Neolithic Objects: Ancient Language, Engraved Stones found in Glozel (8000-10,000 BC)
10,000 years ago the population was between 5 and 10 million
Leading anthropologists estimate that nearly 12,000 languages (or more) were spoken at that time.
Today our population is 6.5 billion
Approximately 7,000 languages are spoken today
At this rate in 100 years from now, in the year 2108, only 2,500 languages may be spoken.
One language goes extinct every month.
In lecture you may have heard me comment on these facts: "While it is important, for the sake of biodiversity to have a variety of languages spoken, what about the fact that more people are communicating?" This may not be a fact at all- sadly, we are loosing many indigenous cultures.
What does this mean?
What do you think about this data and the potential future of lost languages?
Emerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response #10
Language is an odd sort of thing. On one level it is sad that so many languages are going extinct at such a rapid pace. There is a certain amount of culture that’s lost in the language itself, but it also implies the loss of a lot of other things. If a people’s language goes extinct, what else goes with it? Many times, it’s probably the people themselves.
On the other hand, I’m not entirely convinced that having thousands of different languages is a good thing. It’s a gigantic barrier to communication, and communication, I think, is the best resolution to conflict. (That is, as opposed to bombs.) Having fewer languages might ease the strain of communication. It could make travel easier and possibly promote cultural understanding.
Or maybe it would just eliminate a lot of culture. It’s hard to say.
Have you all heard of Esperanto? It was a language invented at the end of the 19th century that was designed to be as simple as possible to learn. The idea was that if everyone learned Esperanto as a second language, people of different nationalities would be able to communicate with one another in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. If you wanted to hike through Europe, you wouldn’t need to learn pieces of German, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. etc. You’d only need Esperanto. It seems like a brilliant idea to me, but unfortunately our current lack of international communication makes a global effort of this magnitude quite impossible. It’s sort of a circular thing.
Anyway, Esperanto doesn’t require any cultural sacrifices because it’s not a substitute for local languages . . . It’s a . . . supplement, I suppose. It opens up the possibility for global communication without threatening culture.
The other alternative is that an already existing language becomes an “Esperanto language.” That is, a language that everyone learns as their second language. Right now that language is pretty much English, which is nice for us, because most places we go there are people who speak what we speak. Pretty soon though it might be Chinese.
And who wants to learn Mandarin? That shit sounds hard. This is my official call for Esperanto. We can do it.
Krista Boyd
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement#11
December 7, 2009
While the thought of going from 7,000 languages in 2009 to 2,500 languages in the year 2108 is shocking and scary. When something like that happens, you have to ask yourself the question why??? And what are we doing wrong today in order for this to happen 100 + years from now. More importantly, is there anything we can do to prevent this from happening??? And I must answer my own question and say no; I believe there is nothing we can do to prevent the loss of languages. I feel that that is what happens with the natural extinction of a species. It sad to say that cultures die and new ones are born and when a culture dies, sadly I believe so does its language.
As I explained above that I believe when a culture dies, so does its language. Now I want to take a different perspective on the loss of language. I’ve previously expressed that it is a scary thought that we could go from 7,000 languages to 2,500 languages in 100 + years from now, but looking at it from a different perspective and one who has experienced what it feels like to be around many different languages at once 2,500 doesn’t sound so bad, I’ll explain. When I was in the military I was deployed and had the opportunity to work with people from all over the world. At any given day I was exposed to and had to communicate with people from four different countries at once.
Now you’re probably thinking that communicating with people from four countries is not so bad. Well it was because the people I worked with spoke little to no English and it was tough trying to communicate with them everyday to get certain crucial task done. So, dealing with many different languages at once is a big barrier, so maybe it’s not so bad to have so few languages. I don’t know I’m just throwing it out there.
So, on the one hand its sad to think about the loss of language because we many never may really know about the culture who spoke it, but on the other hand its a big communication barrier having to deal with so many different languages. What now? Do we just deal with, role with it, live it????? I don’t know
Shaili Das
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response #11
For this week’s response I would like to discuss the idea of language. Statistics show that within the next 100 years the different types of language will decrease by over 60 percent. At first this number startled me. If we loose over 60 percent of the different dialects we’d be loosing over 60 percent of different cultures that exist in the world today. Although this is a bad thing maybe by loosing some of these dialects that only certain regions can speak places in the world may be more connected.
