Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
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Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#2> with the rise of Islam in the 7th century, Christian sites in the Sinai Desert began to disappear, and Saint Catherine’s found itself in relative isolation. Monks turned to reusing older parchments when supplies at the monastery ran scarce.
That sounds ... odd. If the monks were isolated then why should they copy books, especially when they had to delete older material to do so? At the very least this implies that the monks had a supply of books to copy and also had to return the originals to someone somehow.
I think the more logical explanation is that the deleted texts were considered worthless.
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#3> with the rise of Islam in the 7th century, Christian sites in the Sinai Desert began to disappear, and Saint Catherine’s found itself in relative isolation. Monks turned to reusing older parchments when supplies at the monastery ran scarce. That sounds ... odd. If the monks were isolated then why should they copy books, especially when they had to delete older material to do so? At the very least this implies that…
> 'I think the more logical explanation is that the deleted texts were considered worthless.'
It's your contention that the monks had unlimited access to parchment, but just chose to overwrite older work?
> If the monks were isolated then why should they copy books, especially when they had to delete older material to do so?
A religious order dedicated to copying books as a spiritual discipline isn't going to just sit around when parchment is hard to come by.
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#4Glibc contains COBOL code?
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#5> with the rise of Islam in the 7th century, Christian sites in the Sinai Desert began to disappear, and Saint Catherine’s found itself in relative isolation. Monks turned to reusing older parchments when supplies at the monastery ran scarce. That sounds ... odd. If the monks were isolated then why should they copy books, especially when they had to delete older material to do so? At the very least this implies that…
Books were not only copied to have 2 functional copies, but also to have 1 fresh copy remaining once the older copy is no longer usable. Books are perishable and the more they are used, the quicker they disintegrate. That in itself is sufficient reason to sacrifice some works to preserve other works.
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#6> with the rise of Islam in the 7th century, Christian sites in the Sinai Desert began to disappear, and Saint Catherine’s found itself in relative isolation. Monks turned to reusing older parchments when supplies at the monastery ran scarce. That sounds ... odd. If the monks were isolated then why should they copy books, especially when they had to delete older material to do so? At the very least this implies that…
Because some books are more valuable than others. You might enjoy Harry Potter, but if your only copy of a calculus 101 is deteriorating you will erase Harry Potter and copy the calculus text over the top to save the more important calculus book - or maybe you would erase the calculus textbook to copy Harry Potter over the top. This is a statement of relative value when paper is scarce, but it doesn't mean they didn't value the lost text, just that the replacement was even more valuable. If they had plenty of paper they wouldn't have erased the lost text in the first place and probably would have made a new copy.
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#7As someone who makes a hobby of learning languages, I am of the highly unpopular opinion that the world would be a better place if we could pick one easy-to-learn language (e.g. Malay) and one super-simple writing system (e.g. South Korean Hangul) and get our species out of the dark ages of having thousands of mutually unintelligible languages.
No-one in their right mind would create an ethical, functioning modern society with thousands of languages, some with 100% global power and some with 0%, and have children born into it at random.
Maybe it's because I'm not a historian, but statements like this:
> Michael Phelps, director of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library, tells Gray of the Atlantic that the discovery of Caucasian Albanian writings at Saint Catherine’s library has helped scholars increase their knowledge of the language’s vocabulary, giving them words for things like “net” and “fish.”
... make me sad, not happy. This isn't exciting or fascinating, it's a testament to how pointless it is that we put so much value in languages, like we're still murmuring incantations around a fire and we just learned a new old one to murmur.
Let's pick a word for "net" and "fish" and finally, as a species, be done with it.
Make a program of keeping the new global language alive and equally accessible, just like we currently do with essential medicines.
Everybody has their own local medicines, even traditional witch-doctor medicines, but at the same time everybody gets the exact same doxycycline and training on when to use it. Likewise whatever word we end up choosing for "fish" and "net": use whatever word you want in your village, but when you want the one that works in the rest of the world, we made sure you're already armed with it.
Sure, languages evolve and you can't fight that, but with a global internet and a concerted effort to finally solve the Tower of Babel problem, languages can evolve everywhere at once into a single global language that every child gets brought up speaking.
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#8As someone who makes a hobby of learning languages, I am of the highly unpopular opinion that the world would be a better place if we could pick one easy-to-learn language (e.g. Malay) and one super-simple writing system (e.g. South Korean Hangul) and get our species out of the dark ages of having thousands of mutually unintelligible languages. No-one in their right mind would create an ethical, functioning modern so…
I read your comment and compare to programming languages. It would be revolutionary to have all computers programmed in the same language, but as different languages are good at different things and evolve concurrently, it's almost inconcievable to make it happen.
And you're talking about refactoring not merely an entire industry, but the very language of thought for our species!
How can we even begin to approach this consciously?
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#9> with the rise of Islam in the 7th century, Christian sites in the Sinai Desert began to disappear, and Saint Catherine’s found itself in relative isolation. Monks turned to reusing older parchments when supplies at the monastery ran scarce. That sounds ... odd. If the monks were isolated then why should they copy books, especially when they had to delete older material to do so? At the very least this implies that…
Because some books are more valuable than others. You might enjoy Harry Potter, but if your only copy of a calculus 101 is deteriorating you will erase Harry Potter and copy the calculus text over the top to save the more important calculus book - or maybe you would erase the calculus textbook to copy Harry Potter over the top. This is a statement of relative value when paper is scarce, but it doesn't mean they didn'…
There's a third way.
You combine the best halves of calculus and Harry Potter into one book.
It'll be more difficult to understand, but managing so grants one the best of both worlds.
Re: Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)
#10As someone who makes a hobby of learning languages, I am of the highly unpopular opinion that the world would be a better place if we could pick one easy-to-learn language (e.g. Malay) and one super-simple writing system (e.g. South Korean Hangul) and get our species out of the dark ages of having thousands of mutually unintelligible languages. No-one in their right mind would create an ethical, functioning modern so…
I'm sure you know that there is a reason your opinion is highly unpopular. Language doesn't just communicate fish and net.
Poetry, songs and literature just do not seamlessly translate between languages very well. Nor should we lose the calligraphy of Japanese/Chinese/Arabic/Persian.
Humanity would lose a lot if we all went to just one language and script.
Sure, when all the rich people flee to Elysium or Mars, they will be better off with generations growing up together with a common language and script. Because the population will be small in comparison and they will be creating their own civilization.
But until then, I'd like to keep the diversity right here on Earth.