What are the next lost lanuages?

[Patroklos]

??? Are you serious? the entire former USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries? there was something like 350m people there

And for all those Warsaw Pact countries, when was it every necessary for your averag Czech to know Russian to get around in everyday activites? During the existance of the USSR there was nothing even remotely approaching the globalization of today. Thanks to the interent I am at the moment conversing with people from Germany/Brazil/Holland as a matter of daily routine. Guess what language we are speaking.

I don't even think it is a matter of nationalism but of practicability. I don't know what makes you think (well at least Pat) that the need of a "international" language will make the native language disappear.

I didn't say disappear, I said become less relevant to the point of eventually being irrelevant.

People will always speak with their kids the langauge they spoke with their mom, because it is easier for them. An international language allowing them to communicate with the "international community" will always remain just that. And we tend to "exagerate" the size of this communication also. Honestly most poeple would just communicate with the people in their city, and even those who work a lot with other countries woul still be talking more with family and colleagues than with the outside world.

And there is your problem, you are ignoring the trend. How much more does the average world citizen interact accross language barriers on a daily basis for increasing routine needs now than 10 years ago? 20 years ago?

No, it's directly relevant, even if you don't understand terms like diglossia or prestige. The situation in colonial societies cannot be compared to Germany or Poland.

I am not comparing Germany and Poland to Mexico, I am comparing Europe to Mexico.

Nothing in your above post is relevant to my point. FACT: We are increasingly required to interact with a golbal community to fullfill our everyday needs. FACT: This trend shows every sign of continuing FACT: This requires effective communication between disparate populations. FACT: That means the addoption of a minimum of common languages.

We can argue on the time frame, but the basic obvious facts of the above remain.

Not all instances of language contact are the same. The imposition of Spanish or English over native populations was the direct result of massive violence, conquest and dispossession. It wasn't that they were forced to "interact with each other" (what the hell sort of outdated colonial fantasy world is that? do you think Europeans just waltzed in and unified a bunch of tribes or something?),

I am talking about RIGHT NOW Arwon. In modern day Mexico the various parts of the country do indeed interact with each other routinely not through force, but out of the necessity of being part of a modern nation. And when they do this, despite whatever their local language is, they do it via a common language.

Do you honesty think that as for example the EU becomes more like a nation state proper the requirements for someone in say Poland to have to call an office in Italy are not going to become common place? Do you think they are going to have a translator for every European language on hot standby at every calling center in the EU. Or course not. As a matter of convienence people will eventually gravitate to common languages for practicality, and those are going to inevitable be the ones that are the most prolific worldwide.

None of this is applicable in Germany, Poland, Vietnam, etc, coherent societies that operate on their own internal languages.

And therein lies your lack of understanding. These previously and currently self coherent societies are increasingly being integrated into a global society that requires them to interact at a common level for increasingly basic things. This will require people to use the more prodigeous languages more and more for throught their normal routine.

 

[Bill3000]

We can argue on the time frame, but the basic obvious facts of the above remain.

Yes, the basic obvious fact that you don't comprehend sociolinguistics.

English is a lingua franca. It's not a replacement language. Unless the EU becomes a true country, and enforces a single language throughout the nation, none of what you say is even remotely applicable.

 

[Verbose]

Nothing in your above post is relevant to my point. FACT: We are increasingly required to interact with a golbal community to fullfill our everyday needs. FACT: This trend shows every sign of continuing FACT: This requires effective communication between disparate populations. FACT: That means the addoption of a minimum of common languages.

We can argue on the time frame, but the basic obvious facts of the above remain.

Except nothing in the described situation requires the disappearence of any one language, just the use of an effective lingua franca.

We already have a situation where top managerial positions in UK firms tend to eventually NOT go to the British native English speakers, but to their workmates speaking English as a secondary language; Dutch, Swiss, Scandinavians etc. The explanations put forwards aren't just about more language skills, but even about wanting people documented to function in wider social circles.

In a situation where everyone speaks English, and something else, except the native English speakers, it's not necessarily the English-exclusively people who have are sitting with trumps, they just end up as the people lacking something by comparison.

 

[Patroklos]

None of this is applicable in Germany, Poland, Vietnam, etc, coherent societies that operate on their own internal languages.

I at not point claimed all such languages will disappear, I said they would become increasingly irrelevant.

