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Google Launches Endangered Languages Project
redletterdave writes "About half of all of the languages in the world — more than 3,000 of them — are currently on the verge of extinction. Google hopes to stem the tide with its latest effort that launched Thursday, called The Endangered Languages Project. Google teamed up with the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity, a newly formed coalition of global language groups and associations, to give endangered-language speakers and their supporters a place to upload and share their research and collaborations. The site currently features posts submitted by the Endangered Languages community, including linguistic fieldwork, projects, audio interviews, and transcriptions."
.. kudos.
Culture and language are closely tied. Words used to translate between languages are not fully equivalent. When a language is lost, the culture, literature (written or oral), and worldview of that tribe is also lost. The unique qualities of each language teach us about humanity as a whole as we discover the relative weighting of their values. From a social standpoint, people eventually want to know about their ancestral tongue in the same way that adopted kids want to know who their parents were. Having a sense of place is key to being successful as a tribe, and is often a rallying cry. The things that support tribalism also support community -- propinquity is a basis for successful society, because it provides certain checks and balances, even though it keeps out some new ideas that would help. When people share a language they have a powerful tool to maintain shared values.
down with everything but English
I was with you until that point. A single world language would certainly do more good than harm, but English is a horrible choice. It's like deciding to standardize on a single OS circa 1999, and then picking Win95 because it's the most common one.