
List of languages by time of extinction - sndean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_time_of_extinction
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Alexey_Nigin
I (sort of) agree that having many languages encourages diversity and
coexistence of different cultures. However, I think that apparent drawbacks
outweigh any potential benefits.

As a native Russian speaker, I know just how excruciating learning English can
get. I have been learning it for 12 years, and most of the time it was no fun.
For example, I once literally memorised 1500 words over a few months. Still, I
cannot say that I speak as well as native speakers do. Most Russians never
make it past learning to say "I don't speak English" with a funny accent. By
the way, if you are an English speaker, you probably don't realise what it
means not to know English. Let me assure you: it's horrible.

~~~
sverige
I'm a native English speaker who learned Russian. It has to be harder to learn
English, though Russian was no picnic.

Though I was once maybe 75% fluent speaking (and could understand 90% of what
Gorbachev said - he speaks pretty fast), I haven't used it for 25 years and so
have forgotten most of it. I do remember that it was easy to spell, especially
compared to English. I also remember that Russian verbs of motion were hard to
get right, and declining numbers and certain adjectives correctly was tough.

English has become the new lingua franca (still cracks me up to pause and
consider that literally), for better or worse. For all its faults, English is
very flexible and can be precise, despite the fact that it's not often used
for that feature. Most native speakers I know would be surprised to learn how
many verb tenses English there are, and even more surprised at their proper
use. The MLA and AP styles haven't helped that cause any.

~~~
HillRat
>English has become the new lingua franca (still cracks me up to pause and
consider that literally), for better or worse.

On a completely pedantic note, _lingua franca_ doesn't actually refer to what
I think most people associate it with (the use of French as the diplomatic
language of the 18th and 19th centuries in particular). It actually means the
language of the _franj_ , the "Franks," or Western Europeans. The original
lingua franca was a pidgin Italian with a lot of Arabic and Turkish loanwords,
the result of the Venetian dominance of the Levantine sea trade. Of course, in
a purely literal sense, using it in phrases like, "Gulf media Arabic is the
lingua franca of the Middle East" is itself wrong.

Tiresome pedantry complete, please carry on.

~~~
haddr
I think 'lingua franca' is never used in a purely literal sense, so probably
nobody even thought about what you mention (which is definitely true)

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niftich
Languages are tools for communication. Online, we have a much larger community
to communicate with, so network effects apply for languages as well.

I don't think it's troubling that languages rise and fall, and many die out.
Rather, it's the intangible heritage of humanity and particular cultures in
danger that should attract our attention. Language is an element of this, but
more important is the substance of their stories, their oral and written
traditions, their values, and their way of live. We should work on preserving
this heritage possibly at the expense of their language, if that's our only
viable method.

(disclaimer: previously posted by me here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11904129#11904318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11904129#11904318))

~~~
sverige
The biggest problems with this are 1) that some things are untranslatable, and
2) the substance of the stories is best communicated with the words originally
used. Translation takes something away every time. Although some translations
become classics in their own right, such things are very rare.

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unabst
Sustenance is done by utility.

The organic evolution of languages at the word level is determined by word
choice, and every time we utter anything, by exercising choice we're
contributing to the sustenance of the expressions we just used.

It's the same at the language level. I could choose to speak English or
Japanese, but I can never speak both simultaneously at any moment. Choice is
mandatory.

People choosing to speak English is the force that corresponds to the greater
sustenance of English, or any language X.

From experience, I know that I do not prefer English at home or with family.
So I will speak Japanese until I die. And I see this often. Most bilingual
families speak non-English at home (privately), but speak English outside of
home (publicly). This works extremely well, and we have no problem speaking
multiple languages as long as there are enough natural and practical use cases
throughout our lives.

But had I been born speaking only one language, then this choice does not
exist. And since languages are really hard, unless you're immersed in language
usage, transferring a language in its entirety through plain education is
impossible. That's why languages die off with their communities and their
cultures, and last just a while longer academically until the last speaking
person dies. Or, in the case of second and third generation immigrants, they
don't bring the culture with them, so family usage doesn't entail everything
that language entails. You can't suddenly speak Japanese in a professional
setting if all you've done is speak it with mom. So this limits usage, and is
the beginning of the end. With less usage, there is less sustenance.

~~~
sverige
Both my parents spoke their grandparents' native languages at home (Swedish
and Plattdeutsch) when they were very young, but stopped when their
grandparents' generation passed. They passed on very little of that to me, so
by third generation it seems to die out.

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avodonosov
Sooner or later we will end up with only one language on Earth - it's very
likely I think. (if we survive long enough)

~~~
jdimov9
Not a chance. For any globalisation / unification force there is an equal and
opposite force pulling towards autonomy / authenticity / diversity. Language
is a very core component of human identity.

~~~
djKianoosh
thats why it's best to have both. one de facto universal language, and people
can still maintain their local language.

that way everyone in the world only has to learn two languages and people dont
have to waste their time learning 3-6 languages

~~~
kwhitefoot
Who does that? Most people learn only their own language. A substantial number
learn one other language, generally English. My own experience (bi-lingual
Brit living in Norway working with people from 17 different countries)
suggests that a very small proportion go beyond that. I'm excluding those who
have a smattering of another language such as most Brits like me who had to
take French and Latin at school but never got beyond being able to ask for a
beer in a bar. Some of my Polish colleagues can get by in Russian as well as
English but not many of those under 30.

~~~
djKianoosh
anecdotally I know several europeans where they know at least their language +
english + at least one of (french, german, spanish, italian)

brasilians I know typically know english and portuguese and they dont want to
admit it but usually they know spanish. they just prefer brasilian or english.

overall if we just all agreed on english as the universal language (imperfect
as it is) then it would save so many smart people so much time from needing to
learn and translate between so many languages.

just from an efficiency perspective alone, humanity would see a major benefit,
I believe.

