3 ms·

> No despot on Earth has managed to stamp it out, unlike countless other languages. Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? > You can say th

> No despot on Earth has managed to stamp it out, unlike countless other languages. Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? > You can say things like lingua franca and everyone knows what you’re talking about. Considering that the phrase is Latin, I am not sure what your point is. > There aren’t any pronouns that depend on social status. And many other quirks that are as alien to a native Japanese speaker than this is to you, however. > It’s got a phonetic alphabet What? Are we still talking about English here? FFS. > It’s just a natural choice for commerce and knowledge-sharing. It’s really not. Like all languages that ended up in similar situation (e.g. French, Arabic, Mandarin, or Latin), it is a combination of good old fashioned imperialism and commercial links.

chimeracoder 3y ago
> Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? Many languages have been wiped out by genocides, and wiping out a language is a common explicit tactic in ethnic cleansings. English has never been the source of a serious campaign of this regard, though.
- xnorswap 3y ago
  Quite the opposite, English has been the source of many such pressures, e.g. post Norman invasion, but it simply adapted in borg-like fashion to redefine what English was; retaining some of the previous language and moulding itself to fit in some of the new language. Rather than rigidly fight against new influence, it took new words while retaining some of it's own. It does this constantly. Even Chaucer's English is difficult to decipher for a modern English speaker, and that isn't even that old.
  - chimeracoder 3y ago
    > Quite the opposite, English has been the source of many such pressures, e.g. post Norman invasion, but it simply adapted in borg-like fashion to redefine what English was What you are describing is the standard process by which languages change. It's not accurate to equate this with the systematic elimination of a linguistic group through ethnic cleansing, something which English has never experienced.
zorked 3y ago
> Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? Brazil had a couple of instances of that. In the 18th century, the Marquis of Pombal implemented a program to extinguish usage of Tupi as the national language and replace it with Portuguese. That was successful. And then a second iteration when the Italian, German and Japanese communities of speakers in South Brazil were prevented from speaking their languages around the time of World War 2. This was successful too. Police document declaring it illegal to speak German, Italian and Japanese in public: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil_-_Proibido_falar_alem%C3%A3o_1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil_-_Proibido_falar_a...
marcus_holmes 3y ago
> Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? Oh the irony! The English tried to wipe out Gaelic use in Cornwall, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland for centuries. Schools were told to punish children for speaking Gaelic, and to only speak English to their students. We succeeded in wiping out Cornish as a living language (sorry!). Manx and Irish Gaelic survived, though you can argue about Manx Gaelic (there was a revival around the time the last native speaker died).

chimeracoder 3y ago

> Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? Many languages have been wiped out by genocides, and wiping out a language is a common explicit tactic in ethnic cleansings. English has never been the source of a serious campaign of this regard, though.

xnorswap 3y ago
Quite the opposite, English has been the source of many such pressures, e.g. post Norman invasion, but it simply adapted in borg-like fashion to redefine what English was; retaining some of the previous language and moulding itself to fit in some of the new language. Rather than rigidly fight against new influence, it took new words while retaining some of it's own. It does this constantly. Even Chaucer's English is difficult to decipher for a modern English speaker, and that isn't even that old.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > Quite the opposite, English has been the source of many such pressures, e.g. post Norman invasion, but it simply adapted in borg-like fashion to redefine what English was What you are describing is the standard process by which languages change. It's not accurate to equate this with the systematic elimination of a linguistic group through ethnic cleansing, something which English has never experienced.

zorked 3y ago

> Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? Brazil had a couple of instances of that. In the 18th century, the Marquis of Pombal implemented a program to extinguish usage of Tupi as the national language and replace it with Portuguese. That was successful. And then a second iteration when the Italian, German and Japanese communities of speakers in South Brazil were prevented from speaking their languages around the time of World War 2. This was successful too. Police document declaring it illegal to speak German, Italian and Japanese in public: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil_-_Proibido_falar_alem%C3%A3o_1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil_-_Proibido_falar_a...

marcus_holmes 3y ago

> Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? Oh the irony! The English tried to wipe out Gaelic use in Cornwall, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland for centuries. Schools were told to punish children for speaking Gaelic, and to only speak English to their students. We succeeded in wiping out Cornish as a living language (sorry!). Manx and Irish Gaelic survived, though you can argue about Manx Gaelic (there was a revival around the time the last native speaker died).