Why do languages die? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Why do languages die?
Tags: Dead Languages
Share with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Language Learning Forum : General discussion

19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

beano
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4627 days ago
1049 posts - 2152 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian

Message 17 of 19

01 March 2013 at 2:37pm | IP Logged

I always remember an interview with a Swedish professor who was asked if he thought his own language was under threat due to the increasing global use of English. He dismissed the notion entirely, pointing out that Sweden is a small seafaring and trading nation that has always had to learn other languages in order to communicate with the wider world.

3 persons have voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7161 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 18 of 19

01 March 2013 at 5:42pm | IP Logged

Interesting article, and I have to admit that part of its attraction to me is that it lines up partially with my wariness of statism and antipathy of nationalism and its role in forming nation-states as understood since the 19th century.

Some of the points brought up in the article make me recall my sociolinguistic understanding of Saamic languages, Meadow Mari and dialects which are treasured in name by the State downward in the name of national identity/delineation (i.e. reinforcing its hegemony over over a linguistically diverse territory) but in practice are being crowded out by the standard language that's backed up by a public education curriculum complete with prescriptive grammar manuals and orthographical dictionaries issued by state-run/sponsored publishing houses to mold young impressionable minds in the classroom.

To see related discussion, note that the infamous COF started a thread about standardization, which perhaps surprisingly didn't get locked.
2 persons have voted this message useful

FuroraCeltica
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6870 days ago
1187 posts - 1427 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

Message 19 of 19

02 March 2013 at 4:24pm | IP Logged

PinkCordelia wrote:

It's also important I think to consider variety within languages
dying out. It seems
unlikely that English will become extinct any time soon but within England it's becoming
blandly uniform both in terms of vocabulary and accent.

Interesting you say that. I remember reading somewhere that the reason accents were
melting together was because of the mass media

1 person has voted this message useful

This discussion contains 19 messages over 3 pages: << Prev 1 2 3

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register

Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum

This page was generated in 0.3911 seconds.