5 ms·

Another way of titling this would be, "How the internet is uniting humanity." Languages are tools for communication, and while it's sad from an anthropological/

Another way of titling this would be, "How the internet is uniting humanity." Languages are tools for communication, and while it's sad from an anthropological/historical perspective to be losing languages, from a humanist perspective it's fantastic news. The more people can communicate without barriers, the better it makes the world for everyone.

Nux 13y ago
Can't upvote this enough. A united world needs to speak the same language. Down with the borders, of any kind.
- latj 13y ago
  First, I dont think lack of a language's presence online means that the language is dying. For example the world could be becoming more multilingual. Second, the whole world doesnt need to speak the same language for cohesive unification. We just need star trek level translation which doesnt seem so far fetched these days. Finally, everything comes and goes- the stars, the tide, human life, and language. Have you tried speaking to someone from east Baltimore lately? I havent either, but according to my source, The Wire, they speak a language that would probably be close to unintelligible between people from other parts of the English speaking world. In other words, I'm not worried about language diversity- whenever humans find the need to express themselves in ways that doesnt fit in the current framework, they find a way.
- pavel_lishin 13y ago
  Should we all use the same programming language as well?
  - DanAndersen 13y ago
    I think a more apt analogy wouldn't be the use of the same programming languages (which is more of a private action between the programmer and the computer), but more like using common protocols, APIs, and standards that allow interoperability.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  I understand the sentiment but I disagree. I think language is a clear representation of culture - your first language directly informs how you see the world. The world would be a lesser place if everybody grew up with the same linguistic experience.
  - nly 13y ago
    There will always be regional dialects, accents, terminology, slang etc.
- DanBC 13y ago
  I welcome your attempts to learn and speak Mandarin as that single global language.
  - gazrogers 13y ago
    I wish I could upvote this more than once. A lot of comments here are positive about the idea of a single global language when it's their language that wins out. I strongly suspect that if it were Mandarin, Arabic or Russian instead of English that was being suggested, their enthusiasm for the idea might be more muted.
efa 13y ago
Yep! I saw the title and thought "this is a bad thing?".
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
On the one hand, I'm very much inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, I'm a monolingual English-speaker. I personally gain much and lose nothing in this scenario, I have no real conception of what it feels like for the hundreds of millions of people who do speak minority languages; so I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge.
- mullingitover 13y ago
  > I personally gain much and lose nothing in this scenario You gain a great deal if you have the ability to communicate with millions (billions?) of people that you otherwise couldn't.
  - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
    ...Yes, that's what I said. I gain much and lose nothing, because other people are forced to conform to my standards. In the same scenario, someone who speaks only (say) Swahili gains nothing except another hurdle to access, and loses a potential shot at a local online community.
- gcp 13y ago
  >I have no real conception of what it feels like for the hundreds of millions of people who do speak minority languages Being understood by most people (instead of almost none) is pretty handy.
- infruset 13y ago
  Thank you for this comment. It would be interesting to know, among all those embracing everyone speaking english, how many are native english speakers and how many are monolingual; that might put things in perspective. In other words, it's easy to claim that everyone doing things your way with no effort on your part is the right way to go.
  - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
    There's an interesting point. It's taken for granted that the ruling language of the internet is and will be English; no surprise that native English-speakers approve. I wonder how many people in this thread would change their tune if the emerging lingua franca was Spanish or Mandarin.
emilga 13y ago
I agree. The authors of Genesis 11:1-9 even describe the world's languages as a _punishment_ by God(!): """5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth."""
- mullingitover 13y ago
  Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path puts forward the notion that this is really an allegory for the adoption of the phonetic alphabet. Prior to this, all the different language speakers could communicate with a symbolic system of writing, but once the phonetic alphabet was adopted they were no longer able to communicate in writing without knowing the reader's language.
rmk2 13y ago
> Languages are tools for communication Exactly, that's why different languages can spawn different communication. Certain things cannot be translated, whether they are idioms or grammatical constructions. It's not just "sad", it means a unifying and, in some case, simplification of thought. Now, with English becoming more dominant, I guess it depends on your background and ideas whether this reduction to "things that can be expressed in English" is a good thing or not. I pick English here, because it is the most obvious example given international trade, travel and the internet, though the same applies for various big, hegemonic languages in their surroundings, and the same happens with dialects even within a technically mono-lingual environment.
- jamoes 13y ago
  > Certain things cannot be translated, whether they are idioms or grammatical constructions. The cool thing about languages though is that they evolve. English is a prime example of this: things that can't be translated just end up being imported and becoming new English words. The end result is a more powerful language, where you can express the combination of certain ideas and concepts that simply couldn't be expressed in a single language before.
pasquinelli 13y ago
or maybe: The "World" in "World Wide Web" is an Overstatement

