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It's vital small languages are preserved and that the world doesn't become monolingual. Communication is a funny word -- we often mean it to commuincate with ot

by s_dev 7y ago

It's vital small languages are preserved and that the world doesn't become monolingual. Communication is a funny word -- we often mean it to commuincate with others but often we communicate with ourselves in the present -- and to our furture selves -- e.g. code comments are often for your future self as well as other programmers. People who speak different lanaguges litteraly "think differently" and diversity of thought is absolutely essential to humanity progressing. It's been positied that "Asians are better at math" because their languages have a more logical naming system for numbers giving many a small early advantage that accumulates over time. Other languges possess other attributes that impart such advantages or disadvanges giving us diversity of thought so that we can have new ideas about things and new perspectives.

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
That's a fine opinion to have but I happen to have the opposite opinion. A thought has the same meaning in any language. And we actually waste energy in translation and slow humanities' progress with language barriers. I really do wish we all spoke the same language. I feel like I gain nothing by not being able to communicate effectively with some subset of people. This is obviously not a very popular opinion of mine...
- s_dev 7y ago
  >I really do wish we all spoke the same language. Just contemplate how if someone suggested all computer languges should be just become C because things would be easier. It's even more important that we have diversity for natual languages imo -- after all onece you've a Turing Complete language one is the same as the next but we know how silly and inconvenient that would really be.
  - etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
    I'll bite. Computer languages are more about building a machine than communicating a human idea. Human languages are more about human things. We're all human and therefore should speak the same language. Computer languages are sometimes so similar and help you build a similar type of machine. Think of ruby, JS, python, etc. All work very similar internally. I really wish we could pick one language (in a particular domain, say scripting) and have a monoculture. It saddens me when libraries need to be rewritten N times. I don't think there's anything silly about it. Web browsers could have picked python instead of JS, Rails could have picked python, and we would have been better off for it. It's just a silly accident of history that we have what we have today.
    - etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
      Think about hiring a team of people for you next programming project. They each speak a different language and none can communicate effectively. Doesn't sound so good to me.
r3bl 7y ago
We could all cherish and love our own native languages internally while relying on English abroad (and online). Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
- s_dev 7y ago
  What I'm saying is it's better that "some" people don't know English. I don't know what number constitutes or what % of people but by having some people -- for lack of a better word -- "corrupted" by English will have new perspectives. We need lots of languages and lots of combinations of these languages for a healthy world. I say this as a monoglot English speaker. I have some French and Irish but both are very poor.
  - Isinlor 7y ago
    Languages drift apart, split and evolve. Even if by magic wand the whole world would start speaking perfect English now, in 100-200 years we will most likely have numerous versions of English. Each version would evolve depending on different enclaves of people around the world.
- usrusr 7y ago
  If I had a choice between being better at English and being better at my native language, I'd chose the latter. Realistically though it would be much easier to become less bad at a second language (lot's of low hanging fruit left) than to go from regular to exceptional in you mother tongue.
born2discover 7y ago
This! Diversity of thought is what separates us from mere robots. It what makes us non-linear and should be preserved!
tjansen 7y ago
People speaking different languages may think different, but most of their thoughts are lost because they can't be easily translated to English. Countries like Germany and France used to have global cultural impact, but today they are almost irrelevant because their work is not easily translatable into English. When was the last time a German or French book, or movie, or song was globally relevant? How many globally relevant works did the comparatively-sized UK publish in the same time?
phiresky 7y ago
> People who speak different lanaguges litteraly "think differently" This widely held belief is absolutely not a proven fact. It's called linguistic relativity or linguistic determinism [1] and the strong form (language determines thought) has not been taken seriously by researchers in the field for a while. The weak form (language can have somewhat of an impact on the way you think) has not been proven or disproven and is a topic of debate. You just state it as if it was known, even though the causal relationship of most examples you could name can easily be the other way around (culture / thinking affects how a language develops). I'd argue that everyone learning and speaking the same language would have immense benefits for a global society. You can keep recordings in museums and linguistic researchers to keep a historical record of languages, just like we have for other tools and methods that we no longer have any use for. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

by s_dev 7y ago

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

That's a fine opinion to have but I happen to have the opposite opinion. A thought has the same meaning in any language. And we actually waste energy in translation and slow humanities' progress with language barriers. I really do wish we all spoke the same language. I feel like I gain nothing by not being able to communicate effectively with some subset of people. This is obviously not a very popular opinion of mine...

s_dev 7y ago
>I really do wish we all spoke the same language. Just contemplate how if someone suggested all computer languges should be just become C because things would be easier. It's even more important that we have diversity for natual languages imo -- after all onece you've a Turing Complete language one is the same as the next but we know how silly and inconvenient that would really be.
- etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
  I'll bite. Computer languages are more about building a machine than communicating a human idea. Human languages are more about human things. We're all human and therefore should speak the same language. Computer languages are sometimes so similar and help you build a similar type of machine. Think of ruby, JS, python, etc. All work very similar internally. I really wish we could pick one language (in a particular domain, say scripting) and have a monoculture. It saddens me when libraries need to be rewritten N times. I don't think there's anything silly about it. Web browsers could have picked python instead of JS, Rails could have picked python, and we would have been better off for it. It's just a silly accident of history that we have what we have today.
  - etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
    Think about hiring a team of people for you next programming project. They each speak a different language and none can communicate effectively. Doesn't sound so good to me.

r3bl 7y ago

We could all cherish and love our own native languages internally while relying on English abroad (and online). Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

s_dev 7y ago
What I'm saying is it's better that "some" people don't know English. I don't know what number constitutes or what % of people but by having some people -- for lack of a better word -- "corrupted" by English will have new perspectives. We need lots of languages and lots of combinations of these languages for a healthy world. I say this as a monoglot English speaker. I have some French and Irish but both are very poor.
- Isinlor 7y ago
  Languages drift apart, split and evolve. Even if by magic wand the whole world would start speaking perfect English now, in 100-200 years we will most likely have numerous versions of English. Each version would evolve depending on different enclaves of people around the world.
usrusr 7y ago
If I had a choice between being better at English and being better at my native language, I'd chose the latter. Realistically though it would be much easier to become less bad at a second language (lot's of low hanging fruit left) than to go from regular to exceptional in you mother tongue.

born2discover 7y ago

This! Diversity of thought is what separates us from mere robots. It what makes us non-linear and should be preserved!

tjansen 7y ago

People speaking different languages may think different, but most of their thoughts are lost because they can't be easily translated to English. Countries like Germany and France used to have global cultural impact, but today they are almost irrelevant because their work is not easily translatable into English. When was the last time a German or French book, or movie, or song was globally relevant? How many globally relevant works did the comparatively-sized UK publish in the same time?

phiresky 7y ago

> People who speak different lanaguges litteraly "think differently" This widely held belief is absolutely not a proven fact. It's called linguistic relativity or linguistic determinism [1] and the strong form (language determines thought) has not been taken seriously by researchers in the field for a while. The weak form (language can have somewhat of an impact on the way you think) has not been proven or disproven and is a topic of debate. You just state it as if it was known, even though the causal relationship of most examples you could name can easily be the other way around (culture / thinking affects how a language develops). I'd argue that everyone learning and speaking the same language would have immense benefits for a global society. You can keep recordings in museums and linguistic researchers to keep a historical record of languages, just like we have for other tools and methods that we no longer have any use for. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity