4 ms·

Languages do evolve and die. English itself is changing all the time. Same goes for Urdu. The question here is whether the changes are organic or is there simpl

Languages do evolve and die. English itself is changing all the time. Same goes for Urdu. The question here is whether the changes are organic or is there simple oversight going on. My view is that the problem is of oversight, and of disregarding the Urdu speaking and writing user. If the world's most popular operating systems were designed in Pakistan or Iran and they were not offering enough English language letters as a default on the devices, I think we would be plenty upset.

adamnemecek 12y ago
The question is whether languages are really worth preserving. I'm not a native English speaker yet I don't really have much emotional attachment to my first language. In fact, my life would have been easier if I grew up speaking English. And it's not that I think that English is somehow inherently a better language, it's more that there is a lot more people speaking it. It's kind of like if you are deciding what open source project to use. Having a big community around it is a major deciding factor, if not THE deciding factor.
- ibrahima 12y ago
  I feel much the same way (though, considering I learned English at the age of 4 and never really learned much more of my parents' language after that, calling English my second language is grossly misleading). I feel a vague attachment just because my grandfather was a professor of Bengali literature and I'd like to be able to read his work, but I don't sweat over the fact that my grasp of the language is very basic. I don't need to use it too often, and people back in the "motherland" can worry about preserving the language or not. The analogy to open source projects is spot on; while you might have some "emotional" attachment to a library/technology that you learned early on, you probably wouldn't make significant decisions based on that. I learned to program in VB5, yet I dropped it as soon as I learned Java because it was just an awful language (though I guess human languages don't really have notions of superiority or inferiority like some programming languages might).
  - llllllllllll 12y ago
    The analogy to open source projects is spot on Except that when an open source project dies, its code remains in full -- to study, take ideas from, or even potentially be revived at a later time. When a language dies though, it's pretty much gone. Even if it's received a lot of attention from field linguists, it's near impossible to fully codify the grammar and document the nuances of any language.
    - oblio 12y ago
      I doubt that a language dieing in 2014 would be completely gone from all record. Almost all the languages that we "lost" did not have a rich literature or sometimes even an alphabet.
      - llllllllllll 12y ago
        There are plenty of extant languages that don't have an alphabet either. They will be "lost" in every sense of the word. The # of languages currently spoken is typically pegged somewhere between 3000-6000 and it's thought that we lose around one a week. Most have almost no documentation whatsoever, and even so a couple papers written in the 1970s aren't going to capture any potential unique aspects of a language let alone allow for reconstruction at a later point. The analogy to code is way off.
  - sampo 12y ago
    Just a guess: (1) It's maybe difficult to separate one missing their country, and missing the language of their country. (2) Also it's maybe easier to miss the homeland, when the homeland is a rich western country, and moving back home would not mean any decrease in standard of living or safety (might even be an improvement over US or UK).
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Although English is seen as the lingua franca of the 21st century, it wasn't always like that. In the several millions we are able to speak and write, there have been lots of languages taking that role. And even English is not as common as many people think, just traveling around the world will teach people that there are many places where knowing English will be of no help. Besides languages represent culture, not all concepts are expressible across all languages and they are also a door to our past as mankind, sure they are worth preserving.
