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Why learn a dead/artificial language? | ||
Tags: Dead Languages | Reasons for study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| i_forget Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5196 days ago 35 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Greek*, English, Spanish | Message 1 of 70 11 April 2015 at 3:59pm | IP Logged |
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I have this question that I really want to ask. Why on earth would anyone want to learn a
dead language? It's dead, i.e. not spoken any more! Why study/learn ancient Greek when you can learn modern Greek, which is also more simplified? Why study/learn Latin when you can learn *and* speak Italian? Why even bother out of all the possible things you can do in your free time? BTW when i say study/learn I do refer to investing at least 30 minutes on it every day for a period of at least 3-4 years. Thanks and no offense to anyone. Edited by i_forget on 11 April 2015 at 8:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5235 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 2 of 70 11 April 2015 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
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Why on earth do people want to learn more than one programming language, why would you want to learn a living language if you already speak one? Why would anyone want to learn Klingon? Why do people do anything other than work, eat, and sleep?
Because it interests them. Personally I cannot understand why anyone is interested in sports. I'd rather watch paint dry than American Football, or football (soccer), I think golf is a great walk ruined by stopping all the time and whacking a ball. Why even bother out of all the possible things you can do in your free time? 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 70 11 April 2015 at 4:23pm | IP Logged |
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I am studying an essentially dead language, Ladino. Why? It gives me access to five hundred years of literature, narratives, commentaries and an insight into a people who survived expulsion from Spain and Portugal to live in the Ottoman Empire. They preserved their 15th century medieval Spanish and added to it with Turkish, Hebrew, Greek, Italian and Arabic to make it their own language.
Pre- World War 2, Salonica, Greece was home to the largest community of Sephardim in the world and the majority language was Ladino. The holocaust killed most of them. The culture is fascinating. The stories of Djoha, the songs, the food, reading Rashi script from right to left and coming out with comprehensible Spanish is fascinating to me. Above all, it is an insight to a people and a culture very different than my own,yet at the same time similar in our humanity. Sure, I can read about what someone else says about Ladino Sephardic culture in English, but by learning the language I can develop my own insights. That makes it worthwhile to me. That is why, I think, many learners are drawn to "dead" languages. While they may not be spoken anymore amongst a community of native-speakers, the written word still speaks to people this day in the original. My high school English teacher, Ms Newton, taught me never to speak of literature in the past tense because though the times about which the book speaks may be long gone, the author and subjects dead; the literature is alive and speaking to you in the here and now. I admire and envy learners of "dead" languages who can discover for themselves their own perspective on the great, bygone, cultures and peoples of the world who still have much to teach us. Anyone who speaks a second language can tell you that a lot is, indeed, lost in translation. It's worth the effort. It would be so cool to walk into a museum and be able to read and understand Egyptian hieroglyphics, to read the Bible in Biblical Hebrew and Greek, Homer, Plato and Socrates in Ancient Greek, Beowulf in Old English, Marcus Aurelius in Latin, the Popul Vuh in Mayan, the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit, etc. Learning a language can give you another world. Learning a dead language can bring a bygone world alive again, if you can understand it. Edited by iguanamon on 12 April 2015 at 2:41am 22 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4233 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 4 of 70 11 April 2015 at 5:20pm | IP Logged |
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That's a rather naive question to ask on such a forum.
First of all, as it's been already said, it's about motivation, interests. Next, at least in case of Latin, is science. One simply cannot deal with biology or medicine and dream of getting a degree without Latin. There could be a list of reasons, but isn't that enough already? 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 70 11 April 2015 at 5:29pm | IP Logged |
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As iguanamon said, dead languages gives you a more direct access to history, not filtered through the mind of other people who translate or summarize it in your language. If living languages give you space, then dead languages give you time. I often find myself thinking that some people would benefit from knowing and understanding that attitudes, thoughts, prejudices and beliefs they are showing are essentially the same as those some people wrote about centuries or possibly millenia ago.
