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Sorry, I don't quite follow your intended meaning, but I will try to expand on my initial comment below. If it no longer matters what language someone speaks,
by personlurking 11y ago
Sorry, I don't quite follow your intended meaning, but I will try to expand on my initial comment below.
If it no longer matters what language someone speaks, a language with fewer speakers than others wouldn't need to become extinct, as will happen without tech-aided interpretation. Of course, the viability of a language isn't solely connected to the ability for a native speaker to do commerce in it, but I would imagine it's nonetheless an important factor.
From Wikipedia's article 'Lists of endangered langauges':
"While there are somewhere around six or seven thousand languages on Earth today, about half of them have fewer than about 3,000 speakers. Experts predict that even in a conservative scenario, about half of today's languages will become extinct within the next fifty to one hundred years."
I would hope that even languages with 3,000 speakers could be 'saved', in the scenario I propose (assuming a Wikipedic-style worldwide effort - in conjunction with the tech sector, governments and linguists - to get as many languages as possible implemented).
- Piskvorrr 11y agoWell, that's the "let's assume unlimited resources (inc. time), suddenly nothing is a major problem" scenario. The actual scenario tends to be "but you have a choice of all these 20 languages; are you just lazy to learn a proper language that's on the list?" My native language has about 10 million users, so I get this a lot (and consequently, most of my digital UX is in English - significantly less hassle for me).