4 ms·

I speak a tiny language and used to be of the opinion that we should just document it while we can and then expedite its death while moving to English instead.

I speak a tiny language and used to be of the opinion that we should just document it while we can and then expedite its death while moving to English instead. This is a very easy and naive stance to take. However I have completely abandoned it! With the years I have come to unravel some of the incredible knowledge encoded in the structure of my language. It is amazing how idioms and structural qualities of languages can define a culture through their influence on the way people think. Now I have gotten very curious about learning some exotic languages and I suspect I will need to dedicate a portion of my life to that pursuit :) Trying to preserve this through translation is never going to work for many reasons, mainly because turning meaning from something continuous into discrete words is done differently in different cultures so a words true meaning can be hiding between several words of the language you wish to translate to. Therefore some things become hard to say which used to be common phrases. This has obvious consequences for culture but it also means that often when you as an individual move from one language to another you unlock more of your innate assumptions and see how your language defined your approach to problems in some ways. Gaining understanding of these assumptions gives more 'room to move in', perspective wise, I find.

Qwertious 9y ago
>Trying to preserve this through translation is never going to work for many reasons, mainly because turning meaning from something continuous into discrete words is done differently in different cultures so a words true meaning can be hiding between several words of the language you wish to translate to. Therefore some things become hard to say which used to be common phrases. This has obvious consequences for culture but it also means that often when you as an individual move from one language to another you unlock more of your innate assumptions and see how your language defined your approach to problems in some ways. Gaining understanding of these assumptions gives more 'room to move in', perspective wise, I find. I get what you mean, but you should give some examples, if possible. Nothing cements abstract notions in the mind quite like examples - in my experience, anything hard requires 1. an example that demonstrates the phenomena, then 2. the theory necessary to properly understand which aspects of the example you're referring to that demonstrate the phenomena, before you finally understand the phenomena as it acts in the example and 3. can model the concept in your mind independent of the example.
- michaelbuckbee 9y ago
  I'm not sure if this is exactly what the commenter above was referring to (or what you're looking for), but a really tricky aspect of translation is humor. Things like alliteration, rhyming, and homophones are all incredibly difficult to move across languages and those are _easy_ compared to the slang and idioms. An example: In Tagalog, the word for blue is "asul" which more or less directly leads to an English/Tagalog joke about how "People have been telling me to cheer up all week, they keep calling me an 'asul'". Which to understand, you need to be fluent in Taglog, English slang and have the cultural background to understand that "blue" means sad (which isn't universal).
  - ASalazarMX 9y ago
    To support your point, blue (the color) is "azul" is Spanish, but blue (the feeling) is "triste". As a native Spanish speaker, I was lost for a few seconds with your example.
microcolonel 9y ago
Eventually your language (which language, please? :- ) will cease to be. You really ought to record these curious details as you come across them, because they may never be noticed ever again once you're gone. This goes for nuances of living languages, too. Who alive today remembers using the Japanese kana ゑ in a casual setting? Will remember not using the English word for kitchen in Japanese? Even English only has cultural memory for facets of the language which made it into popular literature, people can remember that hour and whore used to make enough the same sound that Shakespeare interchanged them poetically, but who remembers using ð to write ðe? Linguistic diversity is a direct expression of cultural isolation. When people live together, when more people can afford to travel, when more people can't afford not to travel, languages will inevitably be obsoleted or combined. When there is no cultural isolation left in the world, we will all inevitably speak one language.
- toyg 9y ago
  I think you forget that cultural isolation is something that people can actively pursuit. Look at any newspaper: Catalunya wants to use its own language. Wales all but resurrected its own language. Croats and Slovens dug hard to separate back their languages from Serbs. And of course, Jews have successfully fought linguistic and cultural integration for millennia; they still trade and move across the Earth like the best of them. Cultural isolationism is an ideological position that naturally generates diversity, and it’s incredibly lively in the modern world despite, or even in opposition to, distances shrinking dramatically in all paths of life.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    Indeed, there are plenty of cultures actively seeking to distinguish themselves from the norm. The people of Cataluña have a whole host of legitimate reasons to want to distinguish themselves from Spain, and yes, language comes along with that. I have no particular horse in the race, I can't really decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing to self-isolate. I personally would like to reach out and assimilate mutually, but somewhere in my mind I want to see Japan continue to isolate itself somewhat, I'll have a fun time squaring that circle over my lifetime.

Qwertious 9y ago

>Trying to preserve this through translation is never going to work for many reasons, mainly because turning meaning from something continuous into discrete words is done differently in different cultures so a words true meaning can be hiding between several words of the language you wish to translate to. Therefore some things become hard to say which used to be common phrases. This has obvious consequences for culture but it also means that often when you as an individual move from one language to another you unlock more of your innate assumptions and see how your language defined your approach to problems in some ways. Gaining understanding of these assumptions gives more 'room to move in', perspective wise, I find. I get what you mean, but you should give some examples, if possible. Nothing cements abstract notions in the mind quite like examples - in my experience, anything hard requires 1. an example that demonstrates the phenomena, then 2. the theory necessary to properly understand which aspects of the example you're referring to that demonstrate the phenomena, before you finally understand the phenomena as it acts in the example and 3. can model the concept in your mind independent of the example.

michaelbuckbee 9y ago
I'm not sure if this is exactly what the commenter above was referring to (or what you're looking for), but a really tricky aspect of translation is humor. Things like alliteration, rhyming, and homophones are all incredibly difficult to move across languages and those are _easy_ compared to the slang and idioms. An example: In Tagalog, the word for blue is "asul" which more or less directly leads to an English/Tagalog joke about how "People have been telling me to cheer up all week, they keep calling me an 'asul'". Which to understand, you need to be fluent in Taglog, English slang and have the cultural background to understand that "blue" means sad (which isn't universal).
- ASalazarMX 9y ago
  To support your point, blue (the color) is "azul" is Spanish, but blue (the feeling) is "triste". As a native Spanish speaker, I was lost for a few seconds with your example.

microcolonel 9y ago

Eventually your language (which language, please? :- ) will cease to be. You really ought to record these curious details as you come across them, because they may never be noticed ever again once you're gone. This goes for nuances of living languages, too. Who alive today remembers using the Japanese kana ゑ in a casual setting? Will remember not using the English word for kitchen in Japanese? Even English only has cultural memory for facets of the language which made it into popular literature, people can remember that hour and whore used to make enough the same sound that Shakespeare interchanged them poetically, but who remembers using ð to write ðe? Linguistic diversity is a direct expression of cultural isolation. When people live together, when more people can afford to travel, when more people can't afford not to travel, languages will inevitably be obsoleted or combined. When there is no cultural isolation left in the world, we will all inevitably speak one language.

toyg 9y ago
I think you forget that cultural isolation is something that people can actively pursuit. Look at any newspaper: Catalunya wants to use its own language. Wales all but resurrected its own language. Croats and Slovens dug hard to separate back their languages from Serbs. And of course, Jews have successfully fought linguistic and cultural integration for millennia; they still trade and move across the Earth like the best of them. Cultural isolationism is an ideological position that naturally generates diversity, and it’s incredibly lively in the modern world despite, or even in opposition to, distances shrinking dramatically in all paths of life.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  Indeed, there are plenty of cultures actively seeking to distinguish themselves from the norm. The people of Cataluña have a whole host of legitimate reasons to want to distinguish themselves from Spain, and yes, language comes along with that. I have no particular horse in the race, I can't really decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing to self-isolate. I personally would like to reach out and assimilate mutually, but somewhere in my mind I want to see Japan continue to isolate itself somewhat, I'll have a fun time squaring that circle over my lifetime.