Star Trek universal translator — soon not needed on Earth
Researchers Say Many Languages Are Dying
When every known speaker of the language Amurdag gets together, there’s still no one to talk to. Native Australian Charlie Mungulda is the only person alive known to speak that language, one of thousands around the world on the brink of extinction. From rural Australia to Siberia to Oklahoma, languages that embody the history and traditions of people are dying, researchers said Tuesday.
While there are an estimated 7,000 languages spoken around the world today, one of them dies out about every two weeks, according to linguistic experts struggling to save at least some of them.
Losing languages means losing knowledge, says K. David Harrison, an assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College.
“When we lose a language, we lose centuries of human thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday.”
As many as half of the current languages have never been written down, he estimated.
10. Misanthropic Scott we need to become a single planetary society and stop waring in order to survive as a species.
Ya, like Somalia: a unified country. same culture. same religion. same language. Probably the most culturally/religiously/linguistically united country in all of Africa…. and yet how peaceful is that?
If you take away differences in language, differences in culture, differences in religion, humans still seem to have an uncanny ability to find reasons to kill each other!
#11
“Like the US where the Indian Nations all had different languages. Or China.”
Wrong, China has more or less 50 different languages/dialects spoken, the only thing is that no matter how you say it in there, it’s all written in the same words.
The same applies in South Korea, different dialects but the same written language.
#30
And French women eat fatty foods but they don’t become blimps.
#34
I’m talking about China and South Korea.
#32 – Ben,
Sorry, I didn’t say that’d be a guarantee. It’s more the corollary. If we don’t form a single planetary society, we’re guaranteed to continue warfaring and are doomed as a species.
19 Everywhere won’t be the same. It will just be a boring, dull-as-dishwater mélange of Olive Gardens and TGIFs, with the “waitstaff” speaking the same language.
Oh bull-cripes…
Then all the immigrants moving to the US – and opening ethnic restaurants – would go out of business as soon as the proprietors learned English.
But in the midst of our vast waist-land of corporate-chain restaurants, there are – at least in urban areas – all kinds of other choices: chinese, thai, vietnamese, laotian, ethiopian, italian, french, greek, german, japanese, etc…
I’m surprised that they didn’t find a way to blame the lost of languages on Global Warming. I think the only people who will be decrying the lost of all of these languages are those who get paid to study them, and interpret them between languages. But this extinction is hardly new. It’s why the original biblical languages were translated into English. Because few were willing to learn Greek and the others, just to read it. And after the Crusades, lots of arabic text were translated into Latin, in order to acquire the knowledge that that civilations had learned. And ancient Egyptian wasn’t lost because of globalization. They friggin died out in isolation. Like mining ghost town, the reason for the language’s uniqueness, ended. People scattered and learned the language of their new community. Making it sound like a tragic loss of culture and diversity is just a load of academic BS.
BTW, there will never by only one language spoken in the world, if the French have anything to say about (unless it IS french). And even if the world all tried adopting french, the french would probably forbid its use by anyone who wasn’t a true frenchman. Besides that, even if everyone did end up speaking the same language, their terms would be diversifyied as they are today. We have both water and closets, in America, as in England. But in America, we have toilets. And in England they have water closets (or their own unique slang for it). Even across america, there are dialectical differences in english. And one only has to think of internet “texting” to realize that new kinds of dialects are being created all the time. So diversity isn’t in much danger of vanishing. And unfortunately, wars will probably continue to occur, in spite of what language people speak. After all, during the american civil war, both sides spoke english. QED
#39 – Glenn E,
I’m surprised that they didn’t find a way to blame the lost of languages on Global Warming.
You’re surprised because you haven’t realized yet that it’s the global warming deniers perpetrating a hoax, not the scientists. When you wake up, you will know. It’s all about the corporations. Don’t drink their almond flavored Kool-Aid.
I’m glad global warming finally showed up. It should be everywhere. We need more global warming. Besides, I’m with this guy – who says it’s bad?
http://tinyurl.com/2ofv2k
>>I’m glad global warming finally showed up. It should be everywhere.
Just keep working on that 60-mile round-trip commute you have to work, Steamy One. You’re doing your part.
Thanks man, just trying to hold up my end.
#43 – iGW,
Keep trying. I wasn’t sure you could find your end with both hands and a flashlight.
#37
You can say it in Cantonese, you can say it in Mandarin, both will sound different; but you write it the same.