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Probably an unpopular opinion but I'm not convinced by the article that this is a worthwhile endeavor. If a language has no written form, and those that actuall
by retox 6y ago
Probably an unpopular opinion but I'm not convinced by the article that this is a worthwhile endeavor. If a language has no written form, and those that actually use it view it as not worth saving what is the benefit of artificially preserving it other than as an historical curiosity.
The article says peoples cultural or ethnic identity are at risk, "an entire tradition can die with them" but it seems more that the culture has changed and the language is no longer useful. Long ago I watched a TED(x?) talk on the topic and the thrust of the speakers argument is that there are concepts that simply cannot be conveyed in other languages, but even at the time it seemed like a specious argument. There are loan words that are common in the English language and I don't think anyone is eager to replace with a 'native' word.
After having written the above the only reason I can think of is traditional songs that are passed down orally, which would be a loss I admit. Interested to learn something in the comments that I've probably overlooked.
- nwah1 6y agoThere are various claims in the field of linguistics that sometimes can be proven or disproven with empirical findings such as this.
- meigwilym 6y agoI speak a minority language which is under threat. Language is more than a communication tool, and communication is much more than getting your message across. We tell stories and jokes, explain feelings and share joy and pain all through language. It's more than VC pitches! If my language goes, it takes with it centuries of poetry and literature. And the link it provides to the past, not just historically but in place it takes in the evolution of languages in this part of the world. I can see and understand the value in having a lingua franca, but the argument does miss the point that we're human before anything and our language is intertwined with that.
- WalterBright 6y ago> There are loan words that are common in the English language Common? Like most of them! For example, a huge number of words have a French origin due to the Norman conquest. A long list of Native American words have found their way into (American) English. English adopts words from other languages with wild abandon.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> A long list of Native American words have found their way into (American) English. How many of these are not place names?
- Loughla 6y agoMany animals (skunk, opossum for example), many foods (chocolate, squash for example), barbecue, poncho, hurricane, totem, teepee, toboggan. The list goes on, those are just the ones I remember from sophomore linguistics courses about 15 years ago.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoThese are drawn from a few separate categories that differ in interesting ways. Words like teepee and squaw don't really qualify as loans in my eyes. They're native words, sure, but they are used exclusively in talking about the natives. Chocolate and barbecue ultimately trace back to indigenous words, but they didn't come from indigenous languages. They came from Spanish. (Compare "adobe", the material common in the American Southwest -- there is a theory that this word can be traced back to Ancient Egyptian. Is it a loan from Ancient Egyptian? No.) Animal terms are similar to the first category, but feel more like they're genuinely a part of the language. Skunks are called skunks in every context; tents are usually called tents, not teepees.
- WalterBright 6y agoSome are "loan-translations" like war paint, peace pipe, great white father, paleface, firewater. Mario Pei in "The Story of the English Language" estimates that 1700 English words have an American Indian origin.
- lgessler 6y agoCan you expand on why having a writing system matters?
- retox 6y agoI was thinking from the perspective of historical documents. I don't know if we know what ancient Sumerians sounded like, but their writings are still around ~5000 years later. A tax document, a court finding, a poem, a love letter, these things all give us insights into their society.
- dang 6y agoI don't know if it's an "unpopular opinion" but it shows up in every thread about endangered languages, including more than once in this thread, also self-described as an "unpopular opinion" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351020).
- exolymph 6y agoThat doesn't negate the claim that it's unpopular (although I don't have a position on that personally). Vocal minorities often exhibit unpopular opinions.
- landryraccoon 6y agoIf you are training machine learning models to understand natural languages, I imagine having as many real world examples as possible must be helpful. The languages should at least be preserved for research purposes, not because human beings might want to speak them as a first language.