  - adamnemecek 12y ago
    > Although English is seen as the lingua franca of the 21st century, it wasn't always like that. I'm aware of that. > And even English is not as common as many people think, just traveling around the world will teach people that there are many places where knowing English will be of no help. I guess it's not just about sheer numbers but also about what sort of stuff is produced in the language. E.g. the expert books are mostly written in English. You don't even have to go that far, e.g. there aren't all that many say compiler books that were not translated from English, that are up to date and not terrible. This is for me more important than being able to have a discussion with Bhutani farmer. > Besides languages represent culture, not all concepts are expressible across all languages and they are also a door to our past as mankind, sure they are worth preserving. Well it's a tradeoff. And I think that at some point the cost of preserving them outweighs the benefits.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      > the expert books are mostly written in English. This depends very much on the domain.
  - Rapzid 12y ago
    Just out of curiosity, what concept is not expressible in English?
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      There are lots of examples. Citing just two out of my mind. Feierabend (German) - expresses the concept you are finished with the work duties for the day and can enjoy your private time with family and friends Saudade (Portuguese) - a mixture of loneliness, melancholy, sense of loosing part of you feelings, even mixed with a kid of sad joy, while remembering something that is no longer there.
kijin 12y ago
"Organic" change is little more than the result of repeated oversight. It is often triggered by changes in hardware availability. Scripts that were developed in the age of stone tablets will change when the tablet and chisel are replaced with paper and brush, and again when the brush is replaced with a fountain pen, and again when the whole setup is replaced with a computer. People will naturally adopt the style that allows them to convey meaning the most conveniently in a given medium. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean were all written vertically from right to left (|||) until only a few decades ago. Now they are very often written horizontally from left to right (≡). A lot of factors have contributed to the change, such as the ease of embedding Western, mathematical and scientific symbols in a CJK sentence, the need to keep one's hands clean when writing with a modern pen, and of course the introduction of computerized typesetting. Nobody forced anyone to write horizontally. People just gravitated towards what they found more convenient given the availability of new writing tools. And of course, many artists and calligraphers continue to write vertically when it suits their intentions better. Even better, new calligraphical techniques have been developed to take advantage of unique opportunities that horizontal writing offers. As long as everyone gets what they need (art for artists and utility for utilitarians), I don't see any problem with this arrangement.
VLM 12y ago
"English itself is changing all the time." As a writing style, cursive is basically dead. This would have made an awesome analogy for the original article essay. Very few Americans in gen X and younger actually write cursive and there are efforts to remove it from the curriculum. I can sign my name in cursive when I write a legacy paper check (a couple times a year) or sign forms. Thats about it. I now write legacy paper checks in block capitals and only use cursive for my .sig. I would have to check wikipedia to see how to make a cursive capital "F" and some of the weirder letters (what is a cursive Q?) It presents some problems to genealogy, I have trouble reading centuries old census forms because I haven't read cursive since grade school, some decades ago. In grade school we were told we will have to write all our papers in cursive in middle school and up; not so; all typed, mostly on computers.

