Endangered languages

[Lagmonster]

Everybody who says languages dieing out is a good thing is an idiot or an uncultivated barbarian. The number of great works of culture that would be lost or inaccessible to all but a select few is nothing trivial. And it is already happening - who can read fortunatus, for example, or the poetry of Walther v.d. Vogelweide? These are great works which helped shape our modern culture to no small extent and people just propose abandoning them.

There is a place for the preservation of language and culture, but in museums and libraries, not the popular memory. For example, take the Canadian native populations. There are native languages here which are spoken fluently by as few as two or three living people. They insist that it is a tragedy that these languages die out completely, and have petitioned for pots of government money to force their kids to study it in school. The kids would much rather speak English, because that's the language spoken everywhere other than grandma's house. The loss of these dying languages from our archives would be sad to historians. The loss of these dying languages from the streets of Winnipeg is basically unimportant.

[hongi]

Culture is popular memory. Do you honestly think anthropologists and professors, no matter how well-meaning, can keep a culture going? The moment you box it up in a museum, you've acknowledged it's dead.

Since the Canadian government is in large part responsible for the linguistic disaster that Canada has on its hands, the government should pay up.

[Broomstick]

Were you to standardise the world on one language, it would fall apart again into dozens of regional dialects, then dozens of regional languages, like it always was and will be.

On this point alone, would it or would it not be more reasonable to expect the opposite trend the better off our global communications networks become?

I know that I'm simply assuming that since when you isolate populations they often diverge, that the opposite would be true when you bring people together with instant, widely-available global communications networks.

There has never been a widespread language that didn't fracture into dialects that then evolve into separate languages. That happened with Latin during/after the Roman Empire. It's happening now with English - despite global communications it is constantly falling into separate dialects. I understand several English dialects, hear them on a regular basis, but actually use only one or two myself. Already there's UK English (in several varieties), American English (a few varieties), Australian English (don't know how homogenous that is), Indian English.... just off the top of my head. When I went to France when I did encounter someone who spoke English it was invariably British English - whether that's still the case I don't know, as I went to France 30 years ago. Things change.

A living language changes and evolves. It doesn't stay consistent over even a continent, much less the world. If we did, hypothetically, institute a One World Language it would start acquiring regional slang and differences immediately and within just a few generations be fractured into dialects. That's the way human language works.

[Duckie]

Were you to standardise the world on one language, it would fall apart again into dozens of regional dialects, then dozens of regional languages, like it always was and will be.

On this point alone, would it or would it not be more reasonable to expect the opposite trend the better off our global communications networks become?

I know that I'm simply assuming that since when you isolate populations they often diverge, that the opposite would be true when you bring people together with instant, widely-available global communications networks.

The data is still out, and widespread literacy itself might pose some weirdnesses (though not necessarily, notice how english encodes perfectly the pronunciation of 1300 but it seems completely natural to read it like we do to us), and telecommunications might slow it down. But I'm dubious. The Cockneys didn't not know how the London Aristocrats spoke. They specifically spoke like Cockneys because they were Cockneys. Similarly, Cape Cod Accents become more thick when foreigners are around, unconsciously, and Mormons have noticeably specific vowel pronunciations.

The one interesting difference is that Mormonism's vowel merger is social and not geographic- many mormons have it and many non-mormons don't. It's like AAVE in that manner. Social status is now less geographic and more ephemeral. That's the big change of this era.

I'll be a big contrarian and say I expect it'll just go faster because of the increasing rate of social change. Granted, remember- language change is totally fucking random. From some ancient authors statements, Proto-Slavic stayed the same language across all of its area, even isolated, for 2000 years. Other languages split and become unintelligible within a single lifetime.

Now, these dialects might remain mutually intelligible for longer. I dunno about that, but with more telecommunications, speaking to scotsmen and indians is more important to a midwesterner than before. However, that's only facile- what usually happens is that you have two dialects emerge- the actual dialect and a psuedo-standard. Like for example, a british-feeling indian and a nigh-incomprehensible indian. Or modern Scots English and actual Scots As Spoken In Some Obscure Highlands Nowadays. Most Scots speak a flowing continuum from one to the other.

