Language Extinction

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Dan Severn
Does anybody remember the "Newspeak" of 1984?

That was a similar idea- language should be simplified, blah, blah. Basically limiting the human ability to express ideas.

Yep. And true it was too IMO.

If you don't have the linguistic tools to commute, for example, the theory of free markets or socialism or christianity, then with time these very systems of thought and acting will become obsolete.

Yet, in utter theory, they could still be learned from one generation to the other through common practise etc.

However, I think that its not plausible that by eliminating certain words (aka certain forms of expression) you will automatically eliminate certain forms of action.

For example you may not know or express what "revolution" means. Yet if for some reason you found yourself in a position where you WOULD rebel, you would do just that.

Certain human emotions cannot be erased by simply erasing their expressional forms. Trails of thought can though, I think.

[Dan Severn]

Yes, the emotions probably could not be blotted out. But if one is unable to share ideas, they would be incapable of actually revolting. They would, as in the book, know something was terribly wrong, but have no clear idea what or how to remedy it.

[Bereta_Eder]

I guess in "real life" they would still revolt if their threshold of tolerance was outpassed.

If for example a person has not the most basic things, like say, food, he will not, by instinct, just sit and die from hunger. If he can't work or find any other way to find food, he will steal. This by itself is an act of "rebelion" or at least of not obeying rules.

But they would certaintly have trouble forming elaborate networks of "rebelion", sure.

Actually I should really finish this book. I have started it twice but twice I have given it up. Have to see how it ends

[Dan Severn]

You won't like the ending. But it is the best ending.

[moomin]

Originally posted by paiktis22
i think the scandinavian countries have the biggest peneration of english language in their populations. Denmark has even made english its second OFFICIAL language.

Well, Danes are weird, we all know that. Here in Sweden, we go one better though. Not even Swedish is an official languge! And we have three small minority languages that have been made official for PC reasons.

Personally, I think ditching all EU languages in favour of English would be about the only thing to persuade me to like the Union.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Caligastia


We actually agree because you are in support of a common language. I have nothing against people learning other languages, as long as there is a language that everyone can understand.

..and if that language happens to your first language, so much the better?

[moomin]

Originally posted by reds4ever
..and if that language happens to your first language, so much the better?

Obviously.

[reds4ever]

the point i was trying to make is that it's easy to have Caligastia's attitude when english is your first language

[moomin]

A beautiful and well thought-out point, for sure.

[Adalbertus]

The language of the US nearly became German though. One has to wonder how history would have turned out then.

I'd rather be worried what German would have turned out then.
Personally, even if I'm not very good in languages (took me ages to learn English and my level of French is "fließend radebrechen", please translate that!) I prefer to read literature in the language it is written, because translations usually loose their splendour. There simply are things that are more smoothly transmitted in some language than in some other. And the same holds for dialects. Words like the Swabian "lommelig" or the "höösch" in the dialect of Cologne even in German require lengthy explanations. I'd even be sorry for the Sorbian dialects (I guess Ecthelion can tell more about them!)
A lingua franca is helpful in many respects (I only don't understand why we didn't stick with latin ) but it is not helpful in communicating subtleties on which a major part of our cultural life rests. And Europe without all those different languages ... would be poor indeed.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by moomin
A beautiful and well thought-out point, for sure.

why thank you, perhaps one day you can hope to attain such a state of mental nirvana, but, until that day arrives, you have my sympathy

[Dan Severn]

[Mercator]

There is no reason why these meanings cannot be recorded on a computer.

If that were true, none of us would have to worry about typos, and your favorite word processor would be able to correct any typographical, grammatical, contextual, semantical or whatever error correctly.
In contrast with what you may have learned in school, a language is not simply a dictionary + grammar. In fact, a grammar is a very unnatural approach to language, since it is prescriptional instead of descriptional. You may get the general idea of how a language is constructed, perhaps most useful in today's society for written language, even though there are languages in which written language may vary significantly from spoken language.

It's a shame that a language as inefficient and unattractive as English is becoming the dominant language. You'd think that the simplest languages would be the most successful...

-They can not be recorded in another language.

That's not quite true either. All languages are equally expressive. But languages are founded on culture, society and environment, so not all languages are equally good in expressing things related to those. You'd probably be best of with an Inuit language if you're talking about snow storms, but that doesn't mean a Tuareg can't do the same.

The reason languages should be kept alive is because of the sheer diversity. Language is such a fascinating concept. There are languages with sounds no-one around here would be able to pronounce, there is such a variety of linguistic constructs that would be lost with these languages. There is so much to be learned about language is general, how our brains process it, how much of it is already available in our brains when we are born and how much we acquire when growing up, what the limitations of our linguistic apparatus are... Not only that, but languages are an inherent part of a culture, and with the language, a part of the culture, if not all of it, will be lost.
But then again, maybe you'd want the entire world to speak English and do as you do, maybe you don't see any positive sides of a multicultural society.

And it won't ever be possible to have a single world language, unless everyone constantly stays in contact with everyone. Even now there are quite a few differences between, say, Australian and American English, or AAVE (African American Vernacular English), which can sometimes be enough to be partially or entirely incomprehensible. If everyone were to speak English, it would eventually diversify again and result in a whole plethora of languages all derived from English, with probably enough influences from the "old" local language.

[Victor Galis]

That's not quite true either. All languages are equally expressive.

-If they were then translating poetry would be a piece of cake.

[The Vagabond]

Nowadays, even major languages need some kind of protection from English. The French already realized that. Good for them.