.

That was not my experience. I spent 3 weeks in Iceland, and only met one person who was not fluent in English (even they were plenty conversational). You're right that Akureyri is not a small town for Iceland, though.

Mind you as a tourist you’re going to be bumping into far more fluent locals than you might in day to day life otherwise. I’ve lived here for seven years and whilst I work in English and live in downtown Reykjavík I still meet a not unsubstantial number of Icelanders who are not comfortable with English. Mostly those 50+ but still some a generation younger. English speaking is definitely nearly ubiquitous in younger generations though.

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#98

Post by boreas »

wil421 wrote: post #78
remir wrote: post #76

I wonder what will happen to languages and culture when we will eventually be able to transmit direct thoughts to another person using brain implants or other tech. Imagine being able to communicate without any possibility of misunderstanding. The idea you have in mind is the exact idea the other person receives.

I don’t think it works that way. My thoughts are in English. I’ve asked bilingual people about their dreams and thoughts. Most of them say it can be both languages usually depending on where they are. If you mean transfer a feeling then I’d agree it’s possible. Like happy, sad, angry etc.

When people make vector embeddings for words, it's fairly common that the embedding for one language is just a rotation of the embedding for the synonym in another language. So I think the higher level (and lower dimensional) representations of thoughts could be pretty consistent across native languages. Even though you might perceive your thoughts to be formulated in your native language, your brain almost certainly generates that representation from another, which is probably more universal. That means we could exchange these universal representations of thoughts and our own brains would do the "translation" as necessary.

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#99

Post by remir »

wil421 wrote: post #78
remir wrote: post #76

I wonder what will happen to languages and culture when we will eventually be able to transmit direct thoughts to another person using brain implants or other tech. Imagine being able to communicate without any possibility of misunderstanding. The idea you have in mind is the exact idea the other person receives.

I don’t think it works that way. My thoughts are in English. I’ve asked bilingual people about their dreams and thoughts. Most of them say it can be both languages usually depending on where they are. If you mean transfer a feeling then I’d agree it’s possible. Like happy, sad, angry etc.

I am bilingual. I personally do not dream in a specific language. When I wake up, I'll remember scenes, people, feelings and actions. Sometimes there are dialogues in French, but it's rare.

As for thoughts, I often think in French or English, but for a lot of thoughts, no language is involved. For example, I do not think "I must pay my electricity bill" or "I should do some laundry today".

Re: Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

#100

Post by amyjess »

luxpir wrote: post #50

Learn Icelandic for free online, via the gov-supported course: https://icelandiconline.com/ Goes up to advanced level. The appeal for me is the ability to understand one of the least changed old European languages, much akin to our Old English. One that is bizarrely and amazingly still spoken. Admittedly I do speak a fair bit of Swedish, potentially making things easier, but even without that there are many cognates…

> The appeal for me is the ability to understand one of the least changed old European languages, much akin to our Old English.

From what I understand, written Icelandic is mutually intelligible with Old Norse, so if you learned Icelandic you could actually read the sagas. The pronunciation has diverged enough that the spoken languages aren't mutually intelligible, but nobody really speaks Old Norse anymore so it doesn't matter.

I guess it's kinda like the relationship between Middle English and Modern English. The written forms are similar enough that Chaucer is usually presented in the original Middle English alongside a gloss for whatever words have disappeared from the language since.

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