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It's sad, but how many languages have we lost over the centuries? How many variations of Italian or French have we lost due to migration? As a Deaf person, thi
by deafpolygon 4y ago
It's sad, but how many languages have we lost over the centuries? How many variations of Italian or French have we lost due to migration?
As a Deaf person, this is readily apparent in local flavors of ASL. I noticed this with deaf people I came into contact with at RIT as a student there. There were many slight variations. You could tell who were new to the school, or those who's been there for a while. The ones new to the school were still doing it the way they learned at home, and the ones who has been there for 2-3 years were signing in a similar style. It was interesting to see.
Language is a living, constantly evolving, thing - you can't 'preserve' it any more than you would preserve a living tree in a book.
- midoridensha 4y ago>It's sad, but how many languages have we lost over the centuries? I don't know about languages, but for dialects, I think the answer is the same as the number of people who have died over the centuries. No one speaks a language exactly like anyone else, so ultimately, every person has a slightly different dialect. There's no way to preserve them all. Your analogy about preserving living trees in a book is apt.