http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/1...guages.php

New atlas shows dying languages around the world

"Some 2,500 of the approximately 6,000 languages used around the planet today are in danger of disappearing, a team of linguists said Thursday as they unveiled an online atlas of those that are endangered...."

- http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages

Lots of complicated issues here!

Unfortunately there's not much to do about it. It's more or less guaranteed that globalization will eventually lead to one unifying language kicking all other languages out.

One has to accept that. However, it really sucks that tons of languages will probably die off without ever being studied enough so that someone can still learn them like we can learn latin today.

it's a bit of a simplistic view....
One unifying language kicking all other languages out ????! it sounds like mac farlane's global village ....theory which has been totally disproved in the years following its publication.

It's true that some languages are going to die out ....
because of the globalisation ? sure it does have some effect but what about Etruscan language for instance ? It was dead long ago and it's only by dint of insane effort that some scientist have been able to rediscover the language . nobody spoke ill about the globalisation then . Because it was plain obvious that etruscan had merged with local culture which just turned out to be stronger. There is a name for that : it's called the law of the survival of the fittest .
globalisation is just a catalyzer . Language , culture and economy go together . .Language is about communication and communication about activity . When the country and its culture don't care about being competitive they're naturally wiped out .
When a little village of farmer and fisher don't care about their environment and have a very weak level of interaction with the outside there's no wonder they're not able to cope with it .... so there's no motive of grief either .
I'll quote the article "The atlas says 200 languages have become extinct in the last three generations and 199 languages have fewer than 10 speakers left. Among those recently classified as extinct are Eyak, whose last speaker died in Alaska last year."
fewer than 10 speakers left ????! what the f.... did they do of their life ? last speaker of a language died in his country ?why didn't he move out ? you're concerned about language ? have kids , create a business , write books , learn and teach in another country.....

It's all about activity and strenght . Some culture are just too strong to disappear only through economic competition. On the contrary I think it's way more likely that the strongest cultures are going to invade english speaking countries with their own language . English will only be a very low level standard , the infamous "globish" (when you're totally lost you resort to english) or a specific high level standard . The bulk of the exchanges remain a national property and national culture are as strong as ever .
Crying for dying language is like mourning dinosaurs.

I think perhaps you haven't thought the topic through, Tobberoth.

I also don't think language is merely a matter of 'survival of the fittest'. If self-study's taught us anything, it's that. ;p

They still speak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language in my country. I cannot understand it but the flow of that language is quite awesome I must say.

I love having 4 official languages. Hopefully it won't change any time soon...

I don't know about that. The more globalized the world becomes, the higher the need to learn languages of other people, that's why more or less every single person in Sweden speaks English to a really high degree. If our government decided today that we will switch to English, it wouldn't be impossible. In 100 years, what's to say we aren't all speaking English? With every generation it becomes more and more natural. (My parents speak English quite alright, my grandparents can barely speak it at all).

Languages disappear when cultures mix for long periods of time. Globalization is what changes it from local to international. Before, languages disappeared if they were mixed on a local spot. Now they change over any boundaries.

I'm not saying everyone one in the world will speak English in 500 years. I'm saying that out of those 6000 languages, I'd be surprised if even 1000 are left in 500 years.

I say we bring back Latin.

nest0r Wrote:I think perhaps you haven't thought the topic through, Tobberoth.

I also don't think language is merely a matter of 'survival of the fittest'. If self-study's taught us anything, it's that. ;p

yeah but why did you self study japanese hum ? why japanese instead of belorussian or walahi ? because the available "ressource" (in a broad meaning : it's as much about culture as it's about economy) are too scarce .... in some case it's even worse than that : you don't even know it EXISTS. ever heard about Chylum or Aguacateco ?
Neither did I . Local tribe who didn't grow strong enough to beat the s.... out of russians and mayas ..... So they weren't able to extend their influence and by retroaction they weren't able to develop themselves . Even if you have enough pity to care about them (and I think we can assume most people don't : not enough time to learn 3-4 languages let alone a 10 people culture whose influence has never been beyond the river of their village... ) how are you supposed to learn it when it wasn't even strong enough to make a name for itself ?

