Poll: The last spealer of a language has died.

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

No. Languages die, it's what they do. They evolve, get incorporated, die out. The history of language is a history of leaving behind languages we don't need. If this man was the only one who spoke his language, who did he converse with in it?

Language isn't the only way of communicating, and often a lot of old languages are worse for communicating with because they are so archaic people decide there's something sacred about them which can't be changed. When English was going through it's biggest transition periods, people were just making words up out of nowhere, and it was the greatest thing ever. Other languages got stagnated and died because no one wanted to go to the trouble of learning something that only a handful of people should learn.

There is nothing inherently sacred about language. It's sounds being put together by shaping your mouth so air comes out differently, in order to give a meaningless designation to things which we feel a need to classify.

The greatest advance humans could really have would be a truly universal language, which will never happen, but it would be a nice dream.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

It happens, there are hundreds of diffrent indian dialects and some have vanished before this one. I think it would have been wise to come up with some form of way for writing it after 10,000 years.

 

[gillebro]

Hmm. That's a loss. But it's not a tragedy. I study Linguistics, and if you look at the history of languages, they change, are born, and die out all the time. Like different species. Like us, even. People do fight for their languages, which I think is a good thing. It would be bad if there was a world completely lacking in language variety. And languages are so fascinating it would be a pity to deny highbrow people the chance to disect them, as it were. Having said that, making an enormous effort to save every language in the world strikes me as being a bit of a losing battle. Languages are morphing, changing entities, and I like that about them.

 

[Hollock]

I fell pretty hard, would have broken my arm if I fell on it wrong. It sucks. I realize that Bo is probably not hiding the secret to fat free potatoe chips that don't give me mudbutt, but it's still an interesting thing. Imagine if we lost the latin language after the fall of rome, where would we be now?

I know big leap, but still think about it, would you fall?

 

[thiosk]

Archival is important, but the world will generally benefit from moving towards an all-english world.

Its already full-steam ahead in most of asia.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Sucks that languages are dissapearing. What sucks even more is that languages are being shaped after more popular languages like English.

(and it seems we're defaulting to English---even the Chinese in business speak it because it is the language of commerce and the lifeblood of global trade)

Yes it seems like we are all defaulting to English and no, not really.

There is nothing inherently sacred about language. It's sounds being put together by shaping your mouth so air comes out differently, in order to give a meaningless designation to things which we feel a need to classify.

The greatest advance humans could really have would be a truly universal language, which will never happen, but it would be a nice dream.

Ofcourse there is nothing sacred about that shouldn't downplay the importance of different cultures and languages. It's a great loss when languages die out and each and every language has it's strengths and weaknesses in communication.

In my opinion a universal language (which we are developing towards anyway) would be terrible.

 

[gim73]

Gen 11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

11:9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

So you see, children, multiple languages are the acts of a jealous, petty, vengeful, evil god (at least in the Judeo-Christian mythos). For languages to die out is to bring us one step closer to permanently rising up and slaying our celestial would-be master and truly claiming reality for our own.

Unite. Find a common tongue, whether it's English, Mandarin, Swahili, or whatever the world decides on (and it seems we're defaulting to English---even the Chinese in business speak it because it is the language of commerce and the lifeblood of global trade) and destroy the vengeful, evil god who would divide us against each other on linguistic lines.

You do realize that the bible is a work of fiction, and not history, don't you? There may be some historical facts in there, but it also had people living for 1000 years, a ship that carries all the critters on earth times two, a guy being eaten by a 'big fish' and coming out just fine later and other nonsense like that.

It's generally our geographical seperation that changes our languages so much. The wars we fight, the borders we make and alliances at the time also have an effect on the evolution of language. French, Italian and Spanish are all closely related but evolved differently based off of local influences. Each of these countries was part of the roman empire and spoke latin at one point in time.

Even really old languages change alot over time. Chinese has been around for 7000 years and has a few dialects. Their unity as a country has had something to do with keeping the language singular, although the written language has had many variations over the years and it has evolved during that time. I seriously doubt that the language Bo has remained the same over 10000 years.