Most Americans speak a flowing continuum from their dialect (you do speak one, even if it's kind of boring because you're an upper middle class white from southern ohio or something) to proper American English. I would not be the slightest surprised if the various dialects of American (I can name the useful and significantly different ones- New York, New England, West New England, Providence, Philadelphia, Northern Cities, North Midland (generic American English broadcaster is mostly like a highly educated form of this one, spoken in a rough stripe of 'places adjacent to places that seceded in the civil war but not industrialised afterwards'), South Midland, Southern, Charleston, AAVE, Western, Mormon, Californian, Texan, Cajun)

I would not be surprised if those numerous dialects diverged, and some of them because even more incomprehensible then they already are. Someday, in 400 years, maybe people from Georgia and from Chicago won't be able to speak casually to eachother without using the General American dialect they both speak.

Maybe someday, people who speak only Georgian or Chicagoan won't be able to understand American just from hearing it, and will have to be taught it as a second language.

It could happen. If anything, the question is when- it could be 3000 AD or it could be 5500 AD. So centralising a one world language wouldn't be futile for comprehension- not in the short term.

But dialectically it'd take about 2 generations or less to pop back up, even if everyone started from a linguistic blank slate, which is what I meant.

[Duckie]

Also forgotten on that list- Pittsburgh. Probably also Seattle/Cascadian, which has its own unique vowel features. Most major cities have their own, as you can see, and the surrounding areas as well. I expect it is exactly the same in India, Australia, Canada, Britain (I know for a fact, and I couldn't even begin to list the british dialects of english), and other places that speak english.

Each of these dialects is a nascent language. They might not all happen, but they're all language eggs. After all, in 1200, Norwegian, Danish, and to a lesser degree Swedish were all mutually comprehensible. Up until recently Danish and Norwegian were still comprehensible, like a Scotsman and a Punjabi struggling through their Englishes (or even better than that, really- if every english speaker on the planet but the Punjabis and the elderly rural highlander Scots died, you'd have no english language at all but two)

[Lagmonster]

Culture is popular memory. Do you honestly think anthropologists and professors, no matter how well-meaning, can keep a culture going? The moment you box it up in a museum, you've acknowledged it's dead.

Since the Canadian government is in large part responsible for the linguistic disaster that Canada has on its hands, the government should pay up.

The point here is that the younger generation prefers to let the culture die. It's their older people and cultural leaders who are trying to force a larger population to maintain an identity that they don't want.

[Keevan_Colton]

There is a retarded amount of money thrown at Scottish Gaelic. There are actually more people in the world that speak klingon fluently than Scottish Gaelic. They've started spending money putting up signs in it, which is mostly considered a joke by people here, but it's an outright affront when they're cutting back social services and still throwing money at a language which at most a couple of thousand people speak.

I wont even mention the hilarity that is paying people to translate government websites and paperwork into "Scots" which is essentially phonetically writing a drunken drawl. Two shots of whiskey and a mild concussion and anyone that can speak English can speak Scots.

[Broomstick]

Most Americans speak a flowing continuum from their dialect (you do speak one, even if it's kind of boring because you're an upper middle class white from southern ohio or something) to proper American English. I would not be the slightest surprised if the various dialects of American (I can name the useful and significantly different ones- New York, New England, West New England, Providence, Philadelphia, Northern Cities, North Midland (generic American English broadcaster is mostly like a highly educated form of this one, spoken in a rough stripe of 'places adjacent to places that seceded in the civil war but not industrialised afterwards'), South Midland, Southern, Charleston, AAVE, Western, Mormon, Californian, Texan, Cajun)

You forgot the black American dialects, which are the others I use most frequently due to both my prior jobs related to social work and because my current city is predominately black. I don't actually speak it often, but I do comprehend it and can speak it, though my accent tends to be off as it's not my native mode.

[Duckie]

You forgot the black American dialects, which are the others I use most frequently due to both my prior jobs related to social work and because my current city is predominately black. I don't actually speak it often, but I do comprehend it and can speak it, though my accent tends to be off as it's not my native mode.

AAVE is on there. I'm unaware of any significant splits in AAVE worth mentioning on the level that deserves mention for the various dialects I gave (save Mormon which is minor if interesting that it's separate).

