General Language Thread

How you say something is usually more then what you are saying. But if a language tied to a dissappearing (and do I dare say obsolete), then if that way of life dies then the language doesn't really have anywhere to go. Besides, many countries would be better off with one or two languages, as the government and other areas of the country could work better internationally and accross the country.

Trying to keep languages makes sense from a cultural perspective, but I'd like communication between people to become easier too. I don't think much good comes out of people not being able to understand each other because somebody speaks a really rare language.

So I don't really have a problem with trying to keep languages so long as people can still speak more common languages.

While I've been familiar with issues with the indigenous in Japan like the Ainu, Golden Kamuy now raised more awarness (I hope) with the language almost dying out IIRC.

You solve that by bilingual (or multilingual) education.

I’m on the camp of revitalization and preservation of endangered languages, because each of those are part of a cultural heritage that might have been passed down through centuries or millenniums, even when said culture has lost its place in the world. Not to mention that they are also an important way for indigenous or minority groups to preserve their identities and culture.

Speaking from experience, the Quechua and other Amerindian languages are not only accepted as official but also are undergoing a growing attempt at revitalization so as to reinforce the cultural heritage of the people of the highlands and the jungles.

Edit:

Indeed, my reply is nine years late. It’s a bit awkward that I only checked the date once you mentioned it.

Edited by raziel365 on Sep 24th 2019 at 10:07:09 AM

You're answering someone from 2010.

But yeah, I hope Quechua becomes widespread enough that it doesn't count as endangered anymore.

My only concern with Language Death is that a whole load of stories, concepts and idea die with them.

That kind of loss to the sum of human knowledge is far, far worse than anything else. So much is forgotten simply because no one uses the language it was originally spoken first in anymore.

Edited by TechPriest90 on Oct 5th 2019 at 11:43:17 AM

Interesting Maori news headline about the Ainu language:

Hey, I bumped into that clip a while back.

I don't know how widely-spoken Quechua is nowadays, but it's a very pretty language.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Sep 25th 2019 at 9:43:56 AM

It's rare that language death itself is brought up in media. One of the only cases I can think of in modern media is in Metal Gear Solid V. Part of the bad guy's Evil Plan is causing the death of the English language itself. He is himself a victim of this since one of his own parasites robbed him of the ability to speak his own native Hungarian.

It doesn't come up often because most media today is either produced by the English-speaking world, or otherwise relies on revenue from English-speaking viewers. Having your native language threatened with extinction is a fairly alien concept if your native language is the world's dominant lingua franca.

The game also touches on a real life attempt at erasing a language, namely Stalin's attempts to replace Hungarian with Russian. Skull-Face lived through that time, which is why finding out Major Zero devised a plan to erase every language but English pissed him off so much. Even more so after a parasite took his native Hungarian away from him.

Edited by M84 on Sep 27th 2019 at 1:39:14 AM

It's a big political issue in the UK because of the native Celtic languages are constantly fighting the risk of language death, some more successfully than others. Welsh is the most successful of the group, but is far from safe and is still struggling against great odds just to stand still, never mind improve. Meanwhile, Cornish has had to be rebuilt from surviving records and second-language or partially-fluent speakers after all the first-language speakers died out. Between these two extremes lie Gaelic, Irish and Manx. (Apologies to Bretons for limiting this solely to the UK.)

It also causes debates about scope and coverage. For example, Gaelic is now regarded as the native language of Scotland, something that upsets Scots-speakers because, historically, Gaelic was never a universal language of Scotland. It was native to parts of Scotland while Scots native to other parts — and Scots isn't a Celtic language, so doesn't get the profile protectors of the language think it needs. There are also some issues in Northern Ireland regarding Ulster Scots.

Language gives people a different way of thinking about the world. When you're fluent in a language, the entire structure of the language, the concepts conveyed by the language, the words themselves, reflect a way of thinking about things that differs from speakers of different languages.

While a universal language may help with communication between different cultures, the loss of an entire way of thinking about the world that different language concepts can create would make for a deeply barren world.

Bilingualism or multilingualism is by far a better way of sharing cultures and exploring worlds, but if a language dies out, its culture cannot survive — and you don't celebrate the cultures of the world by wiping them out, especially if done by accident.

