Dying Languages

[Lackadaisical2]

Not necessarily.

Why not?

Because, its just a preference like anything else. I don't think theres a need to preserve unpopular brands of alcohol despite them possibly giving someone a different outlook on life or whatever dreck.

[Forsakia]

Psst, William Morgan. Henry Morgan's the Pirate/rum.

Oops!

You're absolutely correct, of course.

You stirred some old memories of lessons in school, and some more recent memories of drinking in bars.

[Der Teutoniker]

Nope...languages should be left to die...most of those dying languages are obsolete anyway.
I demand want Quenya; Latin; or English become the international language of all humans.

We can start by making every government in the world enforce English/Latin/Quenya teaching alongside their country's main language in their education system...soon all shall speak English/Latin/Quenya. All that will remain are the illiterates and un-educated and those isolated from the national education system.

Over time English/Latin/Quenya shall take over.

Not Khuzdul? Interesting.

[Der Teutoniker]

Honestly, I would be ready to kill, or even die for my language, but as said, in the future I will most likely fight in other ways. I am planning on maybe becoming an journalist, or maybe a politician too, to fight for what I stand for.

If you, and your people can preserve it, then you have earned preservation. Not a moment before then, however.

I do respect and applaud your resolve, however.

[Vestr-Norig]

Yes, I can write in Norwegian, but it's not Norwegian itself which is in danger of dying, its Nynorsk, one of two of the Norwegian languages.
And no, but I am planning to become a member of "Noregs Mållag", a organization that is working for the language. And I have wrote letters to newspapers about their language policy, even though I have not got answers from them

I've been wondering, are Nyorsk and Bokmål mutually intelligible? By which I mean could a Nyorsk-speaker understand what a Bokmål-speaker was saying?

Well, yes, it is like Danish and Swedish.

[Esternial]

Nope...languages should be left to die...most of those dying languages are obsolete anyway.
I demand Quenya; Latin; or English become the international language of all humans.

We can start by making every government in the world enforce English/Latin/Quenya teaching alongside their country's main language in their education system...soon all shall speak English/Latin/Quenya. All that will remain are the illiterates and un-educated and those isolated from the national education system.

Over time English/Latin/Quenya shall take over.

Latin will never return to its old splendour. For one, it's useless in terms of vocabulary.

For example, they don't have a Latin word for 'the being' or 'eos' in Ancient greek (IIRC), used in philosophy.

[Shper]

Nope...languages should be left to die...most of those dying languages are obsolete anyway.
I demand want Quenya; Latin; or English become the international language of all humans.

We can start by making every government in the world enforce English/Latin/Quenya teaching alongside their country's main language in their education system...soon all shall speak English/Latin/Quenya. All that will remain are the illiterates and un-educated and those isolated from the national education system.

Over time English/Latin/Quenya shall take over.

Not Khuzdul? Interesting.

As a proud Sindarin speaker, you have both offended me.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

No, if a language/ culture cant survive on its own, it perhaps is not worth saving in first place.

I advocate the destruction of Nepali.

[Der Teutoniker]

As a proud Sindarin speaker, you have both offended me.

Dwarves > Elves.

[Vestr-Norig]

Honestly, I would be ready to kill, or even die for my language, but as said, in the future I will most likely fight in other ways. I am planning on maybe becoming an journalist, or maybe a politician too, to fight for what I stand for.

If you, and your people can preserve it, then you have earned preservation. Not a moment before then, however.

I do respect and applaud your resolve, however.

Well, it is hard to prevent the language from dying when so many of the Bokmål useres,who makes up about 80 percent of the population,wants the language extinct

[The Matthew Islands]

I know that supposedly some of the northern Orc clan languages are dying out such as Scouse and Geordie for economic reasons.


Seriously though, if a language is on its way out, let it. You can't force people to speak a language and people who do usually end up failing.

Descriptivism FTW.

[Liriena]

Every year, all around the world, languages are dying out while cultures are being forgotten. On the list of Endangered Languages of 2005 182 American languages, 152 Pacific languages, 84 Asian languages, 46 African languages and 9 European languages are at risk of dying out... That's 473 languages around the world at risk of dying out. Some of the languages have 30 speakers or less!

My question is do you think it is important to try to prevent languages from dying out?

Those languages should be taught in public schools in their land of origin, and mayor universities worldwide should offer optional classes to teach such languages to any student who wants to.
I also believe that we should install Esperanto as an official international language, since one of the main reasons why languages are dying is because other foreign languages are taking over, such as English, Chinese or Spanish. Since Esperanto is designed to safeguard cultural identity and be easy to learn and use, it is perfect to act as an official secondary language to all mankind since its neutral and carries a lesser risk of eliminating another language.

[Arumdaum]

2. Except the local language will be passed down by generations (if they want to preserve it). Just cos it is not official, does not mean it will vanish. There are 125 languages spoken in Nepal, and yet only one is national language since known time. In Nepal-India border area lost in Gurkha war about two hundred years ago, and Hindi is official language but if you go there almost all people speak Nepali. And, as I said before, solution is for government to get out of cutlure not interfere more.

Not if the benefits of speaking Chinese are greater. The area you're talking about is a mostly rural and agricultural area. You don't need to learn Hindi there.

[SD_Film Artists]

Honestly, I would be ready to kill, or even die for my language, but as said, in the future I will most likely fight in other ways. I am planning on maybe becoming an journalist, or maybe a politician too, to fight for what I stand for.

