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| Author |
Message |
| 11 new of 35 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 25 of 35:
| 
Jun 20 22:25 UTC 1999 |
True, but those are a small price (for other people) to pay so that our
vacations abroad can be more quaint, don't you think?
I'm not arguing in favor of one huge global monoculture but I do think
that a universal language would solve more problems than it causes.
So far the majority of respondents to this item have been north americans,
where the issue isn't a pressing one for the majority of the population,
though it does come up. How do people feel in places like India, where
*many* different languages are spoken in the same country and universal
comprehension is much harder to take for granted?
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swa
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response 26 of 35:
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Jul 2 01:55 UTC 1999 |
The long and no doubt brilliant response I was going to make has flown out
of my head. :)
However -- this is a discussion that seems worth continuing. Perhaps some
kind soul (if any are still reading this) might consider linking this to
language?
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rcurl
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response 27 of 35:
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Jul 2 05:43 UTC 1999 |
Spring 1999 agora 189, "Dying Languages", has been linked to language 103.
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davel
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response 28 of 35:
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Jul 3 02:21 UTC 1999 |
Thanks, Rane. I'm glad to have read it. The many keatses of responses
already said everything I would have said, so I don't even have to formulate
a reply. 8-{)]
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debraj
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response 29 of 35:
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Sep 7 16:25 UTC 1999 |
I am from India so this question is important to me.Among the languages of
India, except for a dozen or so, the others are in a sense "Dying Languages".
In north India, even a century ago there used to be several languages with
distinctive literatures and cultures associated with them.
However since then, the rise of the printed word, and the politics of language
has ensured that they have been relegated in status to dialects of Hindi or
have been altoghether wiped out. This has been the fate of Maithili, Bhojpuri,
Magahi etc. in the provinces of Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh.Similarly,
Brajabhasha, once ( in the 16th and 17th centuries) the literary dialect of
western Hindi is now extinct. Lingui`stic homogenization is the future of the
world.
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swa
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response 30 of 35:
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Sep 27 00:01 UTC 1999 |
I think that not all of these languages are necessarily doomed. Here in
New Mexico, many of the Native American tribes have become concerned that
their languages are spoken by fewer and fewer people (and most of those
who do also speak English, although there are still a small number of
Navajos in particular, I believe, who are monolingual), so the tribes made
a point of setting up classes for children in the tribe, so that they
could learn the languages while they were still young. I learned recently
of a similar program among Native Hawaiians. It is very difficult to
preserve these languages, but it can be done.
Personally, I think that it's very very important to do so. There is so
much history behind these languages, and each has a unique role in
shaping culture. No, it's not particularly "useful" in a pragmatic sense
-- but I don't think that pragmatism should be the only factor here. Next
on my list of languages that I want to learn is Finnish. (Well, okay,
next after learning enough Spanish to pronounce the names of streets and
cities here in New Mexico without feeling like a total idiot.) Finnish is
spoken by around five million people, nearly all of whom speak Swedish and
English as well, a large number of whom speak French and German. Learning
Finnish is thus not at all "useful" -- but it is important to me so that I
can write to my Finnish friend in her own language, read Finnish
literature and newspapers, and, yes, gain a different perspective. (For
example, the fact that "he" and "she" are the same word -- "han" --
boggles my little American-gender-specific mind.) So... Finnish is
obviously in much less danger of dying out than many of the other
languages discussed here. But the idea of *any* language dying out
strikes me as sad.
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happyboy
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response 31 of 35:
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Sep 27 02:36 UTC 1999 |
Heista Nuppa!
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orinoco
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response 32 of 35:
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Nov 19 14:54 UTC 1999 |
I met a few Philippino teenagers and 20-somethings in San Francisco who
were learning Tagalog as a rebellious thing to do, using it as private slang.
If this sort of thing is going on elsewhere, it's a good sign for that
language's survival. I guess the language's original speakers were opressed
enough (at home and in this country) that you could see speaking it as a
rebellious thing.
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bhoward
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response 33 of 35:
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Nov 11 00:07 UTC 2003 |
The Punana Leo and related Hawaiian language immersion programs have
achieved remarkable success in a very short time in reviving Hawaiian
as a living, breathing, primary language for several waves of children.
The key to the survival of any language is teaching it as a primary
language to children and mapping out options and career paths where they
may subsequently use that language as part of their daily lives.
It's extremely difficult and requires signficant committment of time with
little certainty of the results, particularly for the early participants
in such programs, but it can be done.
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twenex
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response 34 of 35:
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Nov 20 00:46 UTC 2003 |
The obvious substitution for "proprietary" in #0 would be
"minority" or even "endangered".
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naftee
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response 35 of 35:
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Aug 30 04:00 UTC 2005 |
ryan sucks
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