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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

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.

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.