When I looked at the OP I figured he was talking about himself killing the english language...

 

[hazabaza1]

Eh, it'll live.

[small]Can I get a rimshot here?[/small]

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

History of man is like butter on bread, when you put it with a knife, each layer covers another one and on and on. So it's perfectly natural that languages, cultures etc, come and go.

 

[muckinscavitch]

Simply put: No.
Complicated answer: No, unless the language helps us uncover more of our own history.

If it is just a language with nothing tying it to the real word such as ancient writings and such that still need to be studied, by keeping it around we are just asking for people to get a masters degree in that language than have NOTHING to do with the degree.

Things die every day, just move on.

 

[ArcWinter]

Well, everything dies, so I guess that makes sense.

(Yes, everything ever dies)

 

[The Candyman]

Are we talking about indians from India, or Native Americans?

 

[KeyMaster45]

Just a pity no-one could understand his last request. (ba-dum tish)

Interesting fact, Einstein's last words as he laid dieing in a hospital were in German. The only person around to hear them was his attending nurse....and she didn't speak German.

@ The OP, the language to die was not the Indian language. The person was the last speaker of a language from a culture called the Bo, said person just died in India.

 

[GeekFury]

Languages, like civilivations come and go, if it dies, it's just teh natural order of things, in a few thousand years I'm sure English will vanish for something else.

 

[Jark212]

Language is a barrier that stands between understanding and miscommunication. It's like Highlander, only one can survive...

 

[SimuLord]

Gen 11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

11:9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

So you see, children, multiple languages are the acts of a jealous, petty, vengeful, evil god (at least in the Judeo-Christian mythos). For languages to die out is to bring us one step closer to permanently rising up and slaying our celestial would-be master and truly claiming reality for our own.

Unite. Find a common tongue, whether it's English, Mandarin, Swahili, or whatever the world decides on (and it seems we're defaulting to English---even the Chinese in business speak it because it is the language of commerce and the lifeblood of global trade) and destroy the vengeful, evil god who would divide us against each other on linguistic lines.

You do realize that the bible is a work of fiction, and not history, don't you? There may be some historical facts in there, but it also had people living for 1000 years, a ship that carries all the critters on earth times two, a guy being eaten by a 'big fish' and coming out just fine later and other nonsense like that.

It's generally our geographical seperation that changes our languages so much. The wars we fight, the borders we make and alliances at the time also have an effect on the evolution of language. French, Italian and Spanish are all closely related but evolved differently based off of local influences. Each of these countries was part of the roman empire and spoke latin at one point in time.

Even really old languages change alot over time. Chinese has been around for 7000 years and has a few dialects. Their unity as a country has had something to do with keeping the language singular, although the written language has had many variations over the years and it has evolved during that time. I seriously doubt that the language Bo has remained the same over 10000 years.

When I looked at the OP I figured he was talking about himself killing the english language...

You don't have to tell ME the Bible is fiction. I was just providing a bit of a rallying-cry point for my belief that having everyone speaking the same language isn't necessarily a bad thing because it allows global co-operation, and the best parable about that is in the Bible. So I referenced it.

Believe it or not (and I say this as a practicing polytheist!) the Bible is useful for reasons other than just religious dogma!

 

[person427]

The language itself, no. However we should preserve the culture that goes along with it.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

The language was part of a tribe descended from one of the oldest cultures in the world, and had been spoken for 10's of thousands of years - how does that not make it important?

Well how does it make it important? We've lost dozens of languages as people have explored and migrated, cultures merged and mixed and new languages are formed. It's all a part of moving forwards

When English or Mandarin are down to the final speaker you're not going to say that they weren't very important (not that we'll be around to see that).

And actually I couldn't care less. If English and Mandarin are dying, then that means the world has found a new language to use. Chances are, if the older ones are dying it's because newer ones are thriving.