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That depends on whether you are globalist or nationalist. Globalist - good, less languages - less barriers. Good for international commerce and knowledge shari

That depends on whether you are globalist or nationalist. Globalist - good, less languages - less barriers. Good for international commerce and knowledge sharing. Nationalist - bad, loss of language means some part of cultural heritage lost. Truth is always somewhere in between.

melling 13y ago
196 countries and 240 languages are represented online. The other 5000+ languages being used aren't national languages.
kszx 13y ago
Many regional languages and dialects have been lost due to the efforts of nationalists, not globalists. Nationalists favour the use of a single language for all citizens of a country.
tnbd 13y ago
"Globalist - good, less languages - less barriers. Good for international commerce and knowledge sharing." This is wrong, as there being more languages does not mean everyone is monolingual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca "Truth is always somewhere in between." What if I claim it isn't?
- coldtea 13y ago
  >"Truth is always somewhere in between." What if I claim it isn't? Then, axiomatically, truth is somewhere in between "possibly being near some extreme" and being "somewhere in between". So it's not in between anymore...
MichaelGG 13y ago
>Truth is always somewhere in between. Either that's totally wrong (implies equal weighting), or it's a near-tautology (only false if one position is less than 100% accurate).
- pliny 13y ago
  >Either that's totally wrong (implies equal weighting) Equal weighting would be "Truth is always in the middle". >it's a near-tautology Another way to say near-tautology is "something that is true".
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    > Another way to say near-tautology is "something that is true". Something that is true, but has a completely different meaning from what a naive reading implies. Your statement is only true if we include the extrema at the "somewhere in the middle" interval.
jjoonathan 13y ago
> Truth is always somewhere in between. Good thing we agree about globalization otherwise I'd grab one of your goalposts and run with it ;)
PavlovsCat 13y ago
Loss of a language also often means a slightly unique way of seeing the world and thinking/talking about it is lost. Many languages have cool or weird features [1], and I care about that even though I can't communicate with speakers of those languages and therefore will never know the difference. I don't care about the national heritage of others, it's theirs - I care about diversity for the sake of it existing, not for the sake of me experiencing it. If we all thought the same stuff in the same ways, without any barriers, that would be much worse than having disconnected pockets of diversity, IMHO. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYlVJlmjLEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYlVJlmjLEc
- stan_rogers 13y ago
  That way lies the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and madness. The value isn't about (slightly) unique ways of thinking/talking about things, but (slightly) unique ways of expressing those thoughts. That is, without at least a good description of as many of the various grammars that exist, we lose a lot of data that can help us to understand language as a whole. F'rinstance, if languages like Hixkaryana had died out before being described, then the prevailing belief that OVS was an "impossible" regular order (as opposed to a special construction) would likely have become "truth", and the possibilities only explored in artificial languages like Klingon. Losing that data means that we are losing the ability to make inferences as to how language works at the most fundamental level in the human brain. On the other hand, it is rather inconvenient (from the perspective of a great global society) to have as many "pure" languages on the ground as we have (and have had). But while linguae francae bridge gaps across culture, full-time bilingualism and multilingualism tend to cross-fertilize grammars (and, of course, vocabularies), which has the effect of eroding the more interesting (and the most difficult) aspects of grammars in the smaller languages.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    > That way lies the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis What's wrong with it? I'm not familiar with it, but Wikipedia says "Current researchers such as Lera Boroditsky, John A. Lucy and Stephen C. Levinson believe that language influences thought, but in more limited ways than the broadest early claims". > The value isn't about (slightly) unique ways of thinking/talking about things, but (slightly) unique ways of expressing those thoughts. How is talking not expressing thoughts? Anyway.. Then you go on to make good points, but I don't see what makes you think they're in contradiction to anything I said. I was not talking about "the value", someone else claimed that everybody who cares about language diversity must be a nationalist, and that being a "globalist" means welcoming putting all eggs in one basket. I completely disagree with that, but for my nilly-willy reasons. If you have other reasons that's fine, they're good reasons, but to say that my view is vaguely wrong, because there lies madness for reasons you don't care to go into, well. I personally do not care as much about what is accessible to "us" as about what is accessible to itself, wether I am aware of it or not. If there was a button to exterminate all parts of the universe we will never have access to and then forget that happened, I wouldn't press it, even if you bribed me, I hope. And again, remember this is in response to someone saying the only reason someone would care is X; I'm not saying my opinion is correct or perfect in any way, I'm just saying it's not X, cuz it's not :P

melling 13y ago

196 countries and 240 languages are represented online. The other 5000+ languages being used aren't national languages.

