Reviving languages

[James the Red]

I found this link on Wikipedia as I was looking up stuff on the Aztecs.
http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/new...language-.html

I think its great for traditional languages to get revived. Its always sad for perfectly good languages to dwindle away because one language became super dominate.

All countries need a Lingua franca, of coarse, but it would be nice if people knew and used traditional languages as well, like for example if more people spoke Hawaiian in Hawaii or Gaelic in Scotland, in addition to English.

So, do you think politicians should try this, or should this be something governments shouldnt bother with?

[hellheaven1987]

If your brain capacity can accept that; most people can only master two languages at most and I don't see why force people to learn a language that is not useful besides cultural purpose.

[Roboute Guilliman]

If your brain capacity can accept that; most people can only master two languages at most and I don't see why force people to learn a language that is not useful besides cultural purpose.

In this country we are forced to read and write 3 languages, and be able to speak 4. I think it has mostly to do with how often you get to speak the language. Look at the french and americans, they are rarely in contact with other languages and are the ones who are struggling to pick up a second.

[athanaric]

In this country we are forced to read and write 3 languages, and be able to speak 4. I think it has mostly to do with how often you get to speak the language. Look at the french and americans, they are rarely in contact with other languages and are the ones who are struggling to pick up a second.

IMO knowing a second language (at least at a basic level) should be compulsory for every EU and US citizen who isn't a certified retard. I don't care whether people learn Basque, Chinese, or Gaelic, but knowing the official language of the country you live in and possibly another - or an international one - is really not demanding too much from anyone.
I hear that currently the French are at a massive disadvantage working abroad because their schools are bad at teaching foreign languages and the state doesn't enforce it. Also, France's cultural diversity is about to suffer with the decline of local languages such as Occitan, Breton, Alsatian German/whatever, or Basque. Certainly not a way to go.

[Hounf of Culan]

I'm of the opinion that if it was a "prefectly good language" then it would've never died out in the first place. Secondly, most attempts at governmental language control are just stupid and don't really end up doing anything, not to mention an abuse of governmental power. One of the reasons that English is such a dominate language in the world today is that it is so free flowing and easily incorporates foreign words and new expressions into it's vocabulary. The idea of "protecting" languages is just stupid, the best languages will adapt and continually evolve, like English.

[Dr. Croccer]

I'm of the opinion that if it was a "prefectly good language" then it would've never died out in the first place.

The vast majority of languages have died out because of cultural enforcement from the outside or extermination. Of course they are perfectly good language, there's no such thing as a ''bad language''.

Secondly, most attempts at governmental language control are just stupid and don't really end up doing anything, not to mention an abuse of governmental power.

I'd beg to differ, look at how languages like Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Basque, Manx and so on have been saved from the brink and have grown considerably over the last few decades due to government support, whethers others who don't enjoy government recognition or which are discriminated against, like Breton, have sharply declined.

One of the reasons that English is such a dominate language in the world today is that it is so free flowing and easily incorporates foreign words and new expressions into it's vocabulary.

Hardly. English is by far an easy or logical language. It's dominant because English-speaking people are dominant, not because of its inherent superiority or whatever.

The idea of "protecting" languages is just stupid, the best languages will adapt and continually evolve, like English.

It's less a case of active government protection, and more one of government non-interference and recognition of it. NGO's will do most of the work in keeping the language alive.

[LSJ]

It's good to preserve languages through written and audio records. The purpose of language is to facilitate the exchange of ideas, so the best language to learn is the one that has the most practical use for you. If you live in India, learn your local language, and English for ease of business across the country. In China, learn Mandarin. The ideal situation is for all peoples to speak the same language, because the language barrier is a cooperation barrier. Promoting dying languages is unproductive.

Sorry if I sound Borg-ish, but assimilation is beneficial for humanity.

[athanaric]

The idea of "protecting" languages is just stupid, the best languages will adapt and continually evolve, like English.