I wont even mention the hilarity that is paying people to translate government websites and paperwork into "Scots" which is essentially phonetically writing a drunken drawl. Two shots of whiskey and a mild concussion and anyone that can speak English can speak Scots.

Bull and shit. Speak some Scots for me if you will. Grammatically correct Scots, in Scots. Get drunk if you like. Then use your magic to do it for African American Vernacular English by being 'lazy and uneducated' and see if that produces the proper grammatical structures that you haven't even the faintest are different.

Also, I would like you to tell me whether or not the following snippets are english with a concussion and which ones are closer to english, simply because I'm interested:

na coshe and loyale dwelleres na Barony Forthe, crave na dicke luckie acte t'uck neicher th'eccellency, an na plaine grabe o' oure yola talke

wa't dat net sizze kin

a prai wa'w

I'd also like a thesis on whether or not Bavarian is simply Hochdeutsch with an accent and some incorrect grammar so that your discovery can singlehandedly change everything everyone educated has known about Linguistics since the 19th century.

It will never amaze me how ignorant people who speak English are about how dialects work.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Out of curiosity, how well do they speak those 4 to 10 languages ? Are they truly bilingual, or are they "merely" particularly good at speaking and understanding them ?

Truly multilingual. But proficiency depends on whether they get to use one particular language a lot.

Again, bilingualism isn't something odd or strange. It is the natural state for plenty of people around the world.

Hell, in many parts of continental europe, as I recall, someone is not educated unless they speak at least four, and that often includes at least one classical language.

As for all the stuff I see in here about literature in translation being just as good as in the native language... no. It is not. Language not only provides data, it is not JUST a part of culture. It provides a link to our past, a very real tangible link that anyone with sufficient mental fortitude can be connected to. There is something very special about reading Caesar's History of the Gallic Wars in his own hand. This is intrinsically valuable, and it makes any and all languages that can be preserved in spoken form, worth preserving.

Imagine losing French. No one speaks it anymore. While there may still be lexicons, and people who can pour over and translate things, it loses a lot. The emotion, the fact that the french language has a certain penchant for understatement, sarcasm, and irony that you will never detect in the written form, that someone literate in french, but who has never spoken it, will never know. All of the sudden centuries of music and writing are inaccessible to everyone. Sure, you can translate a poem, or the fre polyphonic verse of Machaut, but unless you can hear and understand it, its beauty is gone forever.

[Broomstick]

You forgot the black American dialects, which are the others I use most frequently due to both my prior jobs related to social work and because my current city is predominately black. I don't actually speak it often, but I do comprehend it and can speak it, though my accent tends to be off as it's not my native mode.

AAVE is on there. I'm unaware of any significant splits in AAVE worth mentioning on the level that deserves mention for the various dialects I gave (save Mormon which is minor if interesting that it's separate).

OK - I was unfamiliar with the "AAVE" acronym so I didn't know what you were talking about there. There is a difference between Detroit and Chicago black dialects that I can hear, and I figure if I can hear it so can professional linguists. The most obvious one to me is "fun" in place of "go", which I've never heard in Detroit but is common as dirt in Chicago. Thus, instead of "I"m going outside" you get something like "Imma fun out." All of which I'm expressing rather badly, as I can understand the dialects but don't speak them fluently.

Of course, with the advent of hip-hop and rap the various city variations of these dialects are becoming less distinct due to mass media.

[Duckie]

Ah, see, that's vocabulary. Vocabulary isn't at all what's to be concerned about on a huge scale, because otherwise it's too messy because it changes all the time. What's nice are grammar (which nobody ever borrows on purpose so it's a great measure of dialect) and pronunciation (because it's empirically measureable via some great tricks with fourier transforms and whatnot). By those metrics, African American Vernacular English is pretty homogenous.

(interesting fact- the Imma actually wasn't originally Imma- it was I'm a-VERBing, like in really old fashioned white people speech. For whatever reason it stuck around in southern blacks and southern whites, and became really common in the former as a marker of the immediate future tense.)

