
Why save a language? - gpvos
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/opinion/sunday/why-save-a-language.html
======
austerity
As the man in the back row, I am not convinced. He reduces the need to save
languages to the need to save cultures and leaves it at that, implicitly
assuming the latter to be an axiom. To me it's even more obviously false.
Plus, he completely fails to consider the downsides of people speaking
different languages which are enormous (as pointed out in the Old Testament).
Yes, I realize a person can speak more than one language. And I am all for
preserving for the sake of understanding. But using humans as storage devices
sounds a little selfish coming from a linguist.

~~~
caio1982
What exactly are the downsides of people speaking different languages
according to a religious book? Please try not to use terms like efficiency in
the answer.

And it's not simply like "a person can speak more than one language". It's
actually more than half of the freaking world speaking more than one language.
If you happen to live in a region (and I'm not saying "country") where people
only speak one single language then it's quite possible you're the exception
in fact.

~~~
Hermel
As a Swiss speaking three languages, I can confirm that every additional
language comes at a cost. Only having one language is more efficient.

However, I believe there are subtle implied philosophical differences. For
example, I perceive German to be more principle-oriented and idealistic in
comparison to English, which tends to favor more pragmatic thoughts. As an
example, consider the word "Sachzwang", which has no direct English equivalent
and roughly translates to "inherent necessity". It is a typical word for a
language that thinks in absolute principles. Of course, it is also possible to
express this in English, it is just a little less convenient and thus also
less frequently done.

It's like different programming languages that are all turing-complete, but
some allow to express certain things more effectively. From that point of
view, having fewer languages would also come with a reduction in diversity of
thoughts.

~~~
hyperliner
You could say "constraint," per Google Translate!

~~~
Hermel
I'd say constraint comes as close as 22/7 to pi. Constraint is passive.
Sachzwang forces you to do something. For example, "sachzwangreduzierte
Ehrlichkeit" means a level of honesty that had to be reduced due to factual
higher-order constraints.

~~~
hyperliner
That is a fascinating example. What is a situation and sentence in which you
would use it? How would you write it in German? How would you write it in
English?

------
Htsthbjig
Languages are tools but also barriers of thought.

The main reason Americans can't understand China or Russia, or Arab countries
and vice versa is language.

People in the UK for example, do not listen to Putin 2 hours long Q&A and
think for themselves. They listen to intermediaries, like Andrew Wood, because
they don't understand Russian.

People would be shocked to know what Mr Putin is really saying, compared with
what they are being told he is saying.

The same happens on the other side, too. The China and Russia media can
portray a controlled picture of the rest of the world for most of their
population.

The printing press changed the world because it made possible for people to
read the Bible themselves instead of using the intermediaries
interpretation(that sometimes were not in their best interest). Science
advanced enormously when the status quo could be criticized(thanks access to
books and the knowledge those carried).

~~~
guard-of-terra
I assure you that Putin's Q&A doesn't contain any language tricks not
available for Americans or UK peope.

In fact, Putin's Q&A doesn't contain much of anything.

It's not about the language, it's more about shared history or lack thereof.

~~~
DanBC
If Ann gives a 2 hour speech in Russian, and Bob does not speak Russian, then
Bob needs to rely on Chris or Dave to translate.

Bob is at a disadvantage because he has to trust either (or both) of the
translators.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Even then Bob will need even more people to validate whether any things Ann
said are true. Or, more relevant, which things Ann said are ones she deeply
cares about, and which ones were inserted just to fill the talk space or pay
lip service.

------
anonymfus
"A rendering of the visible spectrum on a grey background" image from
Wikipedia with added English and Russian colour range names:

[http://i.imgur.com/XnmMRQ6.png](http://i.imgur.com/XnmMRQ6.png)

Original:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rendered_Spectrum.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rendered_Spectrum.png)

~~~
codingdave
This is interesting, but I don't feel it is significant.

Names of colors, at least in English, do not typically imply a complete range
of color, but major points on the spectrum. We have hundreds of words for
different shades of colors, and pseudo-words like, "Yellowish-green". Painters
will know the different between Cerulean blue and Cobalt blue, and Wikipedia
has a whole category of shades of blue, with varying English names.

