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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 |  | |
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6063 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 65 of 70 15 April 2015 at 1:16pm | IP Logged |
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I wasn't going to contribute to this thread, because you never know when you're wasting your time replying to a 14-year-old who had a bad day at school, or whatever. I'm sorry if this isn't the case, even more so if it is.
Anyway, there's been a lot of significant contributions so far. I've seen robarb's contribution (59th post) and thought I could add an item. 7. Aging people wanting to keep disease at bay. In fact, this can be a game changer for language learning as a sector: research seems to show that people who speak more languages are less susceptible to fall prey of degenerative diseases. I'm sure this is not new to people participating in these fora*, but it's a force to be reckoned with. And why a dead language? I'm sure a lot of people, when choosing a language as a retirement hobby, can (and will) legitimately choose Latin (or Greek, or...). After all, many will have used one or two "useful" languages during their productive life, and may be curious about the "classic" ones. * fora = plural of forum => Latin can be useful. ;) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4585 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 66 of 70 15 April 2015 at 2:50pm | IP Logged |
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I wasn't going to contribute to this thread either, but I just read the following article and it made me think of it: Is your hobby a waste of time? :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 67 of 70 16 April 2015 at 9:53am | IP Logged |
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For me language learning in general is a hobby, and having hobbies is extremely important. I already know enough Danish, English, German etc. to survive, and I have a job where I don't need to know other languages than Danish and English. So basically everything I do now about language learning is for fun.
If I one bright day in the future decides that learning Gothic or Ancient Greek might be fun too (AND feasible) then it is just as relevant as learning a modern language. And way more relevant than watching X-factor or soccer on the telly. You just have to know the conditions first: do you crave human contact with native speakers then those two languages may not be the obvious choice. But Esperanto would definitely be relevant - and probably a better choice than Malayalam, even though millions of human beings speak the latter. Edited by Iversen on 16 April 2015 at 10:07am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Choscura Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5550 days ago 61 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Thai | Message 68 of 70 22 April 2015 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
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Responding from mobile, and this site sucks in mobile.
The primary reason to learn any language for me is always about communication. But part of that communication is internal, the ideas that I think with, the Lego bricks of thought- and outward expression is a secondary factor with these. this explains my study of German and Russian, which is well known to my friends for the lack of utility, but which nonetheless helps to populate my brain with the ideas from these languages which I can then use to make distinctions not typically available in English or the other languages I speak better than these. Or, put another way, I don't learn languages to talk, I learn them to think. I learn them for the larger sets of ideas they let my mind use, and performing the cultural noises is a nice way to test this, but not necessary for the languages to have utility. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 69 of 70 27 April 2015 at 7:50pm | IP Logged |
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I admit I haven't read every post but I think one good reason has been missed out: there's no pressure to be fluent or to have conversations. There's not necessarily any need for active skills in a dead language at all. You can learn a dead language just to read it, and ignore speaking, listening and writing. So it can be a more personal experience, without worry of falling down in the presence of a native speaker. I've just started studying Sanskrit, and it's actually excited me that I can take my time and work through the course slowly and just enjoy the process. I have no trip, no test, nothing else to do but read when I want to.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 70 of 70 28 April 2015 at 2:01am | IP Logged |
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I've mentioned this part too :) I definitely find this relieving.
edit: in this long post :) Edited by Serpent on 28 April 2015 at 3:01am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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