Excuse the cliche' but 'ignorance really must be bliss'for some. There are many reasons why the extinction of 90 percent of the world's languages is potentially devastating however I realise that for YOU, the speakers of a majority language, such devastation seems remote, uninteresting and irrelevant to your already complicated and complex lives.Some say that language loss is an inevitable consequence of progress and promotes understanding among groups. But this goal can be met by the learning of second and third languages, not by the loss of first languages.Without going into excessive detail, suffice it to say that the loss of a language leads to the loss of a culture( its self esteem, its values, its traditions) which very often cannot be translated accurately into a second language. We also lose an array of scientific information inherently linked to the culture undergoing the loss. Many of our life saving medicines come from indigenous tribes who speak languages nearing extinction. This information can never be appreciated fully through a second language.
Slashdot Mirror
Excuse the cliche' but 'ignorance really must be bliss'for some. There are many reasons why the extinction of 90 percent of the world's languages is potentially devastating however I realise that for YOU, the speakers of a majority language, such devastation seems remote, uninteresting and irrelevant to your already complicated and complex lives.Some say that language loss is an inevitable consequence of progress and promotes understanding among groups. But this goal can be met by the learning of second and third languages, not by the loss of first languages.Without going into excessive detail, suffice it to say that the loss of a language leads to the loss of a culture( its self esteem, its values, its traditions) which very often cannot be translated accurately into a second language. We also lose an array of scientific information inherently linked to the culture undergoing the loss. Many of our life saving medicines come from indigenous tribes who speak languages nearing extinction. This information can never be appreciated fully through a second language.