An example of this is that India has over 700 dialects spoken in the country today. Each region in India has created a different dialect that they speak. This was because after the British rule each of the areas wanted to keep their culture intact. Although this is very impressive because it has allowed India to be one of the most culturally nourished places in the world it has also caused many issues between the so called “states.” For example, in southern India the national language, Hindi, is not accepted. People in the south only speak Malayalam, a language that is almost impossible to learn if it wasn’t taught from a very young age, because they are too afraid to loose their culture. Because of this there are communication barriers created. Almost no one can go to southern India and communicate there easily. Because of this the whole country cannot benefit from the advancements that southern India has made. For example, southern India is the capital of engineering and progress in technology but because of the language barrier it cannot be used as a resource to help the rest of India prosper/ advance technology wise.
Another example where the presence of too many languages seems to be hurting the country as a whole more than benefitting is in Africa. Within Africa there are more than 2000 languages spoken today. Because each tribe has their own language yes, culture ahs been preserved; however there has been a lack in technological advancements. Specifically, because of the language barriers Africa has not been able to prosper to its abilities. Until now it has been left behind in the race to modernize, which isn’t a bad thing looking at our global situation today, however it has caused the country to be in severe poverty. Perhaps by having a decrease in languages, people can communicate better and therefore survive more easily compared to trying to help save their individual tribes.
By having a decrease in languages people would be able to communicate more easily and situations like the ones present in India today wouldn’t exist. I don’t think that it would be a great thing to loose all languages however, at times; I do feel like perhaps weeding out some of them might not be harmful in today’s world.
Laura Gillmore
ReplyDeleteFor this week’s weekly statement I want to discuss the idea of lost languages with increasing population size in relation to losing biodiversity. Question: what do you think about this data and the potential future of lost languages? What about the fact that more people are communicating? What does this mean?
To be honest when I first saw these questions I didn’t know what their meanings were and I didn’t really know what my opinion was. Although knowing the word, I decided I wanted spell out the connection of the word biodiversity to lost languages. I looked up the formal definition of “biodiversity”. According to the Oxford American Dictionary, “biodiversity is the variety of life in the world or in a particular habit or ecosystem”. What I’ve learned is that biodiversity is more important for our physical evolution. But after reading on different sites why we need biodiversity one answer stood out at me: “It helps shape our culture and inspires our poets, painters and writers”. So losing languages is losing biodiversity, which means losing culture. This in turn means losing inspiration for the creators such as poets, painters and writers. So when it comes to the question: what do you think about this data and the potential future of lost languages? If we are all speaking the same language, cultural identities are becoming more extinct. Heritage is then not being passed on to the next generation. In my mind this data shows that some peoples cultures will be more important than other peoples cultures. And is that fair? What I'm wondering is what will be the deciding factors to determine why one language will become extinct and why other languages won't. Will the harder languages disappear? Will the languages with characters instead of alphabetic letters disappear? I’m not sure what the answers are but I am also wondering about all l the things that are involved in the creative process for an artist. Culture is probably the biggest variable in the creative process. Culture definitely involves reflecting on heritage, illustrating cultures, portraying diverse experiences etc. So I guess I can say that if we are losing languages we are losing the biodiversity seen in art.
Connie Huang
ReplyDeletePost #10
It is kind of odd the think about losing a certain language in an age where everyone is constantly communicating with each other. I think it might be because the surviving languages are just more convenient. It also might be a generational thing as well. I definitely do not speak Chinese as well as my mother does, simply because I don’t use it very often and because it is hard! If parents don’t consistently use this language with their children until they’re old it will be forgotten and they won’t use it with their own children. It is very difficult to constantly speak a different language especially when it isn’t the dominant language in your country. Also learning another language is very difficult. I don’t think people want to spend the time to learn more than one.
When a language is lost what else goes with it? If there is such a thing as lost in translation is there such a thing as lost of culture when a language dies? If puns and cultural references are lost during translation how much of that is lost when an entire language is lost? It kind of seems like the dominant languages in the world are just sweeping the less spoken ones out. So does that mean that the world will eventually end up with 10 different cultures? God I hope not that would be so boring. Maybe one language describes something in a way no other language could. It is sort of weird to think about a phrase or discovery a certain language has but another doesn’t to be lost forever.