I think that's the point of the atlas, however. The same energies behind my and others' self-study, combined with various projects, could serve to preserve and rehabilitate endangered languages. I just meant that a language's presence is more than a matter of mere function or the actions of the native users of the language, as it becomes more 'abstracted' beyond its geography.

You'll just become aware it exists (conditionned that you have seen the map) but it doesn't mean that you'll have an interest in it . It's a huge investment (several years) for such a tiny profit (improve our knowledge of the language mechanism). Only specialist can be interested by that . In a party you hang out with interesting peoples not with the dull one because he seems all alone .

So I must disagree : Language is all bout function .

ghinzdra Wrote:You'll just become aware it exists (conditionned that you have seen the map) but it doesn't mean that you'll have an interest in it . It's a huge investment (several years) for such a tiny profit (improve our knowledge of the language mechanism). Only specialist can be interested by that . In a party you hang out with interesting peoples not with the dull one because he seems all alone .

So I must disagree : Language is all bout function .

Well, I think it's important, and apparently some folks feel even more strongly than I do, they even went so far as to start global language preservation projects. It doesn't do any harm, but does plenty of good. I'd like to have the option to examine the merits of as many human cultural artifacts as possible before selecting the few I'd find interesting and useful, and I think many others feel the same. If I think there's a lack of resources for a language that I want to study, I feel bad about that, I want to change it, I want to improve the # of resources if only through futile complaining, not sniff and say 'oh well'. I feel there's enough artificial entropic factors at work in diminishing cultural diversity to make offsetting those factors for even pure whimsy (which is by no means the only possible reason) a worthwhile endeavor.

not folks . Scientists

Tobberoth Wrote:I don't know about that. The more globalized the world becomes, the higher the need to learn languages of other people, that's why more or less every single person in Sweden speaks English to a really high degree. If our government decided today that we will switch to English, it wouldn't be impossible. In 100 years, what's to say we aren't all speaking English? With every generation it becomes more and more natural. (My parents speak English quite alright, my grandparents can barely speak it at all).

Languages disappear when cultures mix for long periods of time. Globalization is what changes it from local to international. Before, languages disappeared if they were mixed on a local spot. Now they change over any boundaries.

I'm not saying everyone one in the world will speak English in 500 years. I'm saying that out of those 6000 languages, I'd be surprised if even 1000 are left in 500 years.

I think that in 500 years there'll be one language existing in 10 dimensions. Did I just blow your mind?

Jokes aside, speaking of my 'official' opinion, I think the future of language resides somewhere between centralization and fragmentation. Technologies will encourage easier understanding of culturally endemic languages, and the customization, creation, and learning of elective languages will continue to proliferate while institutions variably seek multiple dominant languages for functionality and take the cultural and elective factors into account while remaining adaptive to economic trends and the like. Many of my thoughts on this topic are influenced by Saskia Sassen's models for analyzing globalization in a more nuanced way than previous paradigms: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8159.html

No mention of the obvious solution namely the global language Esperanto!

I see that President Barack Obama wants everyone to learn a foreign language, but which one should it be? The British learn French, the Australians study Japanese, and the Americans prefer Spanish.Yet this leaves Mandarin Chinese and Arabic out of the equation.

Why not teach a common neutral non-national language, in all countries, in all schools, worldwide?

An interesting video can be seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...8991452670.

A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net

Brian_Barker Wrote:An interesting video can be seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...8991452670.

A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net

"We're sorry, but this video may not be available.

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@Captal
Brian_Barker accidentally added a point to the link, remove that and it works fine

Esperanto seems like it would only make the problem of endangered languages worse. I looked at the website and part of the introductory material. My first impression was that it seemed like a mix of European languages but with the spelling system revised. As interesting as the idea is, it does not seem practical to try to spread an artificial language to the point that it would be useful. If a lot of people are learning many different languages, at least the languages are staying alive and absorbing new speakers.

At this point English has absorbed words from so many languages and is taught so many places, that I wonder if it wouldn't be more efficient to make a radically revised International spelling system for English that would actually be phonetic and regular. Historically English-speaking countries could keep their own spelling systems but teach a phonetic spelling for international communication, too. It would be a lot easier to teach English in Japan, for instance, if our spelling had a reasonable level of correspondence with the sounds. Maybe the phonetic spelling could be taught first so that kids could read faster.

nest0r Wrote:I think that in 500 years there'll be one language existing in 10 dimensions. Did I just blow your mind?

