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I think that knowing a language has many purposes, only one of which is direct communication of semi-objective statements. It's one thing to say: "I am thristy

I think that knowing a language has many purposes, only one of which is direct communication of semi-objective statements. It's one thing to say: "I am thristy, do you have water?" It's another to say: "She walks in beauty like the night of starry skies and cloudless climes..."

core-questions 7y ago
Is there reason to believe that the languages being lost have significant poetic contributions of value?
- ivraatiems 7y ago
  How would we know? They've been lost. Also, poetic value is subjective. Historical value, in the sense of helping us understand things we didn't previously, much less so. You may not find a phrase in a given language "poetic," but knowing that native speakers of said language did may be quite valuable.
- mikorym 7y ago
  Yes, all African languages that I know have many metaphors and simile's compared to a proto-English (discounting English loaning from other languages) and these have intrinsic knowledge built into them. For example, in Nortern Sotho: "Ditau ga di adimane meno." This means that "Lion don't lend each other their teeth." But in context it means that you can't expect that other people lend you tools when you have to do a job, everyone needs to bring their own tools (physical or otherwise; software or hardware; etc). I also suspect that this saying alludes to the fact that lions are in competition with each other. Why would a lion lend another lion it's teeth and in the process put itself at a disadvantage? The metaphor encodes this inherent truth about competition.
- firethief 7y ago
  Yeah, they were used by humans. A lot of people seem to think that writing is what separates humans from animals without any interesting thoughts, but in fact many complex societies have evolved around orally-transmitted knowledge. If poetry is your metric of value, it so happens that often non-literary cultures encode their teachings into verse to increase memorizability and support faithful transmission from person to person. Examples of such works include the Iliad and the Odyssey.

core-questions 7y ago

Is there reason to believe that the languages being lost have significant poetic contributions of value?

ivraatiems 7y ago
How would we know? They've been lost. Also, poetic value is subjective. Historical value, in the sense of helping us understand things we didn't previously, much less so. You may not find a phrase in a given language "poetic," but knowing that native speakers of said language did may be quite valuable.
mikorym 7y ago
Yes, all African languages that I know have many metaphors and simile's compared to a proto-English (discounting English loaning from other languages) and these have intrinsic knowledge built into them. For example, in Nortern Sotho: "Ditau ga di adimane meno." This means that "Lion don't lend each other their teeth." But in context it means that you can't expect that other people lend you tools when you have to do a job, everyone needs to bring their own tools (physical or otherwise; software or hardware; etc). I also suspect that this saying alludes to the fact that lions are in competition with each other. Why would a lion lend another lion it's teeth and in the process put itself at a disadvantage? The metaphor encodes this inherent truth about competition.
firethief 7y ago
Yeah, they were used by humans. A lot of people seem to think that writing is what separates humans from animals without any interesting thoughts, but in fact many complex societies have evolved around orally-transmitted knowledge. If poetry is your metric of value, it so happens that often non-literary cultures encode their teachings into verse to increase memorizability and support faithful transmission from person to person. Examples of such works include the Iliad and the Odyssey.