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Recently I learned that there are several Sami languages spoken in northern Finland, all of which are classified as endangered, at most a few thousand speakers
by bayesian_horse 8y ago
Recently I learned that there are several Sami languages spoken in northern Finland, all of which are classified as endangered, at most a few thousand speakers each. Yet also, due to modern technology like health care and food security, there are more Sami speakers living right now than ever before...
Which leads me to suspect that such languages must have been evolving, breaking apart and dying all the time.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoYes, that's true of all languages. Those Sami languages are endangered not so much because of their absolute number of speakers as because you can't get anywhere by speaking them. Languages like that tend to die out in favor of more useful ones. If all the Finns were wiped out and nobody could go into Finland, the Sami would thrive and so would their languages.
- bayesian_horse 8y agoThat seems like a naive understanding of language and population dynamics. Nobody prevents the Sami from reproducing in bigger numbers and living all over Finland (and they consider themselves Finnish citizen, mostly). Also, the usefulness argument contradicts with these languages surviving and Latin having dyed out despite being widely understood (to this day).
- thaumasiotes 8y agoDied out? Latin is the national language in Italy, Spain, France, Romania, Portugal, and all of central and south America. (You know... "Latin America".) And other places. The Sami languages haven't "survived" to any greater degree than Latin has. Quite the contrary.
- frabert 8y agoNone of those places speak Latin, they all speak Romance languages. None of those languages are anything like Latin.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago> None of those languages are anything like Latin. Are you sure you know what Romance languages are? This is not a statement that anyone sane would be willing to support. Why do you think the Romance languages are so similar to each other? It is conceptually incoherent to say that the modern languages of Sami tribes have survived while Latin hasn't. The Latin of 2300 years ago is not mutually intelligible with the Latin spoken anywhere today. The Sami of 2300 years ago is also not mutually intelligible with any Sami language spoken today. It was even more different, because Latin has a robust written tradition and writing slows language change. If one has survived, so has the other, and Latin is massively more successful. On the other hand, if you want to take the position that Latin died out, then the concept of an "endangered language" is meaningless, as we know that all languages will inevitably die in the same way.
- bayesian_horse 8y agoLatin is a distinct language from the extant romance languages. Sami languages are also distinct from each other. My point was that the specific extant sami languages aren't that old and that there must have been creations and deaths of languages at a higher frequency than I thought.
- est31 8y agoRomance languages are literally defined as the languages derived from vulgar Latin. Basically, the places spoke vulgar Latin back in the day and then languages evolved, as languages naturally do if there is no inter-communication. And of course they are still very similar to Latin.
- clouddrover 8y agoWhat, not even Italian? English is also strongly influenced by Latin. Leaving the word "Latin" aside, your post uses the words "place", "none", and "language" which derive from Latin. The claim that none of these languages are anything like Latin is overblown.
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
- ahje 8y agoGrouping similar languages together like that would mean the Sami and the Finns speak the same language anyway. Problem solved, right?