We already have a situation where top managerial positions in UK firms tend to eventually NOT go to the British native English speakers, but to their workmates speaking English as a secondary language

Source? Please give one good reason why when you have two people who can both speak Engish and Swedish, the one with Swedish as the first language has any advantage (assuming both are fluent in each).

In a situation where everyone speaks English, and something else, except the native English speakers, it's not necessarily the English-exclusively people who have are sitting with trumps, they just end up as the people lacking something by comparison.

That would of course prove my point. We are on the process of globalization that, as RRW said, will require thousands of years for the culling of languages to be complete. Right now there are still more than enough reasons to learn Swedish. But of the sole English/Chinese/Spanish/French/Arabic speaker and the sole Swedish speaker, who has access to more globally?

But in a simple cost benefit analysis, who is getting more bang for their buck; an Englishmen learning Swedish or a Swede learning English?

 

[Bill3000]

I at not point claimed all such languages will disappear, I said they would become increasingly irrelevant.

Are you talking about language extinction, or merely languages that aren't spoken by anyone outside of their speakers or people interested in the language? If so, that's a very uninteresting concept (plenty of languages like that) and is not the same thing as language death. And it is most certainly not the same thing as Latin as you said in the OP, because Latin is a dead lingua franca, not an "irrelevant" language.

We talk about languages whose speakers are diminishing or dying out, not languages that don't have influence. And if you're doing that, then it depends on whoever becomes the great powers of the world which is completely unpredictable and nothing more than the normal stupid "my army can beat your army" crap.

 

[HannibalBarka]

Pat, apply what you said here about russian/Czeck rep; Poland:

And for all those Warsaw Pact countries, when was it every necessary for your averag Czech to know Russian to get around in everyday activites?

to english/ France and Germany.
I don't need English to get around in every day activities, and I will never have to. No one in France will ever have to speaking any thing but French to get around in everyday activites. We'll still be reading our newpaper in french, watching our tv in french and speaking french when we go buy a baguette. We'll be more keen to learn another language (probably english) because we'd more interacting with the outside world, but english would just be used for that purpose, and I don't see why I should ever have to speak english with my kids or they speak english with theirs. You can speak english when you call you cleint in the US, and naturally switch to french when your wife call you and remind you that your in laws are coming for dinner

 

[Verbose]

That would of course prove my point. But of the sole English/Chinese/Spanish/French/Arabic speaker and the sole Swedish speaker, who has access to more globally?

Which one of these language speakers is most likely to acquire a second language, and is set to profit that way?

Is there some weird US attitude at play here, that learning a foreign language is somehow a sign of failure?

 

[Patroklos]

English is a lingua franca. It's not a replacement language. Unless the EU becomes a true country, and enforces a single language throughout the nation, none of what you say is even remotely applicable.

You are merely describing its staus now. The question is for you to apply your critical thinking skills to a world 150 years from now with a level of globalization many times what it is now with the obvious implications of that.

 

[Patroklos]

Which one of these language speakers is most likely to acquire a second language, and is set to profit that way?

Which one of those lanuage speakers is as a matter of course pretty much required to learn a second language to profit at all?

Is there some weird US attitude at play here, that learning a foreign language is somehow a sign of failure?

Nothing that has been said can possible be construed to mean this. I suggest you read the thread again.

Nothing I have said disparages the utility of knowing multiple languages, rather it is a realization of the fact that some are far more useful than others and this trend will continue.

 

[Patroklos]

I don't need English to get around in every day activities, and I will never have to...

Again, you are describing the present, the question was about 150 years from now. And it might not be English, it could be Chinese

 

[Till]

Languages that are strongly tied to national identities are not going to come under pressure, unless the national identity itself dissolves. There is no indicator of that happening for any but the smallest states. If anything, increased competition due to globalization appears to encourage nationalism.

 

[scherbchen]

but "150 years from now" is mere conjecture. there are so many different factors that involve covert and overt prestige of a language (not to mention political and economic developments) that it is a mere guessing game... there is no right answer and it is not English or Mandarin.

also 150 years is roughly the time it took for the Great Vowel Shift to happen, languages constantly change. of course it is unlikely that an event of such magnitude would happen today with global mass media thrown into the mix.

 

[Patroklos]

Are you talking about language extinction, or merely languages that aren't spoken by anyone outside of their speakers or people interested in the language?