If we need to limit ourselves to a 1st grade vocabulary to make a point about
our language, it isn't a very strong point.

~~~
ehurrell
I think it might be significant, or at least hint at a significance worth
exploring. Taxi drivers' brains apparently adapt and grow a much better
awareness of maps and routes than the regular person, and this might be the
same thing happening with painters and their more precise sensitivity to
colour. It's worth study anyway.

------
hyperliner
The problem I have with this article is that it fails to recognize that
language also is an anchor in a _negative_ way. Yes, Hebrew can help form a
stronger Jewish community, but a language spoken by 3000 people in the middle
of the Amazon can only serve to keep those people hostage forever. What is
wrong with teaching those people's kids to speak Hebrew or Spanish or English
and let them join a broader, stronger community or nation? The alternative is
that those people's children will not be able to prosper because, to highlight
the obvious, many of these obscure languages are correlated with impoverished
environments. Yes, it helps some academic in some fancy University in the
northeast of the United States have "intellectual debates" about the issue
while sipping on a starbucks latte, but it certainly does not help those
people.

The second point is that the nuances that the author has observed don't have
to be lost. If there was value in knowing that an object was "on" another
object horizontally, or vertically, or slanted (using the example in the
article), we could always incorporate those notions into any major language.

------
MichaelGG
This ignores the negative impact of keeping smaller groups limited by
preserving their language. In Guatemala, many of the "Indians" have their own
languages it dialects, some of which are incompatible with each other. There's
little opportunity for use of these languages apart from the town they live
in. To be involved in commerce, read about current events, or even be treated
well, you need to have great Spanish.

My parents have a medical clinic in one if these villages. When the government
started making some of the classes be taught in the local language, the
parents were upset, knowing that this would hurt their children. They viewed
it as another way to keep the "indian" population back. And they're correct.

So while there may be good reasons to preserve languages (like preserving art,
or historic towns), someone should be funding that directly, rather than
externalizing the costs on to these indigenous groups.

------
chalimacos
What some people who don't see the need to preserve languages are missing is
that each living language is in itself a Noah Ark that preserves lots of dead
languages and world views. English preserves latin, greek, yiddish... Consider
the word "consider". It comes from latin Considerare (cum + sidera) 'to
consult the stars'. Each language that dies is a tragedy that kills many
precedent languages. Moreover, current status is no guarantee for the future,
even English could one day be at risk. I am a Catalan speaker, a language that
once ruled the Mediterranean and now is struggling.

------
phlakaton
The author claims that real, measurable differences in how people think based
on how they speak is too insignificant, because it doesn't constitute a
"worldview." I rather think he sells short the importance of seeing actual
empirical ways in which language does indeed "speak us". Say there are
thousands, maybe millions, of such minute alterations in metaphor or thought
pattern – is it really so hard to imagine that the aggregate of these
alterations form unique, interesting ways to interpret and respond to the
world? Do we not see evidence of this when we read, say, the poetry of
different cultures? (It's a rhetorical question – I certainly think we do!)

I got a book last year about learning Old English. I haven't gotten very far
into it yet, but just the fact that I can go back a thousand years in human
history and see where the roots of my language came from is an incredibly cool
thing. I am also inspired by the alliterative schemes of old Anglo-Saxon
poetry, and have it on the back-burner to see how or how not that could work
in modern language (e.g. in Rebsamen's "Beowulf" translation).

Similarly, whether or not I actually "speak" programming languages like Lisp,
Forth, and APL in my daily work, they are a mine of cool ideas and experiments
that I can still draw inspiration from, decades after the machines that they
were originally built on crumble back into sand.

Which probably emphasizes the "cold storage" value of language, not
necessarily the "active speaking" value of it. I think the cold storage value
of retaining language is indisputably massive, and projects like the Rosetta
Project are really interesting to me for that reason. What's the value of
actively speaking it, even when the community of speakers dwindles? Perhaps it
is in helping to cement our understanding of the language before it fades
away.

------
kiliancs
I speak three languages and appreciate the language diversity as each of them
provides a unique window to perceive and express the universe. We need,
however, a common (universal) language that allows mankind to create a global
culture, a global identity (above and including all national identities) and
to enable general understanding and practical communications in all matters.
This language should be taught everywhere in addition to the local language.
We cannot expect to for the different linguistic communities (or the world in
general) to renounce to a language, but at the same time the general well-
being calls for a common language.

------
sravfeyn
Language is a reflection of speaker's model of the world, a different unique
perspective on the same world we all live in and hence can provide diverse
solutions to the same problems we face. Diversity in thought process makes it
faster to decipher that beautiful Nature. So it will be sad if these languages
die. Of course, this is not the only reason, but I think is one of the
important reasons.

I speak three languages, I think in two languages. I go on different paths
when thinking in different languages when trying to solve a geometry problem.

------
GuiA
Like other commenters in this thread, I find the author's arguments to be weak
and tautological and/or based on invalid premises.

I don't think we should care about keeping as many languages spoken as
possible. Collective human culture is fluid, and subject to evolutionary
pressures. If the human species converges to fewer languages because it allows
us to do whatever we do more effectively, great. Going against that is just
not practical and a waste of time.

In France, the modern French language has been pushed onto the population a
few hundred years ago, at the detriment of local dialects ("patois"). In the
recent years, there have been government initiatives to force schools in
certain regions to teach their former dialects. What's the point? Those
dialects are close to dead anyway, and take up valuable teaching times. Kids
are already graduating high school barely able to write and read French
properly- they have very little to benefit from by spending time learning such
dialects. Sure, they are important to ~archive~ culturally and historically,
and there's nothing wrong with funding a few scholars working on that, but
that's it.

What is important to preserve is the knowledge that allows one to learn a
language. In other words, if German were to disappear, that's fine, and we
shouldn't make any efforts at attempting to preserve it. What we should do,
however, is document German as much as possible (its vocabulary, grammar,
pronunciation, idioms, native works, etc.) such that if one needs to learn
German 100 years later, it's possible to do so.

The basis for that is two-fold: practicality (if an ancient German text is
discovered but no one speaks German daily anymore, at least scholars can still
decipher it), and preservation of human culture (but in a way that doesn't go
against pragmatism, which the approach described by the author in the article
is).

The same debate applies to other things, e.g. flora/fauna. Of course, when
species are becoming close to extinct because of humans destroying
environments, we should do something about it. But species go extinct all the
time because that's just how nature works, and how it worked much before we
got here. In this light, what's the sense of trying to preserve plants or
animals artificially?

------
tzs
I don't remember which language this is [1], but I read about some tribal
language that did not have any words for relative direction. If you were
facing North and I wanted to warn you to watch out for a snake approaching
from your left, I'd have to tell you to look out for the snake coming from the
West.

[1] googling turned up this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_direction#Cultures_not...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_direction#Cultures_not_using_relative_directions)