Actually, you're not too far off. According to current mathematical and string theory, 11 dimensions may exists at the moment.

Perhaps in 500 years our understanding of languages will be reduced to 1 while our understanding of the universe will expand to 10 dimensions.

@KristinHolly;
Phonetic and regular to who, though? English is spoken natively all over the world, and the dialects vary widely. Who are you going to pick as the standard? People are going to get the shaft no matter what, and as the language continues to drift (as they do), the new revised system will need to be revised again, and then again... while still only remaining true for one particular subset of speakers.

Plus, English isn't terribly national at this point; between Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canuckistan, the United States, and a bunch of other smaller countries, it's probably the least nationally-connected widely-used language there is. It's the national language of more countries than Spanish or French, and in number of native speakers is second only to Mandarin, which is only official in two to four countries depending on political leanings.

~J

I think latin should be revived and used as a formal international language. It would take AGES to make enough people good at it and all... but because of how it's built, latin is a very exact language. I think it would make sense to use it, if it was possible.

I'm of course talking about formal latin, not vulgar.

Personally, I took into account the idea of int'l auxiliary languages, including constructed ones, when forming my own hypothesis of the future of languages. I don't think agreeing upon or enforcing a single neutral global language is necessary or practical, however, for the above reasons, because I think the logic around it falls prey to what Sassen calls the 'endogeneity trap'. Language is bound up closely with the politics of identity and the vagaries of reality. While surely people will continue to construct and customize languages according to their preferences and needs, I really think that the evolving availability of multilingual resources will obviate the need/interest amongst individuals for such a singular implementation, and amongst national and postnational institutions, their language use will be bound up in what their own and what other people speak in different nationalities and institutions, and what's most economically and technologically relevant, et cetera, which often changes.

Here's one old analysis of the constructed language/neutrality issue:

http://www.rickharrison.com/language/farewell.html

Yeah, if there was a country full of native Esperanto speakers, it might have a better chance. It's one of those ideas that sounds great until you realize that you wouldn't be able to find any native speakers to teach the classes.

Esperanto is a great idea if you're from a country that speaks a primarily Indo-European language, but if you don't, you're kind of boned. All of those folks in East Asia wouldn't really get any help at all, among others. Maybe the EU can look into imposing it on all its member countries. It would give them something to do instead of setting regulations on the degree of curvature in a European Standard Cucumber.

I don't think the whole world will be speaking one language anytime soon. The hurdles right now are too high, and there are too many countries full of people just struggling to find clean water and something to eat to worry about things like that.

Of course, based on a few other threads, if the whole world starts speaking English, then Japan is in trouble.

EDIT: AH, forgot-- when we're all hooked up to the neural net, we'll all speak binary anyway, right?

QuackingShoe Wrote:@KristinHolly;
Phonetic and regular to who, though? English is spoken natively all over the world, and the dialects vary widely. Who are you going to pick as the standard? People are going to get the shaft no matter what, and as the language continues to drift (as they do), the new revised system will need to be revised again, and then again... while still only remaining true for one particular subset of speakers.

I was thinking a committee of representatives from UN member nations picking out a system and applying it to a database of words taken from several dictionaries regardless of the current spelling, maybe taking a vote on pronunciations or giving several options on problem words for a second committee to deal with. Then the final database of words would be pronounced as written, even if that wasn't the way it was in your country. If it changed later, at least a lot of the words would be regular. I wasn't imagining this as the only language of the UN or any particular country, just as an alternative spelling that would be easier.

That probably wouldn't work, but I do think English has too many exceptions and weirdly spelled words to be easily learned. A new system would seem incredibly ugly for several decades at least, and borrowed words would be a problem. Can you imagine "Yewnited Nashuns Inglish" dealing with words like "halahpainyo" and "sahkay"?

I do like the idea of Latin, but there's a lot of vocabulary that would need to be invented for it. I think the Vatican has an office for making up new Latin vocabulary, but there's probably a lot of words they haven't addressed, yet.

Edit: but yes, Rich is probably right about clean water and adequate food being the priority. World hunger & problems of that order wouldn't be solved by a committee with dictionaries.

The problem with a language created by a committee is that it would have all of the style, grace, and beauty of... a language created by a committee.