I think with many living languages you can find people who are willing to include you, to speak in a way you can understand, to bridge the gap between your cultures. Who will start building your knowledge by referring to things you both know about. With dead languages you have to do most of that yourself; you have to learn how to step out of your own cultural framework with your own effort. As to why you would want to learn a constructed language. Now, for me creoles are languages in their own right. Pidgins arise naturally, and international auxiliary languages seem to me a way to create something that can do the same job as a pidgin or even creole does, but with the same kind of authority as the standard of a national language. Some of these are connected to ideologies or ... communities with specific values and ideas of how they want to shape their environment. But for all I know English or rather Simplified English has become the biggest international auxiliary language and that is unlikely to change for some time. Other constructed languages are created and learned mostly because people want to look at the constraints they can give a languages look at the different possibilities that gives them to select and represent information. I personally think that is rather boring, I like that natural languages have been filtered through the minds of thousands to millions of people and were given their shape that way; I like that words and expressions change meaning, are made up or fall into disuse because of the constraints of people's memory and the reality of their daily life. But that doesn't devalue the interest of those people who enjoy constructed languages for linguistic or cultural purposes. Edited by Bao on 11 April 2015 at 6:40pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 70 11 April 2015 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
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Latin, even though I only reached intermediate stage, enriched my life. Not only is it
necessary for a medicine student. It gives another insight into european languages and not only the romance ones. It is something that immediately reveals lots of terms used not only in science but as well in humanities. It is a huge part of our history as it used to be the most important international language just a century or two ago. And I sligtly regret not having the time and dedication to learn further (at least for now) so that I could read some of the famous authors in original. Many learners prefer to read books in a language than to speak to natives, a language is not just a tool to speak with living people, the dead men tell tales too. :-) After all, the books in original tend to be usually better than any tradution. And these days, the international community of Latin users is, at least in some ways, trying to enjoy their common hobby in ways similar to Esperanto (such as internet news in Latin or even theatre plays). Hey, and who wouldn't want to laugh everytime a hollywood movie uses Latin incorectly? As to artificial languages. Even though I haven't pursued Esperanto for a long time, I can still understand totally why it is so attractive for many. It is a tie for a great community of people who want to communicate on a more neutral and less money dependent base than English. An Esperanto based culture has already been emerging. Sure, Esperanto is unlikely to fulfill the original dreams of making it The international language but it is no worse intelectual activity than chess or playing an instrument. And why is it worth it for some people to learn the Elvish languages, Klingon or whatever purely fictional language? It is part of something they love and they enjoy it. They can even speak it with other fans. Learning a dead/artificial language doesn't necessarily mean missing out on better things to spend free time on. Sometimes, it is the best thing to spend free time one. With similar logic, you can ask: Why spend time on learning a language with less than 50 miliones speakers if you are not gonna live in the country? Or why learn another language than English at all? Or why do many other things that aren't sure to earn you more money? Wy read, why play an instrument if you aren't a professional, why dance if you're never going to compete with others, why paint if you're never going to sell any painting? 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| i_forget Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5196 days ago 35 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Greek*, English, Spanish | Message 7 of 70 11 April 2015 at 8:21pm | IP Logged |
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So... My point is more like "why learn dead language X when you can learn modern language
Y". The main argument seems to be that you want to do it because it gives you access to the writings/books 500 years old , or even older. It would take a huuuge amount of time to actually read and understand the original Bible, or the original Plato or whatever. And for what? Just so you don't miss out from a not 100% accurate modern translation? So what? I'm sure you'll miss a lot more since you will not be fluent enough when reading the original. Basically, the amount of literature you can read from modern translations is 100s of books more than the combination a) learn 1 dead language b) read books in that language. So you can still go back in time just using your English. How many people have read Homer's Iliad etc, did they miss out on anything? > Why spend time on learning a language with less than 50 miliones speakers if you are not gonna live in the country? I can understand why you would want to do that. Because things are happening in that country *at this moment*. Now. You can watch their news. Follow their Youtubers. Read their newspapers. Speak with those people. Travel there. And of course to do all these, you don't have to be fluent. To read an ancient book, that probably means you have to be fluent to make the most of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 70 11 April 2015 at 8:40pm | IP Logged |
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English would be a bad choice, in my opinion, a closer language would be more
appropriate to follow your line of thought. HOwever, it is still not same. The main reason is not "because you can read those 100-2500 years old books in original". The main reason is "because you enjoy it for any possible reason there is". It is about the connection to the past people feel, about uncovering bits of the past. To me, it felt as well as a bit of archaelogy I could do right in my room. It is very often just a hobby just like vast majority of learner-language combinations on the forum.What uses you have for any language, that depends always on your tastes, needs and creativity. Really, do you ask the same about other possible hobbies people have? To read an ancient book, you don't need to be any higher level than to read a modern book in a living foreign language, why would it? It is probably just very different for ancient languages less documented than Latin or Greek, such as Ancient Egyptian. Really, no offence meant, but your argument really sounds very close to those "why would anyone learn another language than English". After all, you can read about all those other countries, their news and speak with many of the natives just in English. It is just not the same. And to Homer's Illiad: Yes, every one of us who read it in translation missed on the original structure, the sounds, and so on. Literature is not just about the story that is being narrated, even though it is usually the most important part. In my highschool class, we learnt the theory about it, about the clever structure of Homer's poetry, about the verses and so on. Yet, we couldn't experience it just out of the translation. (If I could, I guess I would have found both the style description and the story more interesting back then.) Most languages just aren't suited to fall into the same structures as Ancient Greek. Saying you can experience it just the same from the translation is like saying you can experience it from a half page long article summing up the contents. Edited by Cavesa on 11 April 2015 at 8:42pm 9 persons have voted this message useful |
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