Posted on 01/02/2007 6:25:46 AM PST by Valin
In the rush of the holiday season you may have missed that a white buffalo was born at a small zoo in Pennsylvania. Only one in 10 million buffalo is born white, and local Native Americans gave him a name in the Lenape language: kenahkihinen, which means "watch over us."
They found that in a book, however. No one has actually spoken Lenape for a very long time. It was once the language of what is now known as the tristate area, but its speakers gradually switched to English, as happened to the vast majority of the hundreds of languages Native Americans once spoke in North America.
The death of languages is typically described in a rueful tone. There are a number of books treating the death of languages as a crisis equal to endangered species and global warming. However, I'm not sure it's the crisis we are taught that it is.
There is a part of me, as a linguist, that does see something sad in the death of so many languages. It is happening faster than ever: It has been said that a hundred years from now 90% of the current 6,000 languages will be gone.
Each extinction means that a fascinating way of putting words together is no longer alive. In, for example, Inuktitut Eskimo, which, by the way, is not dying, "I should try not to become an alcoholic" is one word: Iminngernaveersaartunngortussaavunga.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Taught by Seth Lerer of Stanford University. It is great!
Indeed. I'm on the 2nd set of lectures now. I would also recomend (having watched it) "The Early Middle Ages". Think Early Middle Ages 101. This is a time period that I've been reading about for some years now, and this is pretty good & well balanced.
I was approached by a staggering drunk down on State Street once who said something very similar. I gave him a buck and he seemed satisfied.
Just dying.
Ref: Futurama where they find the universal translator that understands all the universes languages but only translates them into a 'useless dead language' (French).
Not much, it's being replaced by arabic...
I used to want very badly to become fluent in several languages. After living in Europe, however, I finally came to the realization that the effort involved would only be worth it if I was doing it for the sheer joy of learning.
There was really no need to learn any language beyond English. The whole world was learning English and it is even more true today as people use the internet, get American tv and radio (increasinly over the net), and so on.
As English incorporates other vocabulary from other languages at an increasing pace, this will make it even more interesting and dynamic. But the effort to learn, for example, German would just be for art's sake; there's really no practical value as most Germans speak English.
Arabic might be very handy to learn, at the very least to translate the imams' incitement to violence sermonized at mosques.
I have to wonder if I am the only Esperanto supporter here...a structure where anyone can have a "home language" but there would also be the single common language.
They'll be replaced by Arabic.
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"After living in Europe, however, I finally came to the realization that the effort involved would only be worth it if I was doing it for the sheer joy of learning."
Like you, I lived in Europe (Germany). I arrived just four years after taking three years of high school German.
Unlike your realization, I found that one had a different relationship with people, when you spoke with them in their language, regardless of them also speaking English.
Later I worked in international business for several years, and with professionals from around the world. Again there was reinforcement of my earlier experience.
It is certain that English has become the universal world language, much to the dismay of the proud French. When I studied, German was for math/science and French was for diplomacy.
Now it is English across the board. It is used by ALL airlines the world over, on international flights (so I recall hearing).
Yet I still maintain you can develop a closer relationship with someone if you sincerely demonstrate an interest in learning their language. It is almost always reciprocal--which I think is the point.
Having said that, not everyone holds "good will" in their hearts and basic cultural characters. We know the terrorists are often well educated, willing to learn English so thy can deceive us, then kill us.
On the other hand, if Science Fiction & Fantasy conventions are any indication, Klingon and Elvish will eventually be listed among the "international" languages..
Actually, Gaelic is also very popular at SF&F conventions as well..
This may account for some of it's comeback..
They'll be replaced by Arabic.
As a purely self-defensive measure, this may be true..
I also spoke enough German to get along in friendships and so on. But consistently I found my friends really wanted to speak English! I was often the only American they knew and they couldn't wait to speak English with me. That said, they loved it when I would speak German with their older parents and so on. But my age and younger wanted to speak English.
Another exception, though, was in shops and restaurants. There speaking German was also appreciated and expected.
In languages like that it is not that something is all one word. There are not any stand-alone words. There are what we might call "word elements" and all sorts of social relationships and directions are expressed by different addons- prefixes, suffixes and infixes. Word division becomes arbtrary.
It is an aesthetic shame that Gaelic in its several forms is not long for this world. It is one of a couple of languages that seem to have been designed for women's voices and is a delight for a man to listen to when spoken by women. Native speakers do not know that delight because they cannot hear the musical quality of their language; they hear only the meaning. Vietnamese is another such language and Cantonese, to a lesser extent.
Many such languages have died as the speakers all succumbed to the diseases brought by the anthros. Others die due to their inability to naturally absorb words like "maytag" and "budlite"
Any single widespread "common language" will tend to diminish the home languages. A contrived language like Esperanto has no utility at all because it cannot become widespread lacking some all-powerful ruler who would decree that only it be spoken and written. The lingua franca must be naturally the language of the dominant group because that is the language that the movers and shakers, especially the commercial movers and shakers, use to move and shake. French never replaced English in England because, though the elite after 11066 spoke French, the traders did not and the French-speakers were not traders.
When I was younger I learned languages easily (but not at all in the classroom) and could speak Turkish, Hollands, French, and Vietnamese and could get by in several others. I spent some time in NC trying to learn Cherokee. I was fascinated by how it was put together but never got beyond being mystified.
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