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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 241 of 243 10 August 2014 at 3:26pm | IP Logged |
Hi, I've not been on HTLAL much, so I just read your post today. I really enjoyed the article. I find the subject quite interesting, because it seems important to at least record a pretty thorough record of dying languages. I'm not the type of person who would learn a language just because it's dying; the languages I am learning aren't unusual (except maybe the combination). But I think maintaining cultural diversity in the world is important, and preserving endangered languages is part of that.
If you are interested in endangered languages check out http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/.
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| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5468 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 242 of 243 10 August 2014 at 11:59pm | IP Logged |
I agree Jeffers. Cultural diversity is definitely important, even important for
sustaining life some argue.
Recently one of my topic threads on here caused a bit of a stir as some felt it was
becoming rather political and distant from the topic of language learning. I have no
issue with that opinion, people are entitled to have their opinions and I am not about
to argue continuously with moderators of a website I don't moderate. I'm not trying to
complain here or revive the topic but I'd just like to point out that we all love
languages and most of us, I believe, love language and cultural diversity. With that in
mind, it was my intention with that thread to draw to the attention of people that via
the conduit of some or even one big language(s) I believe there exists a clandestine
deliberate effort to homogenize human populations, linguistically and culturally. I'll
take it so far as to say that we are all manipulated on a scale we don't even realise
is even possible. We believe we have freedom, that we arrive at our own conlcusions,
and are generally protected and valued by government. Languages, life, people,
cultures, the earth, these things are NOT valued by those at the top. I wish it wasn't
the case.
50 or 100 years from now, how much cutlural and linguistic diversity will Europe,
Africa, South America etc possess in comparison to today? Other languages are not
necessarily at fault, but the mechanisms behind governments are. Progress does not have
to progress in this manner. Some only think it does.
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5201 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 243 of 243 11 August 2014 at 12:39pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for your replies, Jeffers and PeterMollenberg. Yes, it's a fascinating area. You may also
like to have a look at Mark Abley's Spoken Here: travels among threatened languages. I've posted a
short - and poignant - excerpt on a thread elsewhere here.
Edited to add the link:
No monoglots
Edited by songlines on 11 August 2014 at 12:45pm
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