Right now Chinese is one of the dominant languages on earth. It is neither very easy to learn nor particularly practical, being an analytic language and all that. The script accompanying it, is, while awesome looking, ridiculously impractical and backwards.
Arabic is another dominant language. Despite (or because of? Matter of taste) being a synthetic language, it is difficult to learn and is accompanied by a really outdated alphabet. Same goes for French, except that it uses a better alphabet.
English isn't all that easy either. There's a crapload of words in it and a lot of them are very similar sounding or similarly written. Also, there's the context thing, as this is yet another analytic language.

Really, I I were to choose a language as "best" (i.e. easy to learn, easy to understand, cool sounding) I woudn't consider any of these three. Not even for runner-up. There are far better candidates such as Spanish or Persian.

So there you go with "best languages". As has been said, it really is a matter of who's in charge, not whose language is better.

My argument, Romanus, is the language itself is useless, not that learning a language is useless. Gaelic has no place in the modern world: it is an all but dead medieval tongue that being competent in will do you no good beyond impressing a few punters every so often. You won't get a job being able to speak Gaelic, it won't allow you to travel to other parts of the world and be able to live, work and tour there save for a few tiny islands off the coast of Scotland, and teaching it over something like French won't make your brain any healthier.

So, I repeat the exact same argument: If we're going to teach our kids two languages, teach them a useful second language. If we're going to teach them three, teach them a useful third language. Do not teach them useless medieval languages that will serve them no purpose in life. If you're some sort of die hard fan of ancient languages, teach them Latin, as it at least retains some relevance to the modern world.

Your way of reasoning frankly scares me. It is the cold logic of the machine.

[irontaino]

Nahuatl never died out in the first place, it's one of the only American languages with over a million speakers and it's co-official alongside Spanish and several other Native American languages. It's just never been that big in cities except for ethnic enclaves.

[Nihirizumu no tsumetai ame]

it is great thing for languages to be revived, personally, i would like Uchinaguchi, the traditional language of Okinawa, and part of my heritage to be brought back, but it, like Nahuatl, one the original language of Mexico, the country ive lived in for half of my life, are dying as a result of Imperialist policies from another power that sought to impose its culture, and ideals on the other. But to irontaino's comment, that is true, many indigenous people in small Mexican towns speak Nahuatl, but it is very tainted with Spanish words and vocabulary. The irony is that many Mexcan towns, and other things are named in Nahuatl by the very descendants of the Spanish conquerors.

[saglam2000]

I'd rather everyone speak english instead of thousands of different languages.

[Admiral Piett]

I've always been fascinated in someone reviving Phoenician Punic.

[Condottiere 40K]

Language is a political tool, usually used to forge a common cultural identity. Knowing a second language is both useful and enlightening, but most centralized regimes would view such attempts at reviving one as a political measure on the road to secession.

[Treize]

I think they only know example is Hebrew. But that was only revived because of a wierd pseudo-nationalist concept and not really because there was a need to. Usually languages die because of a cultural integration process going on.

[♔Goodguy1066♔]

As an Israeli with Welsh origins, a big yes on that.

Of course, it depends on the circumstances, but recent history has shown us how powerful a national language can be in bringing a nation closer to its roots, to each other and to their country.

Eliezer Ben Yehuda revived and modernised the Hebrew language in the Yishuv in the 19th century. Before that, the Yishuv movement resembled the tower of Babylon - Yiddish speakers, Russian speakers, English speakers and speakers of languages from all over the world settling in a small land; they couldn't communicate with each other directly, they stuck with their own people (Russians with Russians, Morrocans with Morrocans) and there was hardly a feeling of a common cause and the building of what will become a state. One of the main issues of the Zionists was which language should they all adopt, and naturally everybody wanted it to be their personal mother-language.
With the introduction of modernised Hebrew, with proper grammar rules and all, made all the Zionists feel equal; no matter if you were American, Yemenite or French, you learnt Hebrew in an ulpan like everybody else. They were unified, they were shedding the marks of the millenias of diaspora and becoming a unified nation. And whether you agree with Zionism or not, the reinvention of Hebrew is a text-book example of an 'artificial' tongue uniting a people.
Three generations have passed since the time of Eliezer Ben Yehuda (four if your family's anything like mine ), and Hebrew has only become more and more significant in the country. Even Arab-Israelis are becoming more comfortable with Hebrew and nearly all the signs in Arab towns are in Hebrew - something which would have seemed prepostorous in the early years of the Yishuv.

