There are around 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but that number is shrinking. Unesco estimates that half could disappear by the end of the century. So how are languages lost, and what does that mean for the people who speak them?
There are around 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but that number is shrinking. Unesco estimates that half could disappear by the end of the century. So how are languages lost, and what does that mean for the people who speak them?
While I am not a linguist, I am a herstorian, I don’t get this line of logic fully. I understand wanting to keep languages around and wanting things to be as they were. But when it comes to languages they evolve, merge and die off.
We should do what we can now to persevere these languages for future generations to look back on. We also shouldn’t force communities to be stuck with a language that cannot change or adapt to the world that is changing around it.
Modern day English doesn’t just come out of thin air, it comes from other languages and from its own evolution. Modern day England experienced multiple invasions and those invaders brought their own languages with them. Words from those languages were then added to English and we still use those day! And yes obviously the English’s own conquests and empire helped propel the language outwards. It also allowed new dialects of the language to sprout up all overworld and it has mixed with local languages.
We should not try to imitate what the French do with sectioning off the evolution of language as much as possible. Instead we need to let it evolve as naturally as we can. There will always be varying languages, no two groups will always agree on what’s best afterall.
Right now we are experiencing how the modern world (which has its own problems) and languages clash and change each other. The languages that are dying off now are in the exact same place past languages were in.
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The only dead language of any use is latin, and who said anything about violence?
My point is there is no such thing as a preserved language only a living or dead one.
The thing I am screaming into the void is that we are letting nothing evolve, we are in a mass extinction.