Both, speculation on each is relevant to the topic.

but "150 years from now" is mere conjecture.

Yes. Yes it is.

 

[LucyDuke]

These arguments are ridiculous. We know which will be next, because they've been on a precipitous decline with no means of revival. The patterns are well-known. Beyond that, you're just staring at goat intestines trying to figure out whether you'll get hit by a hurricane next October.

People don't control language. Most people that learn a new one learn it because it will be useful, not because they like it. Portuguese doesn't open as many new doors as French. And it's all just incidental, not because French is somehow inherently better than Portuguese.

I think Greek is cooler than Mandarin. Nobody in the world gives a crap.

Irish is pretty strongly supported by the state, so wont die out any time soon.

That doesn't seem like the right reason. I'd imagine it's got more to do with the support of the people.

We need to preserve dying languages because one they can help us understand ourselfs but also they can and often do hold knowledge that could somehow and in someway really help us out. Plus if you save a language the culture that it's a part of will often survive.

It's important to note though that some south american indigenous languages have survived and thrived and Quechea has around 7 million or so speakers. I froget what indigenous language it is but it has more non-native speakers than natives.

But as for the rest of the world's indigenous languages they are in large part are and/or going to be goners. That is unless if we started to protect them now and have them taught and promoted in society.

They're gonna die. They're obsolete and the children don't care about them. What I said before, waste of resources, it's better to salvage what can be salvaged - records that we can use in the future as data to feed comparative studies, and hey, maybe revive the tongue in three millennia if a group decides to identify with it.

I wanted a topic I discuss without causing too much rancor

You should probably start a thread about flooring, then. Not too many pesky flooring facts to quibble over.

 

[Mad Man]

You should probably start a thread about flooring, then. Not too many pesky flooring facts to quibble over.

Hard wood flooring is better than tile flooring any day of the week.

 

[Mowque]

Hard wood flooring is better than tile flooring any day of the week.

Carpet is warm on your feet, the most important concern!

 

[Mad Man]

But hard wood flooring looks nicer and your an idiot if you think otherwise

 

[TheLastOne36]

If I want to communicate with people across Europe do I learn German or English?

If you wanted to, you'd learn both. German is a common second language as well as English.
Besides i seriously doubt that a language with over 100 mil and 60 mil speakers will die out any time soon. They might be reduced to local languages in some cases but not less then that.

Thats a very good question. Obviously more insular areas (and populous ones) will keep their language intact longer than others. But again, how many interantional Russian websites are there right now compared to the likes of English or Spanish? Do you honestly deny what the established trend will be?

Think about places that are actively integrating. Even in the EU it is inevitable that some languages will gain precidence over other in everday EU affairs. The UN works like this too, sure they have several "official" languages but there are definetly favorites.

So you agree with us, with the 65 million Polish Population and the 100 + Million German population, Polish and German won't die out any time soon.

Also you killed all your legitimacy with the Russian Statement. Do you know how many sites they are in Russian? Heck even on internation sites like Youtube, russian comments on russian related video's are 98% always in russian.

As for your second part, yes that is true, but that does not mean that languages will die out because of so.

??? Are you serious? the entire former USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries? there was something like 350m people there

None of us in the warsaw pact spoke russian, only a couple buisnessmen and rebel's who needed to understand russian for their survival.

And for all those Warsaw Pact countries, when was it every necessary for your averag Czech to know Russian to get around in everyday activites?

So you agree, Czech, Polish, German etc. aren't going to go out of existence anytime soon? You can't even imagine how contradictory that sounds.

I didn't say disappear, I said become less relevant to the point of eventually being irrelevant.

So irrelevant to you means not being used as an international language for multinational companies? If so, your definition for relevence is flawed. Do you think that the owners of a multinational auto company with a plant in Poland would be speaking English to the workers of the plant? No, they'd be speaking Polish.

I at not point claimed all such languages will disappear, I said they would become increasingly irrelevant.

Explain how? Polish + German + Vietnamese combined has a total speaking population of over 250 Million speakers. The Population is HUGE. I Seriously doubt that 250 Million people will suddenly switch to English.

 

[Dachs]

I think Greek is cooler than Mandarin.

Damn straight.

 

[Mirc]

So you agree with us, with the 65 million Polish Population and the 100 + Million German population, Polish and German won't die out any time soon.

I thought Poland has only some 38 million people...?