Welsh has a similair story, but you get the point.

[Tangaxuan]

I found this link on Wikipedia as I was looking up stuff on the Aztecs.
http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/new...language-.html

I think its great for traditional languages to get revived. Its always sad for perfectly good languages to dwindle away because one language became super dominate.

All countries need a Lingua franca, of coarse, but it would be nice if people knew and used traditional languages as well, like for example if more people spoke Hawaiian in Hawaii or Gaelic in Scotland, in addition to English.

So, do you think politicians should try this, or should this be something governments shouldnt bother with?

You know Nahuatl was one of the few languages that actually spread and gained more speakers during the Spanish colonial period than before it. Quechua and Mapuche are other examples of the very few indigenous languages that ended up expanding during the age of Spanish colonialism in the New World. Nahuatl was spoken by a large array of Nahua groups, especially the Tlaxcallans whom the Spaniards depended on for providing Indian auxiliaries to reinforce their colonial militias as well as colonists. The thing that really doomed Nahuatl and the other indigenous languages was not Spain, but the newly independent Latin American states. You see when Mexico won its independence, most, if not almost all Mexicans did not speak Spanish as a first, or even second language. It was IMPOSED on them by the governments made up of the European-descended elite who wanted to forge a national identity and who didn't want to associate themselves much with low-class peasants.

[Blau&Gruen]

Grand apes sign codes could be usefull for improving their situation in captivity and the wild.

[Copperknickers II]

If your brain capacity can accept that; most people can only master two languages at most and I don't see why force people to learn a language that is not useful besides cultural purpose.

Tell that to the Swiss, the Dutch, the Indians, and the countless other countries where a good proportion of the inhabitants are fluent in three languages.

I'm of the opinion that if it was a "prefectly good language" then it would've never died out in the first place.

Languages don't die out because they are technically inferior. They die out because their influence and prestige die, eg when the stock is diluted and conquered by occupying forces like with Irish in Ireland, or when there is mass emigration, like Gaelic in Scotland. And indeed, like English itself nearly did in the early middle ages, where most of the ruling elite had no knowledge of it at all.

Secondly, most attempts at governmental language control are just stupid and don't really end up doing anything, not to mention an abuse of governmental power.

Governmental language control nearly wiped out Yiddish along with countless minority languages in places like Japan and America, and also has success stories like Irish and Hebrew.

One of the reasons that English is such a dominate language in the world today is that it is so free flowing and easily incorporates foreign words and new expressions into it's vocabulary.

To say it is 'free flowing' is a stupid statement because that is subjective ad nauseam. And tbh it's more the opposite: English is incorporated into foreign languages to such an extent that it makes it more worthwhile simply to learn English, bringing with it expressions from the old language.

The idea of "protecting" languages is just stupid, the best languages will adapt and continually evolve, like English.

Languages must be protected because without them half the identity of the people who speak them is lost. English will only survive so long as English speaking countries remain influential.

It's good to preserve languages through written and audio records. The purpose of language is to facilitate the exchange of ideas, so the best language to learn is the one that has the most practical use for you.

And how can we extract ideas from languages like Manx Gaelic, Cornish and Native American languages, which will be lost forever in 50 years if they are not protected.

If you live in India, learn your local language, and English for ease of business across the country. In China, learn Mandarin. The ideal situation is for all peoples to speak the same language, because the language barrier is a cooperation barrier.

And if you live in Stornoway, then speak Gaelic at home and English for ease of communication with others. There is no need for a clash between minority languages and lingae francae, the human brain can manage more than one language.

[Eofor]

Reviving languages just for the sake of reviving them is an expensive waste.

[Copperknickers II]

Reviving languages just for the sake of reviving them is an expensive waste.

A lot of what the government spends money on is a waste. At least reviving languages has beneficial culturalside effects to the political aim.