ƵƵƵƵƵƵƵ

I live in California and the native peoples spoke Costanoan Native American languages. there were once several distinct languages as different from eachother as the romance languages of Europe, such as French, Italian etc. The languages include Mutsun, Rumsen, Karkin and Cholon. Sadly, colonization, missionary work and indian slavery aided in the extinction of these languages and many peoples.

Nine posts in a row? What the hell?
Also, maybe it's just me, but I don't really see how this could be a debate. It would make more sense in the Off-Topic board, IMO.

EDIT: Redacted due to Wojtek's edits.

There is an old Scottish language Gaelic which some people speak in the North of Scotland. It was kind of dying out but in recent years they have been teaching it to kids in schools here and further up north than where I live the signposts on the roads have been replaced to include Gaelic as well as English.

I am personally neutral about keeping Gaelic alive. I don't feel it makes any difference to me eeither way be a lot of people feel strongly that it should be kept alive. I don't have any videos of people speaking this language but I can tell you that some TV programmes in Scotland including news and current events are broadcast in Gaelic.

Check out their website at www.stv.tv

I love languages. I want to travel, learn new languages and become a foreign language teacher. Obviously I'm very upset by so many endangered ones. It's an effect of globalization and I don't think it can be stopped at this point. There are things we can do to slow down the process but in the end languages will die as a lot already have. Kids grow up surrounded by English, (in a lot of places) learn English at an early age (like before they can barely read their native language) and then grow up to see that speaking English is more useful than Lithuanian or Basque or Flemish or whatever. Once the older generation dies, the younger ones who almost all speak English well will take over and decide, keep the native language or convert to English. Here's in example, my dad's company does business with a company in Germany. The German men he does business with say that they don't know how to speak proper German but their English was wonderful. The best thing we can do is promote the instruction/interest of the target language and limit the instruction of the intruding one.

Some have become extinct. There is some interest amongst native peoples in reviving the language, but I am not sure which ones.

Of interest on this topic, is that more than half of the world's languages are expected to die out by the end of this coming century.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...es-extinct.html

I also found it interesting, in an issue many moons ago, to see just how many languages have gone extince over time. Hundreds of thousands. So while it is sad to lose a language, it isn't uncommon thing for humans

*Moderator mode* Please, can you all edit your posts instead of posting several times in a row. Please read the forum rules!

*simsample mode* It certainly makes things easier when everyone speaks the same language, but it's a shame to see old languages die out. I'm interested in languages too, and learned Latin at school. Some of my family live in Wales and speak Welsh, and that language is endangered as well. I would hate to see that die out, but it must be a nightmare to administer a modern country in more than one language.

For example, my daughter is attending a Welsh University, and all documents are given to her in two languages. Often that means twice the amount of paper, and certainly twice the amount of work for office staff. All road signs and markings are in two languages (and there are often complaints from locals if the the wrong language is displayed first!). So, there are definite efforts to keep Welsh alive, and from census results it appears to be growing, but still less than a quarter of the welsh population speak welsh.

The only reason latin is still taught in schools is because it is used widely in various fields of study and that many ancient books have been written in latin. It has been passed down through generations and it was easily accesible since it has managed to infiltrate day to day life in so many ways. The bible used to be written in latin until people started trasnlating it in various languages in an effort to make it easier for common folk who didn't speak latin to understand it. Languages tend to change over time due to the way people use them, they evolve and if there is not enough use for them, they become extinct. It's a very natural process. I don't see why some languages should be preserved at all costs, in an artificial way. You may want to preverve the language and culture of some people, but sometimes they just evolve and change in a manner that it's beyond your control. Take for example the children of immigrants. Many times they only speak well the language of the country their parents immigrated to and speak badly or not at all the language of their granparents.

Latin is also an excellent method for teaching general theoretical grammar. Latin has plenty of interesting features, students are unlikely to know it in advance and thus look at it with fresh eyes, and they are likely to gain new insight into the etymology of their native language. At my school, 10 90min Latin classes are mandatory on your first year. It's used primarily to teach basic syntax analysis.

Please elaborate. The Bible used to be written in Latin? Are you referring to the versio vulgata, or are you actually claiming that the Bible was originally written in Latin?

Why can't you study syntax analysis on your native language? Being a native speaker does not neccessarily mean that you are familiar with the theoretical principles of grammar and syntax or that you even speak your own language correctly.




Yes, the vulgate bible.

Certainly not, but you do have preconceived notions of how to parse sentences. Additionally, the official language of the country I live in is highly analytical, and meaning is conveyed primarily through word order. By presenting students with a language as inflected as Latin, they get a chance to understand that words have a function in a way that is clearer and more easily understood than if they were to have it explained with Danish as example. For instance, it is often difficult to get students to understand the huge syntactic difference between indirect objects and adpositional phrases*. Have a language where cases matter? No problemo.

*she gave him a book/she gave a book to him.

Dusner language in Papua Island, part of my country (Indonesia). The user of that language is only three people left, and all of them got into a natural disaster (volcano, if I'm not mistaken). One of them is already been saved. They're having the age between 60 and 70...

How dangerous is a condition like that for the language...

Can't say I did. She speaks quickly, and I even have trouble telling what people in movies are saying in my native language at times. I'm hardly the best person to ask. Glancing at your Vilamovian text sample, though,
Spoiler for those uninterested in wankery and "look at me, look at me, I can use cognates!" aimed solely at Wojtek and his perverse interests.

Was it good for you, too?

Heh, one of the essays I had to write for the GRE was on this subject.

I think the most important thing with endangered languages is to preserve knowledge of the language over usage. It's difficult to take a prescriptive approach to language and actually have it really stick, and I'm kind of equivocal on requiring the usage of XYZ language to preserve its presence. I understand why it's a concern, but at the same time it also seems a wee bit totalitarian and pointless: languages die all the time throughout history. Language changes to the point that it might as well have died out.

However, because language embodies aspects of a people's culture, I do think it is very worthwhile to pump the remaining speakers for as much vocabulary you can get out of them, grammar and syntax rules, idioms, and so on. If it's never used I suppose that can seem like preserving knowledge just for knowledge's sake (not that there's anything wrong with that), but language is as much a history of its speakers as a history book. (Which is why I understand why people make special effort to ensure their language stays in use.)

Etymology? History of the origin of current language?

On an aside note, I always found going to church pretty damn hilario because of the whole current Russian word for "stomach"/Church Slavonic for "life" thing.

The more disconcerting issue for language exctinction isn't the value of the language itself - languages evolve to serve the culture that use them - but the culture of the language is lost. This is a fine point and hard to explain to anyone who hasn't learned to view language as an extension of themselves.

Some languages go beyond simple grammar and syntax to express values ideosyncratically. Ideography spans language, and we modern folks think to ourselves that syntatic script must be better that ideographic communication, but is that necessarily so? Heiroglyphics were considered to be ideas that came to life in the "next world"; would we be more careful in crafting our language - or put another way: would we spend more time thinking about how we speak instead of just talking, if we thought of our words as immortal instances of our thoughts and aspirations?

A lot of the traditional Aboriginal languages are disappearing due to the lack of government support in areas such as education and health. Of course, this doesn't concern alot of people but a whole culture might/will probably soon disappear.