But I say this as a Welsh person who lives the consequences of using one language to wipe out another language in a deliberate attempt to completely break and destroy a culture. Welsh and English provide two different ways of perceiving the world and communicating that, and something is lost when people are forced to communicate in only one manner. That's why it's been weaponised against more vulnerable cultures around the world for hundreds of years, and probably even thousands.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 28th 2019 at 1:54:21 PM

As a Welsh person, do you think games like those of the Total War series help to increase awareness of minor languages? Because I admit that my first time I heard about Welsh and Wales/Cymru was by playing the Britannia campaign of Medieval II: Total War.

I don't know games very well, but I do have to admit that I do like seeing references to Wales and the Welsh language crop up in media because it doesn't seem very often that it happens. For example, there was a (very) minor reference in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar when the characters are trying to figure out the name of the town they're going to, and Patrick Swayze's character explains that it's Welsh, which clues us into his character's troubled family situation. I thought that was a really good touch. Meanwhile, there have been much bigger Welsh references in, for example, Stargate SG-1 which were bad enough to make me almost stop watching the show (they did enough research to give the wizard Merlin the Welsh form of his name, but didn't do enough research to learn the correct pronunciation, and then fell into the standard French romance version of Arthurian legend, killing off the Welsh references entirely).

So, if it's done well, I think it's a fun and unexpected thing to throw in and does seem to turn people around slightly — in a good way. Like all things, however, if done badly, it doesn't help.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 5th 2019 at 6:34:29 PM

Reminds me much of the residential school system Ottawa used to "assimilate" the First Nation tribes to the Canadian way of thinking.

That I learned when I immigrated to Canada. WTF?

If we mess up down here, at least Welsh and many others will be preserved on the Voyager Golden Record for other lifeforms to reconstruct.

I'll just say, as another Welsh person, but who has extensively played both the Total War and Civ series, that it gives me great, great joy to play as the Celtic and Welsh factions in those games. I've lived as part of a linguistic minority in my own country all my life, and having actual decent Welsh voice acting (in the case of Civ 5's Boudica, whose VA is Sian Rees-Williams, a Welsh speaker from Glanaman, within a half hour drive from where I was raised) and representation makes me feel that my culture (and therefore my own identity) is accepted and validated on a greater and global scale. When these kinds of things happen, I feel like I (as a white cishet male) get a little bit more understanding of how people of colour and other minority groups feel about their own representation in media.

Being able to power fantasy beat England at something other than Rugby is nice too. Medieval 2: Kingdoms's Britannia campaign was also good for that.

As for other representations of Welsh in other media, Vinland Saga, a turn-of-the-millenium Viking manga/anime has a significant character be of Welsh descent, and does it quite well, which I'm a fan of. There was a recent Star Trek episode where everyone's universal translator went off and so everyone were speaking their native languages, including a Welsh dude. That was great.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Oct 9th 2019 at 12:13:19 PM

Peruvian doctoral student Roxana Quispe Collantes made history by writing and defending a thesis entirely in Quechua.

Askleand I guess, isnt? yeah he is a great chararter a bit of a dick, but for the love of chirst and odin, never said anything bad about is birthplace.

Well, I was deliberately not naming him, because that's a bit of a spoiler. Especially given the current season.

TIL that Frozen 2 is going to get a Sami language dub.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=indigenous&sa_f=search-product&scope=

BBC has vid coverage regarding Sami in Finland.

Ok, taking the discussion we had on the COVID thread about inclusive language here.

I think one of the problems is how you can actually adapt terms of inclusiveness to each language reality, for instance, Spanish often defaults to consider to use the male plural as a general plural, the most organic way to adjust this to the current times would be to use both male and female plural in conjuction if you want to address everyone, but there's no neutral general term that doesn't sound forced and -forgive the expression- cringey.

Yeah, add the problem that, if you want to add gender-neutral pronouns, not only you had to deal with each of the local chapters of the RAE in Latin America and Spain, but also with their respective governments, and many governments, even the most progressive ones, are already stated they aren't going to change the language just for the sake of some few people.