kszx 13y ago

Many regional languages and dialects have been lost due to the efforts of nationalists, not globalists. Nationalists favour the use of a single language for all citizens of a country.

tnbd 13y ago

"Globalist - good, less languages - less barriers. Good for international commerce and knowledge sharing." This is wrong, as there being more languages does not mean everyone is monolingual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca "Truth is always somewhere in between." What if I claim it isn't?

coldtea 13y ago
>"Truth is always somewhere in between." What if I claim it isn't? Then, axiomatically, truth is somewhere in between "possibly being near some extreme" and being "somewhere in between". So it's not in between anymore...

MichaelGG 13y ago

>Truth is always somewhere in between. Either that's totally wrong (implies equal weighting), or it's a near-tautology (only false if one position is less than 100% accurate).

pliny 13y ago
>Either that's totally wrong (implies equal weighting) Equal weighting would be "Truth is always in the middle". >it's a near-tautology Another way to say near-tautology is "something that is true".
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  > Another way to say near-tautology is "something that is true". Something that is true, but has a completely different meaning from what a naive reading implies. Your statement is only true if we include the extrema at the "somewhere in the middle" interval.

jjoonathan 13y ago

> Truth is always somewhere in between. Good thing we agree about globalization otherwise I'd grab one of your goalposts and run with it ;)

PavlovsCat 13y ago

Loss of a language also often means a slightly unique way of seeing the world and thinking/talking about it is lost. Many languages have cool or weird features [1], and I care about that even though I can't communicate with speakers of those languages and therefore will never know the difference. I don't care about the national heritage of others, it's theirs - I care about diversity for the sake of it existing, not for the sake of me experiencing it. If we all thought the same stuff in the same ways, without any barriers, that would be much worse than having disconnected pockets of diversity, IMHO. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYlVJlmjLEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYlVJlmjLEc

stan_rogers 13y ago
That way lies the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and madness. The value isn't about (slightly) unique ways of thinking/talking about things, but (slightly) unique ways of expressing those thoughts. That is, without at least a good description of as many of the various grammars that exist, we lose a lot of data that can help us to understand language as a whole. F'rinstance, if languages like Hixkaryana had died out before being described, then the prevailing belief that OVS was an "impossible" regular order (as opposed to a special construction) would likely have become "truth", and the possibilities only explored in artificial languages like Klingon. Losing that data means that we are losing the ability to make inferences as to how language works at the most fundamental level in the human brain. On the other hand, it is rather inconvenient (from the perspective of a great global society) to have as many "pure" languages on the ground as we have (and have had). But while linguae francae bridge gaps across culture, full-time bilingualism and multilingualism tend to cross-fertilize grammars (and, of course, vocabularies), which has the effect of eroding the more interesting (and the most difficult) aspects of grammars in the smaller languages.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  > That way lies the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis What's wrong with it? I'm not familiar with it, but Wikipedia says "Current researchers such as Lera Boroditsky, John A. Lucy and Stephen C. Levinson believe that language influences thought, but in more limited ways than the broadest early claims". > The value isn't about (slightly) unique ways of thinking/talking about things, but (slightly) unique ways of expressing those thoughts. How is talking not expressing thoughts? Anyway.. Then you go on to make good points, but I don't see what makes you think they're in contradiction to anything I said. I was not talking about "the value", someone else claimed that everybody who cares about language diversity must be a nationalist, and that being a "globalist" means welcoming putting all eggs in one basket. I completely disagree with that, but for my nilly-willy reasons. If you have other reasons that's fine, they're good reasons, but to say that my view is vaguely wrong, because there lies madness for reasons you don't care to go into, well. I personally do not care as much about what is accessible to "us" as about what is accessible to itself, wether I am aware of it or not. If there was a button to exterminate all parts of the universe we will never have access to and then forget that happened, I wouldn't press it, even if you bribed me, I hope. And again, remember this is in response to someone saying the only reason someone would care is X; I'm not saying my opinion is correct or perfect in any way, I'm just saying it's not X, cuz it's not :P