The World's Languages Are Fast Becoming Extinct 939
Ant sends news of a report, released a couple of weeks back by the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Oregon, on the alarming rate of extinction of the world's languages. While half of all languages have gone extinct in the last 500 years, the half-life is dropping: half of the 7,000 languages spoken today won't exist by the year 2100. The NY Times adds this perspective: "83 languages with 'global' influence are spoken and written by 80 percent of the world population. Most of the others face extinction at a rate, the researchers said, that exceeds that of birds, mammals, fish and plants."
I welcome... (Score:5, Funny)
Dang, break out the Zodiac (Score:2, Funny)
Reminds me ... (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, English in the USA is doomed (Score:3, Funny)
A few decades from now, we'll all be speaking spanish!
SUV's (Score:5, Funny)
An Inconvenient Language Root (Score:5, Funny)
The Onion on dying languages (Score:2, Funny)
According to a report released Monday by the Modern Language Association, speakers of the Star Trek-based Klingon language outnumber individuals fluent in Navajo by a margin of more than seven-to-one.
"Navajo, a 3,000-year-old Native American tonal language belonging to the Athabaskan/Na-Dené group of tongues, is clearly dying and will likely be extinct by 2010," MLA president Frederick Toback said. "Fortunately, though, the sad, steady decline of this once-proud Native American tongue has been more than offset by a rising interest in Klingon culture."
Re:Is that bad? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Reminds me ... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not so sure... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good thing? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, and Godwin.
Re:Good thing? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What will happen to English? (Score:4, Funny)
the sooner the better (Score:3, Funny)
About the only good thing here is the introduction of newer materials. Labor costs have gone way up, and you can't even get slaves anymore.
Re:Wiretaps (Score:1, Funny)
Pop click click... (Score:3, Funny)
But seriously. This reminds me of the Futurama episode where Prof. Farnsworth shows Qbert his universal translator that, "unfortunately only translates into some incomprehensible dead language." Qbert says "hello" into the machine which translates it as "Bon Jour."
Re:Reminds me ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My god... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What will happen to English? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Reminds me ... (Score:4, Funny)
The poor guy just sunk down into his chair, and mumbled "Well... none, really." I felt bad for the guy.
One day (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Good thing? (Score:5, Funny)
Bearvil.
As soon as there is a concept which someone needs to express, they will come up with a word for it. See "haxor", "0wned", "automagical", etc.
Re:What will happen to English? (Score:5, Funny)
Australia seems to be doing rather well when it comes to using correct English.
Re:I welcome... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry about the Chinese. Bad English is still the most widely spoken language
Oh, and did you notice how X.25 is dying out? He have to do something to preserve it. Not.
Re:What will happen to English? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What will happen to English? (Score:1, Funny)
I'll write in English v.2.0 RC1
New features:
Deprecated:
Re:Good thing? (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps that would explain the mystery of why David Hasselhoff is so popular...
Personally I vote we learn to meow ;) (Score:5, Funny)
On the upside, IIRC they have like 100 words total, so we can give up on the whole character set madness. (If I give you a
Plus, it'll be easier to know if your cat is actually plotting against you.
Plus, think how much easier poetry will be. E.g., you have to rhyme with "meow", you can't go wrong with "mew" or "mrow".
Re:Rubbish. (Score:5, Funny)
I take it you are not a big fan of Shakespeare or Chaucer then?
English does not borrow from other languages.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reminds me ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Rubbish. (Score:5, Funny)
We have to fight this threat. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What will happen to English? (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, it would be:
"Wow! That's awesome."
Re:Reminds me ... (Score:3, Funny)