~~~
pyrale
> overall if we just all agreed on english as the universal language
> (imperfect as it is) then it would save so many smart people so much time
> from needing to learn and translate between so many languages.

> just from an efficiency perspective alone, humanity would see a major
> benefit, I believe.

I'm always surprised to see people accustomed to the world of computers say
this kind of things. We know computer languages have different strengths, and
we're often advised to learn some languages, not for the professional impact,
but for the abstractions they teach.

In this context, I can't explain how people miss the fact that learning
multiple languages is an enriching experience. And it is not only an abstract
theory, considering the loan words every language has.

It is not only a matter of opening your thought framework, but also a matter
of what ressource you have access to : the english language as we know it is
very recent, and as a consequence, most of the world's intellectual output has
been written in foreign languages. A world that switches to a single language
as fast as we do is inevitably burning bridges with most of its knowledge.

Don't try to save smart people from diversifying their views, it's a bad idea.

~~~
Alexey_Nigin
I would like to point out that learning a computer language usually takes
between a week and a month, while learning a natural one takes about a decade.
I agree that knowing a natural language broadens the mind to some extent, but
spending so much time to get such little reward seems a bit wasteful.

~~~
richard_todd
Exactly, that's why engineered auxiliary languages have always seemed like
such a great idea to me (like esperanto or Novial). But, none of the offerings
ever appealed to a critical mass of people. And, if I understand the history
correctly, not-invented-here syndrome caused most moderate successes to
splinter when people decided they could come up with something better.

------
Theodores
Funny to see that 'Latin' is not in the list. Sure there are plant names with
names in 'latin' but not the same Latin as the Romans used. Does anyone
actually converse in Latin outside of the classroom?

Until the Industrial Revolution came along most people identified themselves
as from the town or county where they lived rather than a given nation. People
rarely travelled further than the next village and language was extremely
regional. Same in France, until Napoleon came along France had hundreds of
languages/dialects rather than an identifiable 'French' that everyone knew. In
the UK, before television, it really was not that easy to be understood in
places like Liverpool if you were from a place like Bristol - accents were too
different to make that easy in everyday conversation even if written words
were the same everywhere. The railways were the start of this process of
making English universally understood amongst the English, before that there
really wasn't much need to bother to read unless you were a book-reading
academic type.

I am pleased that English is lingua-franca(!) for planet earth when it comes
to computer stuff, science and little things like air traffic control. English
may not be 'strongly typed Esperanto' but it does not have to be. It is
considered courtesy to try and speak in native languages for Brits abroad,
however, beyond 'please and thankyou' I think it is much better to stick to
English and, in the process, help others that want to learn English. Just
speak s-l-o-w-l-y and remember that something like 90% of communication is
body language when face-to-face.

I do a fair amount of translation in the day job, and, amongst the foreign-
language speakers that I pester for words 'n' phrases, I frequently find
people preferring English as they can express so much more in it than their
native tongue. As far as my Italian friends are concerned, Italian might as
well be FORTRAN or COBOL, i.e. not as good. Consequently I look forward to a
world that speaks English, that English being British English, of course!!!

~~~
jl6
I have had many a conversation with non-native English speakers on this topic
and one theme that crops up often is the idea that it is easier to think
"advanced" thoughts in English than in their native language.

But digging a little deeper, I think what is really happening is that these
people learned "advanced" topics from English-language textbooks, papers,
seminars, etc. and so they only have English vocabulary, phraseology, idioms
and context for that topic.

~~~
wolfgke
> I have had many a conversation with non-native English speakers on this
> topic and one theme that crops up often is the idea that it is easier to
> think "advanced" thoughts in English than in their native language.

I personally find it much easier to develop "advanced" thoughts in German than
in English, since for example in German building compound words is a very
natural thing while in English it is rather clumsy. The same holds for
nominalization of verbs.

Compare it with using a programming language that allows one to express
complicated concepts in a very logical way (say, higher-order functions in
Haskell). So when I try to write my thoughts down (say, for a scientific text)
I find it much more clumsy to express them in English than in German, since I
often feel that English lacks features that would make expressing them a lot
more easy.

~~~
shitgoose
your last sentence would definitely look better if expressed in German:)

~~~
wolfgke
In German my sentences are sometimes even more interlaced. :-)

~~~
shitgoose
I don't doubt that! Memories of pluskvamerfekt are still haunting me at night.
A beautiful language. Rather structured.

~~~
wolfgke
> Memories of pluskvamerfekt are still haunting me at night.

Plusquamperfekt in German is about the same as past perfect in English in the
way it is formed and used (OK, in German it depends on the verb whether
Perfekt and Plusquamperfekt are formed using "haben" or "sein" \- this is
ugly, accepted). So I don't really understand why you feel haunted by the
Plusquamperfekt.

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tianlins
Save languages near extinction by building a machine translation model for
them?

~~~
leereeves
For purely historical interest, a simple dictionary and grammar might be more
useful than an inaccurate machine translation.

