Should we rescue endangered languages?

[c172]

I recently listened to a webcast about how Alaska has made some of its native languages official state languages, in an effort to promote efforts to conserve languages that are in danger of becoming extinct.

Is there a point to spending money to save a language from becoming extinct?

It always makes me marginally sad to hear when the last person who had such-and-such native tongue has passed. I do love linguistic variety. Heck, I was conlanging for a while.

But the fact is, we will never be exposed to even a large fraction of these languages, so it's not like we are missing out. As for the progeny of those whose mother tongues are endangered, I would suspect they'd mostly want to learn the language, and culture, surrounding them, anyhow, and that forcing yourself to keep with certain languages might be a bit isolating.

[downbeatplumb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvlQXPNwrqo

[c172]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cENbkHS3mnY

Scots: dialect or language? This was kind of interesting to listen to.

[Jenny A]

Cé nach bhfuil aon rud cearr bunúsach le teangacha a chaomhnú, ní a lán de phointe oiread. Go leor nó an chuid is mó teangacha a bhfuil dóthain litríochta mar a dhéanamh ar iarrachtaí ar leith a chaomhnú moot orthu.

Is í an Ghaeilge ar an mbealach chun bheith ina teanga marbh, ach níl neart scríofa marthain ársa agus lár na hÉireann a chaomhnú cad is gá a bheith.


Boru

Preserving it by making sure we still have a dictionary and a grammar so the literature can still be read is a no brainer, but academics will do this anyway.

What I don't think we should do is to spend money trying to raise new native speakers of a dying language or even bi-lingual ones. Languages have been coming and going since man first opened his mouth and spoke. And all languages change. Anyone read this with ease?

"Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon
hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon." Beowulf

Should we try to raise a few native Englishmen who sound like that? Or perhaps we should raise Danes to to say, "wé Gárdena."

This is easier but still hardly modern English:

"WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke." Canturbury Tales, Chaucer.

Any volunteers to keep Old English alive?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Cé nach bhfuil aon rud cearr bunúsach le teangacha a chaomhnú, ní a lán de phointe oiread. Go leor nó an chuid is mó teangacha a bhfuil dóthain litríochta mar a dhéanamh ar iarrachtaí ar leith a chaomhnú moot orthu.

Is í an Ghaeilge ar an mbealach chun bheith ina teanga marbh, ach níl neart scríofa marthain ársa agus lár na hÉireann a chaomhnú cad is gá a bheith.


Boru

Preserving it by making sure we still have a dictionary and a grammar so the literature can still be read is a no brainer, but academics will do this anyway.

What I don't think we should do is to spend money trying to raise new native speakers of a dying language or even bi-lingual ones. Languages have been coming and going since man first opened his mouth and spoke. And all languages change. Anyone read this with ease?

"Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon
hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon." Beowulf

Should we try to raise a few native Englishmen who sound like that? Or perhaps we should raise Danes to to say, "wé Gárdena."

This is easier but still hardly modern English:

"WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke." Canturbury Tales, Chaucer.

Any volunteers to keep Old English alive?

This was largely my point. Irish is dying (a map of the Gaeltacht show that quite clearly), but there is a sufficiency of Irish literature (both ancient and middle) available for anyone who wants to learn Irish. The only reason to make a concerted effort to restore Irish as a living language is as a poke on the eye to the English. But the efforts to eradicate Irish failed utterly and completely, and I don't see any purpose to be served by posting road signs in Irish, publishing textbooks in Irish, etc.

Boru

[Marsellus Wallace]

Fuck that shit . Make English the one global language and get this over with . The more standard language is the more practical and efficient we are .

[c172]

I went to St. Maarten in March, which is a country in the Caribbean that is within the Dutch Crown. Having never been there (or the Caribbean at all), I expected to be exposed to a bit of Dutch, which I find a beautiful language to listen to.

Disappointingly, everybody spoke English. I did hear one person speaking Papiamento, which was neat. That's a regional language down there. But I would have thought the Crown would have required more Dutch immersion/usage in its constituent countries than just "Brandweer" written on the front of fire apparatus.

[Jenny A]

This was largely my point. Irish is dying (a map of the Gaeltacht show that quite clearly), but there is a sufficiency of Irish literature (both ancient and middle) available for anyone who wants to learn Irish. The only reason to make a concerted effort to restore Irish as a living language is as a poke on the eye to the English. But the efforts to eradicate Irish failed utterly and completely, and I don't see any purpose to be served by posting road signs in Irish, publishing textbooks in Irish, etc.

Boru

I'm with you there. I feel the same about Native American languages and the French Creole spoken in Louisiana. They shouldn't be eradicated, but no effort should be made to preserve them as living languages if they are dying a natural death.

[Tobie]

Like most of you, I also think that there shouldn't be any effort made to keep them alive, but they should be preserved (for the historians and such like).

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Fuck that shit . Make English the one global language and get this over with . The more standard language is the more practical and efficient we are .

English is (effectively) that already. In 50 years or so, I wouldn't be surprised if the global language ('Earthish'? 'Earthean'?) was some sort of Mandarin/English fusion.

Boru