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> If diversity in language diminishes a little bit, while humankind enjoys better health, longer lifespans,[1] and other benefits of increasing worldwide prospe
by tokenizer 13y ago
> If diversity in language diminishes a little bit, while humankind enjoys better health, longer lifespans,[1] and other benefits of increasing worldwide prosperity, I will feel wistful about that, because I am curious about all world languages, but people should be at liberty to decide what languages they use, and when.
And who's to say that having less languages in the world is a bad thing? I mean, from a cursory view it seems like people are equating the diminishing of multiple languages as a bad thing. Is it? Do we weep for Latin, or do we just celebrate the variety of cultures that had spawned from its ashes?
It's easy to be initially emotional about the potentiality of having some languages lost in time, but it's just a tool with history. It will eventually be completely wiped out by a new language, or evolve into one that barely resembles it. I personally don't think this is sad. I think it's just the reality of space and time.
- jotm 13y agoNo, having less languages is not bad - far from it. Even the Bible (which I think is a rather useless relic of the past) says that multiple languages were made to stop people from working with each other and reach heaven.