~~~
desas
The Amazonian Piraha tribe have "to the river", "to the jungle", "up the
river" and "down the river" rather than directions.

~~~
davidw
For that matter, most people here in Italy look at you a bit funny if you talk
about cardinal directions, and are more comfortable with "towards Venezia" or
"in the direction of Verona" or that kind of thing. The latter is probably
handier for navigating towns that are, outside of a very small Roman core (in
some cases) not exactly linear in their layout.

~~~
caio1982
It's the same in Brazil, and it's a big place to use relative directions but
we prefer it that way too :-)

------
hedgew
Many of us "care" about languages – they have emotional significance – but
what is the practical value of near-dead languages to society? How would you
even measure the impact of lengthening the lifespan of a dying language? If we
taught hundreds of children to speak an ancient language that no one else
uses, would that make anyone happier?

Should we teach children extinct professions just to keep some cultures alive?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cutting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cutting)

------
kovrik
I think that it's some kind of natural selection among languages/cultures.

Languages are just tools. If this tool is effective - people use it. Otherwise
it "dies".

~~~
caio1982
It's not just a tool, it's a mechanism to express thought. Different cultures,
different people, different ways to put in other people's mind what's inside
yours. Also, remember Chomsky, languages usually have an army and navy, so
it's not as simple as "natural selection".