[Broomstick]

I'm at a great disadvantage here as I know the dialect empirically and not as a linguistic, but there are grammatical differences as well, I just don't have the background to talk about them intelligently. It is more than just vocabulary, that was just one example.

Anyhow - if the vocabularies differ too greatly that is just as much an obstacle as differing grammar from a practical viewpoint.

And, as I pointed out - I've never heard "Imma fun out" in Detroit, there I'd expect to hear "I'm goin' out". "Imma goin' out" I've heard down south, but not up north. It's not a huge difference, but it certainly is enough to make a good guess as to where someone is from.

[Thanas]

There is a place for the preservation of language and culture, but in museums and libraries, not the popular memory.

Why? Why should the average person not be able to understand the texts that made, say, Germany Germany? Do you think it an advantage that they are unable to do so? Does it make them intellectually richer or poorer?

Out of curiosity, how many languages do you speak? Because my pet theory is that the persons who advocate for langauges to be gone are usually persons that only speak one or at best two languages. Meanwhile, I have never met anybody who speaks several languages and argues for the abolishment of languages.

For example, take the Canadian native populations. There are native languages here which are spoken fluently by as few as two or three living people. They insist that it is a tragedy that these languages die out completely, and have petitioned for pots of government money to force their kids to study it in school. The kids would much rather speak English, because that's the language spoken everywhere other than grandma's house. The loss of these dying languages from our archives would be sad to historians. The loss of these dying languages from the streets of Winnipeg is basically unimportant.

How do you think historians are created? Unless there is some cultural impetus, nobody will much care about the histories of those peoples. This is not a laughing matter. I know this from my own experience - there are texts that are literally inaccessible to us ancient historians because the particular dialect or the particular language is no longer in use or people could not find any speakers of the dialect anymore. There are questions we cannot answer and likely will never be able to answer because we know that we got texts which can possibly give us the answer but we cannot access them.

You know how that came to be? Because people abolished the jobs for people who spoke it (aka "nobody speaks the language anymore, so why should we fund your job?") and when the time came around, the persons who had studied that particular dialect were simply dead. Oops.

Fact is, you need at least a core group of people who speak the language in order to have it available to historic study. Especially in regards to texts, where nuance is everything.

[Keevan_Colton]

There are two versions Scots and Auld Scots, which would you like me to address you in? The first is the amusing one that the government is translating documents into, but which is not really used by anyone in written form, the second has long since passed into history with Rabbie Burns. Consider if you will whether translating paperwork into latin for the people of for example Washington state would be a useful application of funds?

As to your three lines there, I could google them, but I'll just go with how they read after a couple of shots of single malt. The first is an address to someone on behalf of the (loyal) people of the Forthe area (barony) in their local tongue.
The second is essentially "who says that doesn't know" though it's ordered differently, ye ken?
The last one is the only one to stump me, though with a bigger sentence I'd likely be able to divine something of it.

Frankly I cannot be arsed looking into the intricacies of the two languages you've mentioned. However the point which I was making is about essentially trying to force the use of a language that is dying when there are cuts being made to school meals for children and such is a sickening state of affairs. I'd far rather throw money at it than at football for example, but when government spending is being expended on that when apparently money cannot be spared for food and shelter speaks volumes about the entitlement some people feel. I've not got a problem with private expenditure on it or expense upon it in times of plenty. Preserve, but not at the expense of the future. While those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, those that don't take care of the present are doomed never to have the chance to do so.

[Simon_Jester]

Keevan, I as an English speaker from another continent can puzzle through a passage like that and at least roughly guess at some of the meanings- but that doesn't mean I speak Scots, in any of however many versions may exist.

Hell, sometimes I can piece together a Greek word from knowing a large fraction of the Greek alphabet and knowing what assorted English technical words derived from the Greek word mean... but I would never pretend to be able to speak Greek on that basis, and would be rightly laughed at for making the claim. Being able to puzzle through bits of a language by noting similarities to a related one is not the same thing as understanding the language.

So no, Scots is not 'just' a vaguely degenerate dialect of English as you implied, not when it's that different.


Now, the budgeting issue is something separate- I'm not going to weigh in on that, on the question of whether to spend money on football when Scots is dying, or to supply life support for Scots when meals for schoolchildren are on the line.