adamnemecek 12y ago

The question is whether languages are really worth preserving. I'm not a native English speaker yet I don't really have much emotional attachment to my first language. In fact, my life would have been easier if I grew up speaking English. And it's not that I think that English is somehow inherently a better language, it's more that there is a lot more people speaking it. It's kind of like if you are deciding what open source project to use. Having a big community around it is a major deciding factor, if not THE deciding factor.

ibrahima 12y ago
I feel much the same way (though, considering I learned English at the age of 4 and never really learned much more of my parents' language after that, calling English my second language is grossly misleading). I feel a vague attachment just because my grandfather was a professor of Bengali literature and I'd like to be able to read his work, but I don't sweat over the fact that my grasp of the language is very basic. I don't need to use it too often, and people back in the "motherland" can worry about preserving the language or not. The analogy to open source projects is spot on; while you might have some "emotional" attachment to a library/technology that you learned early on, you probably wouldn't make significant decisions based on that. I learned to program in VB5, yet I dropped it as soon as I learned Java because it was just an awful language (though I guess human languages don't really have notions of superiority or inferiority like some programming languages might).
- llllllllllll 12y ago
  The analogy to open source projects is spot on Except that when an open source project dies, its code remains in full -- to study, take ideas from, or even potentially be revived at a later time. When a language dies though, it's pretty much gone. Even if it's received a lot of attention from field linguists, it's near impossible to fully codify the grammar and document the nuances of any language.
  - oblio 12y ago
    I doubt that a language dieing in 2014 would be completely gone from all record. Almost all the languages that we "lost" did not have a rich literature or sometimes even an alphabet.
    - llllllllllll 12y ago
      There are plenty of extant languages that don't have an alphabet either. They will be "lost" in every sense of the word. The # of languages currently spoken is typically pegged somewhere between 3000-6000 and it's thought that we lose around one a week. Most have almost no documentation whatsoever, and even so a couple papers written in the 1970s aren't going to capture any potential unique aspects of a language let alone allow for reconstruction at a later point. The analogy to code is way off.
- sampo 12y ago
  Just a guess: (1) It's maybe difficult to separate one missing their country, and missing the language of their country. (2) Also it's maybe easier to miss the homeland, when the homeland is a rich western country, and moving back home would not mean any decrease in standard of living or safety (might even be an improvement over US or UK).
pjmlp 12y ago
Although English is seen as the lingua franca of the 21st century, it wasn't always like that. In the several millions we are able to speak and write, there have been lots of languages taking that role. And even English is not as common as many people think, just traveling around the world will teach people that there are many places where knowing English will be of no help. Besides languages represent culture, not all concepts are expressible across all languages and they are also a door to our past as mankind, sure they are worth preserving.
- adamnemecek 12y ago
  > Although English is seen as the lingua franca of the 21st century, it wasn't always like that. I'm aware of that. > And even English is not as common as many people think, just traveling around the world will teach people that there are many places where knowing English will be of no help. I guess it's not just about sheer numbers but also about what sort of stuff is produced in the language. E.g. the expert books are mostly written in English. You don't even have to go that far, e.g. there aren't all that many say compiler books that were not translated from English, that are up to date and not terrible. This is for me more important than being able to have a discussion with Bhutani farmer. > Besides languages represent culture, not all concepts are expressible across all languages and they are also a door to our past as mankind, sure they are worth preserving. Well it's a tradeoff. And I think that at some point the cost of preserving them outweighs the benefits.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    > the expert books are mostly written in English. This depends very much on the domain.
- Rapzid 12y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what concept is not expressible in English?
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    There are lots of examples. Citing just two out of my mind. Feierabend (German) - expresses the concept you are finished with the work duties for the day and can enjoy your private time with family and friends Saudade (Portuguese) - a mixture of loneliness, melancholy, sense of loosing part of you feelings, even mixed with a kid of sad joy, while remembering something that is no longer there.

kijin 12y ago

"Organic" change is little more than the result of repeated oversight. It is often triggered by changes in hardware availability. Scripts that were developed in the age of stone tablets will change when the tablet and chisel are replaced with paper and brush, and again when the brush is replaced with a fountain pen, and again when the whole setup is replaced with a computer. People will naturally adopt the style that allows them to convey meaning the most conveniently in a given medium. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean were all written vertically from right to left (|||) until only a few decades ago. Now they are very often written horizontally from left to right (≡). A lot of factors have contributed to the change, such as the ease of embedding Western, mathematical and scientific symbols in a CJK sentence, the need to keep one's hands clean when writing with a modern pen, and of course the introduction of computerized typesetting. Nobody forced anyone to write horizontally. People just gravitated towards what they found more convenient given the availability of new writing tools. And of course, many artists and calligraphers continue to write vertically when it suits their intentions better. Even better, new calligraphical techniques have been developed to take advantage of unique opportunities that horizontal writing offers. As long as everyone gets what they need (art for artists and utility for utilitarians), I don't see any problem with this arrangement.

VLM 12y ago

"English itself is changing all the time." As a writing style, cursive is basically dead. This would have made an awesome analogy for the original article essay. Very few Americans in gen X and younger actually write cursive and there are efforts to remove it from the curriculum. I can sign my name in cursive when I write a legacy paper check (a couple times a year) or sign forms. Thats about it. I now write legacy paper checks in block capitals and only use cursive for my .sig. I would have to check wikipedia to see how to make a cursive capital "F" and some of the weirder letters (what is a cursive Q?) It presents some problems to genealogy, I have trouble reading centuries old census forms because I haven't read cursive since grade school, some decades ago. In grade school we were told we will have to write all our papers in cursive in middle school and up; not so; all typed, mostly on computers.