~~~
unhammer
Actually, the quote is from "an audience member at one of Max Weinreich's
lectures" (well, logically that could be Chomsky, but most likely not ;))
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy)

~~~
caio1982
Indeed, thanks!

------
phn
This is only tangentially related to the article.

I find we (humans) have some kind of emergent "gene pool variety preservation"
behavior, even when talking about non-directly-genetic stuff: culture,
language, knowledge, ways of thinking, animal species, etc.

It looks like we are wired to avoid natural selection over-fitting at a
cultural level.

~~~
dalke
Indian schools in the US and the Stolen Generation in Australia, prohibitions
on non-approved religions (the Edict of Expulsion, Edict of Fontainebleau, the
Alhambra Decree, and many, many more), the forceful spread of Christianity in
the Americas, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Armenian Genocide, the Final
Solution, the anti-bourgeois re-education camps of Cultural Revolution, and
even the former President's call to "bring democracy to the world" all strike
me as good counter-examples to there being some "wired" behavior of the sort
you mean.

~~~
phn
Those are good counter examples, but they seem to happen in the context of a
somewhat direct conflict between two cultures, thus entering a "survival of
the fittest" kind of situation.

Maybe we only get this protective spirit when we have already "won" :)

~~~
dalke
Evolution, which is what I think you mean by "wired" behavior, has no idea
that after 100,000s of years of human civilization if a given culture has
"won".

I don't understand what you mean by "direct conflict between two cultures".
The Indian Removal Act was a US act on the one side against the Chickasaw,
Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and original Cherokee Nations. That's at
least 6 cultures. And certainly the Indian schools affected a huge number of
cultures.

Unless you mean that all of the tribal nations are a single culture?

~~~
phn
Well, perhaps they aren't two, but that is completely irrelevant to the
argument (How do you "count" cultures anyway?). The important part in that
sentence was that there were opposing sides in conflict, thus removing any
form of will to preserve from the equation.

And yes, evolution (particularly in the context of darwinism and derivatives)
is what I am talking about, specifically, some kind of mechanism that seems to
exist that prevents us getting stuck in a "local maximum".

A mechanism that I mentioned because I find it interesting that you can find
signs of it at so many different levels, and in many different contexts.

~~~
dalke
You were the one who wanted to count cultures in the first place.

If you can't count cultures (or other measures of diversity?) then how does
any evolutionary behavior manage to do so?

I would like to know your historical examples of "signs of it at so many
different levels". All I know of occur relatively recently in history, which
is a strong indicator that it's a cultural change, and not a deep evolutionary
imperative.

~~~
phn
I am going to skip the counting part since I think it is borderline pedantic
and doesn't lead anywhere. Defining what a culture is, or how you
differentiate them is not on the scope of my comment, and the argument was not
about cultures specifically.

I don't need an historical example, since I am not arguing that this has
always been the case, nor that it isn't a cultural change.

Going a bit further on my previous comment, and trying to clarify, I think
this behavior emerges precisely because of a general stabilization/stagnation
of a given population (of traits, languages, behaviors, animal species etc.)
in order to avoid over-fitting (the "won" part, if I did not express myself
clearly enough) and to preserve diversity.

The original comment is just that, a comment. A thought that I think holds
some value and is related to the article. I am not trying to convince anyone
that this is a defined mechanism by which nature rules and defines itself.

~~~
dalke
It is a lot of fun to be rationalist and deep thinker. It lets one ponder
great schemes of how ideas work together.

Without empirical grounding, it can also lead one drastically astray.

You have no examples that your thought is true, nor any mechanism by which it
could work, while I have both counter-examples and the observation that any
such mechanism is outside of known evolutionary theory.

"I am not arguing that this has always been the case" stands in stark contrast
to your proposition that "we are wired" to this behavior.

------
pain
I can't help but think the social issue of saving is a memory processing
issue. (Whether it is language extinction or link rot..)

So much falls (fails..) to judgement of point and term of saving, when maybe
we need to focus on just saving better and judging why after.

------
LunaSea
[http://youtu.be/OvlQXPNwrqo](http://youtu.be/OvlQXPNwrqo)

