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>what other, more useful knowledge could they have gained otherwise? How does one rank the usefulness of knowledge? Language acquisition (and the acquisition o

>what other, more useful knowledge could they have gained otherwise? How does one rank the usefulness of knowledge? Language acquisition (and the acquisition of a particular language) is not a skill in isolation. It enhances other skills such as problem solving, logical inference, the ability to recognize patterns, knowledge synthesis... skills I daresay are useful in other fields, such as computer programming. I hear your argument a lot among people who just plain don't like learning languages and think it's "worthless," or that they'll "never use it" -- but the same thing could be said of some mathematical disciplines. However, there is little doubt that those mathematical disciplines contribute to other areas of knowledge.

kazagistar 12y ago
Ranking between categories is hard. But within a category it is much easier. Adding a language like Mandarin, for example, provides very similar mental utility as some dying tongue, but additionally gives the child a useful communication tool later in life.
- allemagne 12y ago
  >Adding a language like Mandarin, for example, provides very similar mental utility as some dying tongue, but additionally gives the child a useful communication tool later in life Really? How, exactly? Will a significant number of these countries be doing business directly with Chinese counterparts ...who don't already speak English? As someone who learned Mandarin, I can promise that the vast majority of its benefits I've had to go out of my way to enjoy. Why should the small number of people who will find any use at all out of Chinese be valued more than maintaining a language that is significant to their heritage?
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
A partial case study: In Wales ~100% of the population speak English. In the last UK census the numbers who responded that they could _speak_ any old Welsh, Cymraeg, was < 16%. In the city region I live in Cymraeg is at such low demand by parents that there are no secondary schools that use it (except as a subject, like you'd learn a foreign language). Excepting a handful of Patagonians and some ex-pat Welsh there is nowhere outside the country to speak Cymraeg and there is nowhere in the country that it is needed. However, all primary school children are forced to use "incidental Welsh" in every single subject lesson. In my kids school there are Urdu, Mandarin, Swedish, Spanish speaking kids .. but none that speak Cymraeg at home as a domestic language. Most people who can speak some Cymraeg can't write in it and aren't fluent. Of those that are fluent the majority 75-80% use English for emails and texts and social media (per a recent study by the Office of the Welsh Language Commissioner). Yet still, all subjects in primary school are hobbled by backward looking misguided nationalism - at present rates the only kids who will use Cymraeg in a job post-school are those in the Welsh Language Commission. It serves no useful purpose for the kids but it's treated as more important than maths, science, English, ... Now, I've nothing against languages. I find them fascinating but in mainstream education languages should be taught first as a means of communication. If people want to learn them later so they can hide away and not talk to people from other cultures that's fine - but that's not what compulsory schooling should be about. Aside, how does language learning of itself improve problem solving?
- panglott 12y ago
  Does knowing about the country you live in really have so little value? Maybe it's not the only valuable thing in the world, but knowing about the culture of the society you live in sure seems like it would be valuable...? Welsh has been largely abandoned in Cardiff and southern Wales, but there are large sections of the country where at least a quarter of the population speaks Welsh, and in other places 65-80% of people speak Welsh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language#/media/File:Welsh_speakers_in_the_2011_census.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language#/media/File:Wel...
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >Does knowing about the country you live in really have so little value? // Does communication have so little value that you'd choose an anachronistic minority language that a small proportion of the native population understand - and an even smaller proportion prefer in daily communication - in favour of a modern, widely used, language? History has its place but there is very little of use to the majority that is gained by using minority languages - recently I was looking at an artistic Kufic Arabic script and at other times have studied (briefly) historic languages to understand other peoples, but there's no need to learn Cymraeg to understand Welsh people when you are one speaking the language of your people modern Welsh (aka English, that is seemingly dismissed for its name).
hobarrera 12y ago
Sure, there's benefits of learning a second language. But you generally get those benefits if someone else speaks that language. Learning Chinese, Spanish, or German as a child can help a lot during live, socially, and in other aspects. Learning a language like this just for the sake of saving it won't have those same benefits.

kazagistar 12y ago

Ranking between categories is hard. But within a category it is much easier. Adding a language like Mandarin, for example, provides very similar mental utility as some dying tongue, but additionally gives the child a useful communication tool later in life.

allemagne 12y ago
>Adding a language like Mandarin, for example, provides very similar mental utility as some dying tongue, but additionally gives the child a useful communication tool later in life Really? How, exactly? Will a significant number of these countries be doing business directly with Chinese counterparts ...who don't already speak English? As someone who learned Mandarin, I can promise that the vast majority of its benefits I've had to go out of my way to enjoy. Why should the small number of people who will find any use at all out of Chinese be valued more than maintaining a language that is significant to their heritage?

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

A partial case study: In Wales ~100% of the population speak English. In the last UK census the numbers who responded that they could _speak_ any old Welsh, Cymraeg, was < 16%. In the city region I live in Cymraeg is at such low demand by parents that there are no secondary schools that use it (except as a subject, like you'd learn a foreign language). Excepting a handful of Patagonians and some ex-pat Welsh there is nowhere outside the country to speak Cymraeg and there is nowhere in the country that it is needed. However, all primary school children are forced to use "incidental Welsh" in every single subject lesson. In my kids school there are Urdu, Mandarin, Swedish, Spanish speaking kids .. but none that speak Cymraeg at home as a domestic language. Most people who can speak some Cymraeg can't write in it and aren't fluent. Of those that are fluent the majority 75-80% use English for emails and texts and social media (per a recent study by the Office of the Welsh Language Commissioner). Yet still, all subjects in primary school are hobbled by backward looking misguided nationalism - at present rates the only kids who will use Cymraeg in a job post-school are those in the Welsh Language Commission. It serves no useful purpose for the kids but it's treated as more important than maths, science, English, ... Now, I've nothing against languages. I find them fascinating but in mainstream education languages should be taught first as a means of communication. If people want to learn them later so they can hide away and not talk to people from other cultures that's fine - but that's not what compulsory schooling should be about. Aside, how does language learning of itself improve problem solving?

panglott 12y ago
Does knowing about the country you live in really have so little value? Maybe it's not the only valuable thing in the world, but knowing about the culture of the society you live in sure seems like it would be valuable...? Welsh has been largely abandoned in Cardiff and southern Wales, but there are large sections of the country where at least a quarter of the population speaks Welsh, and in other places 65-80% of people speak Welsh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language#/media/File:Welsh_speakers_in_the_2011_census.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language#/media/File:Wel...
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >Does knowing about the country you live in really have so little value? // Does communication have so little value that you'd choose an anachronistic minority language that a small proportion of the native population understand - and an even smaller proportion prefer in daily communication - in favour of a modern, widely used, language? History has its place but there is very little of use to the majority that is gained by using minority languages - recently I was looking at an artistic Kufic Arabic script and at other times have studied (briefly) historic languages to understand other peoples, but there's no need to learn Cymraeg to understand Welsh people when you are one speaking the language of your people modern Welsh (aka English, that is seemingly dismissed for its name).

hobarrera 12y ago

Sure, there's benefits of learning a second language. But you generally get those benefits if someone else speaks that language. Learning Chinese, Spanish, or German as a child can help a lot during live, socially, and in other aspects. Learning a language like this just for the sake of saving it won't have those same benefits.