But the proposition that Scots is just "concussed English" is laughable.

[hongi]

There is a retarded amount of money thrown at Scottish Gaelic. There are actually more people in the world that speak klingon fluently than Scottish Gaelic. They've started spending money putting up signs in it, which is mostly considered a joke by people here, but it's an outright affront when they're cutting back social services and still throwing money at a language which at most a couple of thousand people speak.

FYI 58,552 Scottish Gaelic speakers in 2001. Klingon has far less.

[Keevan_Colton]

I probably should have mentioned none of those actually are scots.

[Broomstick]

In addition to all other arguments for more than one language, here's another. It turns out bilingualism is good for people.

[Knife]

I want to make sure I understand those who are advocating this, what exactly do you want done again? Specifically?

[Thanas]

More money for linguistical studies, philologists, ending discrimination of one language in favor of another (English) and a campaign to raise public awareness of the issue.

Though it is kinda hard to specify things because the OP is not talking about a specific scenario, to be honest.

[Lagmonster]

There is a place for the preservation of language and culture, but in museums and libraries, not the popular memory.

Why? Why should the average person not be able to understand the texts that made, say, Germany Germany? Do you think it an advantage that they are unable to do so? Does it make them intellectually richer or poorer?

I'm not talking about willfully obliterating cultures and languages to form some fanciful monolingual society, I'm talking about how we handle the preservation of the ones that can't sustain themselves; I hear people talking about languages being dropped from use and abandoned, using words like 'tragedy' to describe it. Which is where I lead into griping about community leaders using public funds to force their kids to preserve a language that they are thoroughly determined to ignore.

If a person chooses to learn about a specific language and embrace a certain culture, they should be free to do so to the limits of their interest and ability. But I don't think it's sad if they don't and a culture or language dies out as a result of apathy. Cultural diversity is great if embraced freely, but I'd find it hard to argue towards making it part of the expected standard for any person to participate in something purely because their ancestors did.

Out of curiosity, how many languages do you speak? Because my pet theory is that the persons who advocate for langauges to be gone are usually persons that only speak one or at best two languages. Meanwhile, I have never met anybody who speaks several languages and argues for the abolishment of languages.

Makes sense; a person who only speaks one language would prefer that everyone speak theirs. And they're probably North Americans - a nation infamous for its 'we don't care who you were, you're American/Canadian now' parenting style. I know and work with a number of people whose parents or grandparents came over here (my own family included) and flatly shut up about the old world. They banned speaking anything but English or French in their homes, did away with cultural displays (or came with nothing but the shirts on their backs and so had nothing to show), and raised their kids to be just like all the other Canadians. Then their kids grow up Anglophone and say, "I guess I'm Polish or Hungarian or something, but mom and dad never talked about that so I don't really know anything about it". Should I know about my European roots, learn older dialects they may have used and read the things they might have written? If the only value to me is self-enrichment, then I find that in modern cultural activities. And that has to be enough for me, no matter how many historians grind their teeth. I can't exhume and reanimate grandpa.

Myself, I speak English and French fluently. I have to; my job requires everything I do has to be available in both languages (even if I don't personally need to be doing the translations myself) and I work daily in both languages. And my wife and in-laws are Francophones. I used to have a handle on spoken Russian for the sake of my close cousins, one of whom simply married a girl from Siberia and the other of whom is currently Associate Professor in Russian and Slavonic Studies at Nottingham University, and whose wife and child are Russian. But since they all live in an Anglophone nation now (Canada and Britan respectively) they've made more of an effort to learn English than I had to learn Russian, so I stopped trying, and that was 15 years ago. I had to study Latin in secondary school, but that's perished in my memory as well, alongside the classical French-Canadian poetry we were made to absorb, not to mention the Chaucer and the Shakespeare I endured while wishing I could just take Bio classes all day.

That said, I'm not arguing for the abolishment of languages. I'm arguing against calling people barbarians if they turn their backs on any specific culture or language. And I'm strongly arguing against creating an expectation that communities should be responsible for the preservation of language on their own, especially if they don't give a shit. If it can't support itself, and you can afford to, put it in a museum.

