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0 pointsazinman23y ago0 comments

> But if we don't work on it, it's not gonna happen.

That’s exactly right. There’s too much bias in society that if something isn’t perfect, then why bother? Nothing is perfect, so with that attitude there can be no progress. Thank you for doing important work!

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Gigachad3y ago

Personally I'm hoping that globalisation prunes out as many languages as possible before we end up with brain implants automatically translating everything for us and no one can communicate without these chips.

pegasus3y ago

That's a silly thing to wish for: like wishing global warming kills off as many species of animals as possible, in order to simplify zoology.

pmontra3y ago

Becoming bilingual is one thing. Completely extinguishing a language is a totally different matter. It is usually associated with migrating away from the geographic area of the language and/or physically losing speakers (old age, wars, genocides, etc.)

You can check the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_time_of_e...

To make an example and be blunt: I do not expect any European country official language to get extinct anytime during our lifespan unless that country gets destroyed, which obviously won't be a good thing.

As for brain implants, I won't hold my breath.

cyphar3y ago

There are several reasons a language can go extinct, and while the reasons you mentioned are included there are several other reasons that you didn't consider. The most common way language death occurs is through contact with a prestige language, which results in social pressure that makes the non-prestige language become less and less commonly spoken[1]. A community becoming bilingual is part of this process -- it doesn't always result in language death, but it is an early stage of that form of language death.

As for a European country official language (strange line to draw), Icelandic is already in a state where younger Icelandic natives speak to each other in English because smartphones do not support their native language. It is entirely possible that Icelandic will be in danger of extinction this century[2].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3qbYFvOHwk [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/world/europe/iceland-icel...

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mellavora3y ago

So, Ukrainian?

eCa3y ago

> prunes out as many languages as possible

Would you feel the same way if that includes all languages you know, including all versions of English?

Gigachad3y ago

Yes, I’d be happy to learn a new language if it was the step to one unified language. Of course there is no way to back that up since it will never happen but I at least assume I’d do it if that was the case.

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MrPatan3y ago

How would you feel about being the one that has to teach your children a language that will hinder their prospects instead of one that will help them succeed, just so that the speakers of the bigger language feel good about themselves that they are good people or something?

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adrianN3y ago

I'm still a bit disappointed that Esperanto isn't the official language of the EU.

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