I think languages that do not have any written documentation tend to die out faster as well. Such as Taiwanese or Hawaiian. I think the only way to preserve ones language is to consistently speak it. Use it with your children so that they might use it with their own.
Even though there are 7,000 today and that might eventually dwindle down to 2,500, I think there will be a point where the number of languages plateaus. Even though it is very sad that languages are being lost but I guess that’s life. Survival of the languages; perhaps the remaining languages are just better at communicating
Language is a beautiful form of communicative art that comes in so many different forms. Whether it is a thick, luxurious French, a polite, soft-spoken Japanese, or an exotic taste of some indigenous culture, each language is filled with such rich culture and history, it is a shame to think that may eventually lose all of these. After civilizations fall, their language falls with them. For example, Hieroglyphics was a lost language for a very long time, and eventually, in present day, we rediscovered the language and unraveled many pieces of literature written in hieroglyphics. On top of that, we’ve learned more about the origins of language in general. Imagine if in the future, we would have to decode a piece of literature written in Russian because the language was wiped out. The wiping out a language is similar to that of the European Union unifying their currency to just one, Euros. Now the majority of the European countries have reverted to this, and lost their old currency. In a sense, this leveled the playing field in several countries, reducing and increasing the values in certain countries. Being an avid coin collector, I treasure my remaining Deutsche Marks and Francs. What if the world were to lose all of its different currencies and use one universal one such as USD, or Euros, we would have one standard currency all around the world, but we would lose all of the history behind the old currencies. On top of that, countries that are not as prosperous as the others may be placed at a disadvantage. Homelessness may have a completely different meaning! This is similar to the language situation. What if everyone decided to just speak English? Certainly it would make global relations a little easier to access, but imagine all of the lost culture and history that disappears with it. I know nowadays, many countries are pursuing to make English a mandatory second language on top of a country’s native language. China, for example, has many kids studying both languages at once, seeing as the global market lies primarily in the United States. Being bilingual places students in China at a greater advantage than those who only know their native tongue. Many kids today in Europe grow up learning up to four or five different languages at once. Having a diversity of languages, cultures, traditions, I believe, allows for a greater sense of cognitive development and tolerance for new and novel things. Imagine, if everyone in the world were the same, but then all of a sudden something foreign were introduced to that unison community, that community may not be able to accept it. There wouldn’t be as much growth if everyone were the same. What’s the point in striving for something, if everyone were the same and would be rewarded the same. There’s no incentive for new, creative thought. For example in nature, if the entire population were the same, and a foreign strain of virus was introduced to that population, if the population were susceptible to it, the entire population would die out. The population may have a better chance of surviving if each one was slightly different from the other so that the virus strain could only affect a select few of that population. I think human culture is very similar or parallels that of nature. Biodiversity is important to continue to sustain life. As Darwin put it, it’s a survival of the fittest.
ReplyDeletePost #10
Daisy
Week 13
ReplyDeleteThis week in ADP, we learned about the biodiversity of language. I was surprised to learn how many languages exist today, about 7,000 languages. For example, I only speak one language, English. I grew up around a few main words of Korean and took six years of Spanish. I only know the basic Korean words—my 5-year-old cousins who live in Korea can speak better and more fluent Korean than I ever can. And I can’t speak a word of Spanish. I’ve always wanted to be bilingual and it’s my future goal to speak more than two languages fluently.
It upsets me to know that statistically, in 100 years, the number of languages that exist could be cut into a third. This loss of language means loss in culture. Culture and language is important because it encourages diversity among people. To me, a different culture other than mine is like exploring another world. I want to be able to learn about other interesting cultures other than the one I’ve grown up in 100 years from now.
Also, language barrier is important to me. I’ve grown up having a huge language barrier between my grandmother and me. Because my grandmother was born in Korea, she hasn’t picked up English fully yet. Because of this language barrier, I haven’t been able to communicate with my grandmother like I would want to. My mom is always the one telling me stories of what her mom did when she was my age, but I’d like to hear things from my grandmother’s perspective: of her college experience, marriage, move from Korea to America, etc. I regret not trying harder to pick up my grandmother’s native language. I’m afraid that if I don’t learn fluent Korean soon, I won’t be able to know the culture from which my family grew up in. I won’t be able to tell my children or my grandchildren of my background. And that would be very unfortunate.
Connie In