How do you think historians are created? Unless there is some cultural impetus, nobody will much care about the histories of those peoples.

You're right; it's tough to be a historian. Or a medical researcher. Or an ecologist. Or any number of things where the only person who really cares about what you're studying is you, or where good research goes nowhere for years because it takes that long to become politically popular despite the losses that accumulate in that time. But I don't agree that it should be made out to be a social responsibility for a community to participate. Simply pointing at someone and saying, "You! Your ancestors spoke such-and-such language. Do your part to preserve it by learning it and speaking it in your community alongside your 1st language and the common language of your nation", for whatever reason, is inviting a quizzical stare at best.

[Thanas]

I'm not talking about willfully obliterating cultures and languages to form some fanciful monolingual society, I'm talking about how we handle the preservation of the ones that can't sustain themselves; I hear people talking about languages being dropped from use and abandoned, using words like 'tragedy' to describe it.

Then maybe it would be better to look at why languages are unsustainable instead of just going "not worth preserving"?

Which is where I lead into griping about community leaders using public funds to force their kids to preserve a language that they are thoroughly determined to ignore.

Too bad for them. Most kids are also thoroughly determined to ignore advanced mathematics, yet we still force them to learn it.

That said, I'm not arguing for the abolishment of languages. I'm arguing against calling people barbarians if they turn their backs on any specific culture or language.

Good thing that I never said that then, read my post and more importantly the quote I was replying to. You know, the one where somebody argued for the abolishment and extinction of all but one language? The one you apparently agreed with because you sure as heck argued against my stance there?

[Lagmonster]

Then maybe it would be better to look at why languages are unsustainable instead of just going "not worth preserving"?

Okay, sounds good. Why are languages unsustainable? When they are, why are they worth preserving?

Too bad for them. Most kids are also thoroughly determined to ignore advanced mathematics, yet we still force them to learn it.

Except that nobody is afraid we will be unable to re-create math if everybody stops giving a shit about it.

More to the point, 'force kids to take a class in it' is not an improvement over 'put it in a museum'. I think I really need to see your argument in full, because I must not be understanding why a) a community should be expected to retain their cultural history or ancestral language, and b) why archiving a culture that is no longer in use is bad. If you aren't suggesting either, then everything is fine.

That said, I'm not arguing for the abolishment of languages. I'm arguing against calling people barbarians if they turn their backs on any specific culture or language.

Good thing that I never said that then, read my post and more importantly the quote I was replying to. You know, the one where somebody argued for the abolishment and extinction of all but one language? The one you apparently agreed with because you sure as heck argued against my stance there?

I know what Sir Sirius said; He's an overzealous idiot. You're correct that I misread who you were calling a barbarian. That was a mistake.

[Thanas]

Then maybe it would be better to look at why languages are unsustainable instead of just going "not worth preserving"?

Okay, sounds good. Why are languages unsustainable?

I really do not feel justified in making a general proclamation here. Maybe Duckie can do so, but I cannot speak for a general scale, only on some very specific languages.

When they are, why are they worth preserving?

That one I will answer - because we will lose access otherwise.

Except that nobody is afraid we will be unable to re-create math if everybody stops giving a shit about it.

That would actually depend on the circumstances. After all, it is not as if the world never lost great advances in sciences and math, right?

More to the point, 'force kids to take a class in it' is not an improvement over 'put it in a museum'. I think I really need to see your argument in full, because I must not be understanding why a) a community should be expected to retain their cultural history or ancestral language, and b) why archiving a culture that is no longer in use is bad. If you aren't suggesting either, then everything is fine.

What I am arguing about is that kids should get as much exposure as possible to languages. Sometimes you have to force them. Actually, having taken part in such programs I can attest from my own experience, that for several hundred disgruntled people you do get a dozen or so who will be very interested in that. If these dozens manage to speak that language, then the goal is achieved and the language is still viable.

The point I am trying to make is that pure archiving is not doing much, nor providing a safety net etc. without people speaking the language. The moment you archive a language without making sure that at least a dozen people - a bare minimum and one that already kills 99% of the philological work - can still speak it the archive itself is worthless.

Somewhere, you have to start.