If you, and your people can preserve it, then you have earned preservation. Not a moment before then, however.

I do respect and applaud your resolve, however.

If I have children in France I wouldn't shed a tear if they don't learn English (though they'd probably want to in order to speak to their dad's side of the family, not to mention it being a world language) as language is a tool, used so that we can speak to eachother. Though that's partially because France has a reason to speak French as it is/was a world power...unlike Quebec..

[Varazhdin]

Honestly, I would be ready to kill, or even die for my language, but as said, in the future I will most likely fight in other ways. I am planning on maybe becoming an journalist, or maybe a politician too, to fight for what I stand for.

If you, and your people can preserve it, then you have earned preservation. Not a moment before then, however.

I do respect and applaud your resolve, however.

I think the whole point of saving languages is wether we actively support such people who fight for their language to ensure their success. Because, no matter how hard they try, the circumstances could still prevent them for their success. The question is, should OTHERS support their struggle for their language.

[Tekania]

Every year, all around the world, languages are dying out while cultures are being forgotten. On the list of Endangered Languages of 2005 182 American languages, 152 Pacific languages, 84 Asian languages, 46 African languages and 9 European languages are at risk of dying out... That's 473 languages around the world at risk of dying out. Some of the languages have 30 speakers or less!

My question is do you think it is important to try to prevent languages from dying out?

Personally, I believe it is important to prevent languages from dying out because when a language dies out an culture dies out. Languages allow stories, songs, and beliefs to live on and while stories and languages can be translated they often loose meaning or do not have as deep of an meaning as in the original language.

Languages change, evolve, merge, die... I see no reason why this should be different. If I took the average Londoner today, and time-shifted him into the 13th century, he'd have a hell of a time talking to the average person on the street.

[Der Teutoniker]

I think the whole point of saving languages is wether we actively support such people who fight for their language to ensure their success. Because, no matter how hard they try, the circumstances could still prevent them for their success. The question is, should OTHERS support their struggle for their language.

If they want to. I am unmoved. I support the will of the strong. Those who can make changes, should. Those who can preserve themselves, should.

[Shper]

As a proud Sindarin speaker, you have both offended me.

Dwarves > Elves.

Where were the Dwarves during the War of the Last Alliance, eh?

No, if a language/ culture cant survive on its own, it perhaps is not worth saving in first place.

I advocate the destruction of Nepali.

But 17 million people speak it. :\

[Forsakia]

Rubbish. British heritage was created organically over the years of the British Empire as the British nations, which share genetics and an island separated from the rest of Europe in the first place, achieved great things together and made the UK the strongest on Earth, exporting the composite British culture across the seas to the Old Commonwealth, and influencing the cultures of the New Commonwealth and beyond. Indeed, with the spread of popular culture, this unity has become even more profound. Scottish nationalism at least intends to get rid of 300 years of history and cultural development.

Well, they don't share genetics, for a start. And Scottish nationalism wants to get rid of those 300 years because over 10,000 years were lost in favour of "Britishness".

You are vastly over-estimating how long there has been anything that could be realistically called "Scottishness".

You can make an argument the "Britain" pre-dates "Scotland" as far as a common culture goes.

[Der Teutoniker]

If I have children in France I wouldn't shed a tear if they don't learn English (though they'd probably want to in order to speak to their dad's side of the family, not to mention it being a world language) as language is a tool, used so that we can speak to eachother. Though that's partially because France has a reason to speak French as it is/was a world power...unlike Quebec..

And I would not go to great lengths to preserve (American) English. It is my native tongue, but I do not like it at all. It is unimportant to me.

[Der Teutoniker]

Where were the Dwarves during the War of the Last Alliance, eh?

Underground for the most part. Having fought in a given war is not a sign of superiority.

[SD_Film Artists]

Well, they don't share genetics, for a start. And Scottish nationalism wants to get rid of those 300 years because over 10,000 years were lost in favour of "Britishness".

You are vastly over-estimating how long there has been anything that could be realistically called "Scottishness".

It's sad when people are so quick to state something as an ethnicity. It leads to racism.

[Stauffieland]

I'm really on two thoughts about this.

Basic darwinism tells us that things die out because they fail to adapt. It could be said that if the language or culture is dying out, it isn't needed by it's speakers anymore, it has lived past it's usefullness.
A died out language is far less tragic than a died out species in my opinion, but the paralel is there: if the species/language fails to adapt to the environment/the lives of it's speakers... it dies out.

But darwinism gives no moral judgements at all. Do the facts above mean we should not try to prevent species on the brink of extinction from actually going extinct? No! I think we we should try to save the tiger, or the whale, even though we have no 'use' for them. I read somewhere that 96% of all vertebrates over 5 kg are humans or domesticated animals... so few wild ones left. But they have value on their own, without the value we assign them when going on safari.

In the same way, languages have value on their own. Not for amusement in a theme-parky way ('come look at the strange locals with interesting clothes and weird language'), but by themself on themself.

[Der Teutoniker]

You are vastly over-estimating how long there has been anything that could be realistically called "Scottishness".

Indeed, considering that "Scottishness" is a pretty mixed idea that borrows from several different sources. Celtic, Germanic (Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Viking, and I think Norwegian), and Roman. Perhaps others.

[Zairoon]

If it has less than 1,000 or so speakers and/or is similar to another more common language, we should let it go.