Nux 13y ago

Can't upvote this enough. A united world needs to speak the same language. Down with the borders, of any kind.

latj 13y ago
First, I dont think lack of a language's presence online means that the language is dying. For example the world could be becoming more multilingual. Second, the whole world doesnt need to speak the same language for cohesive unification. We just need star trek level translation which doesnt seem so far fetched these days. Finally, everything comes and goes- the stars, the tide, human life, and language. Have you tried speaking to someone from east Baltimore lately? I havent either, but according to my source, The Wire, they speak a language that would probably be close to unintelligible between people from other parts of the English speaking world. In other words, I'm not worried about language diversity- whenever humans find the need to express themselves in ways that doesnt fit in the current framework, they find a way.
pavel_lishin 13y ago
Should we all use the same programming language as well?
- DanAndersen 13y ago
  I think a more apt analogy wouldn't be the use of the same programming languages (which is more of a private action between the programmer and the computer), but more like using common protocols, APIs, and standards that allow interoperability.
ronaldx 13y ago
I understand the sentiment but I disagree. I think language is a clear representation of culture - your first language directly informs how you see the world. The world would be a lesser place if everybody grew up with the same linguistic experience.
- nly 13y ago
  There will always be regional dialects, accents, terminology, slang etc.
DanBC 13y ago
I welcome your attempts to learn and speak Mandarin as that single global language.
- gazrogers 13y ago
  I wish I could upvote this more than once. A lot of comments here are positive about the idea of a single global language when it's their language that wins out. I strongly suspect that if it were Mandarin, Arabic or Russian instead of English that was being suggested, their enthusiasm for the idea might be more muted.

efa 13y ago

Yep! I saw the title and thought "this is a bad thing?".

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

On the one hand, I'm very much inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, I'm a monolingual English-speaker. I personally gain much and lose nothing in this scenario, I have no real conception of what it feels like for the hundreds of millions of people who do speak minority languages; so I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge.

mullingitover 13y ago
> I personally gain much and lose nothing in this scenario You gain a great deal if you have the ability to communicate with millions (billions?) of people that you otherwise couldn't.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  ...Yes, that's what I said. I gain much and lose nothing, because other people are forced to conform to my standards. In the same scenario, someone who speaks only (say) Swahili gains nothing except another hurdle to access, and loses a potential shot at a local online community.
gcp 13y ago
>I have no real conception of what it feels like for the hundreds of millions of people who do speak minority languages Being understood by most people (instead of almost none) is pretty handy.
infruset 13y ago
Thank you for this comment. It would be interesting to know, among all those embracing everyone speaking english, how many are native english speakers and how many are monolingual; that might put things in perspective. In other words, it's easy to claim that everyone doing things your way with no effort on your part is the right way to go.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  There's an interesting point. It's taken for granted that the ruling language of the internet is and will be English; no surprise that native English-speakers approve. I wonder how many people in this thread would change their tune if the emerging lingua franca was Spanish or Mandarin.

emilga 13y ago

I agree. The authors of Genesis 11:1-9 even describe the world's languages as a _punishment_ by God(!): """5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth."""

mullingitover 13y ago
Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path puts forward the notion that this is really an allegory for the adoption of the phonetic alphabet. Prior to this, all the different language speakers could communicate with a symbolic system of writing, but once the phonetic alphabet was adopted they were no longer able to communicate in writing without knowing the reader's language.

rmk2 13y ago

> Languages are tools for communication Exactly, that's why different languages can spawn different communication. Certain things cannot be translated, whether they are idioms or grammatical constructions. It's not just "sad", it means a unifying and, in some case, simplification of thought. Now, with English becoming more dominant, I guess it depends on your background and ideas whether this reduction to "things that can be expressed in English" is a good thing or not. I pick English here, because it is the most obvious example given international trade, travel and the internet, though the same applies for various big, hegemonic languages in their surroundings, and the same happens with dialects even within a technically mono-lingual environment.

jamoes 13y ago
> Certain things cannot be translated, whether they are idioms or grammatical constructions. The cool thing about languages though is that they evolve. English is a prime example of this: things that can't be translated just end up being imported and becoming new English words. The end result is a more powerful language, where you can express the combination of certain ideas and concepts that simply couldn't be expressed in a single language before.

pasquinelli 13y ago

or maybe: The "World" in "World Wide Web" is an Overstatement