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Do you speak Votian?
Votian is the language spoken by the Votes. Votes are the people of Ingria, an area of Russia just Southwest of St. Petersburg close to the Estonian border.
The Votian language is also practically extinct with 50 speakers at most. There are no children currently speaking Votian. Experts generally consider a community’s language to be “endangered” when at least 30 per cent of its children no longer learn it.
Imminent extinction is also on the horizon for the Livonian, Krimchak and Yevanic languages. Norn and Polabian have already disappeared. In fact 50 to 90 percent of the world’s languages are predicted to disappear in the next century, many with little or no documentation. The UN says that least 3,000 tongues are endangered, seriously endangered, or dying in many parts of the world.
That’s where the Rosetta Project comes in.
The original Rosetta stone was a tablet written in hieroglyphic symbols and the Egyptian and Greek languages. Because Greek was well known, the stone was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphics. The Rosetta Project aims to produce Rosetta Stone-like discs in order to preserve dying languages.
The Rosetta Disc is held in a four-inch spherical container that both protects the disk as well as provides additional functionality. The container is split into two hemispheres with the three inch Rosetta Disc sitting in an indent on the flat meeting surface of the two hemispheres. The upper hemisphere is made of optical glass and doubles as a 6X viewer, giving visual access deeper into the tapered text rings. The bottom hemisphere is high-grade stainless steel.
The actual Rosetta Disc is a micro-etched nickel alloy disc 5.08 cm across with a 2,000-year life expectancy. The design consists of an Earth map at the center with spokes radiating outward holding 27,000 language data pages- 27 pages for each language. The center Earth map has the geographic origin of each language marked with a number that corresponds to the location of the language data in the spokes. The Rosetta archive will be available in three versions: the etched disc, a free on-going online archive and one very big book. The plan is to update the archive disc in 5-year intervals.
The project is a global collaboration of linguists and native speakers striving to create a physical archive of all documented human languages. Currently over 2,300 of the 7,000 existing languages have been documented. The archive will allow for comparative linguistic research and a tool for the possible recovery of lost languages in the future.
Each of the languages is stored on the Rosetta Disc in a parallel text structure much like the original Rosetta Stone. Research for the disk also involves fieldwork such as traveling to the Cameroon to document the Benue-Congo subgroup language of the Niger-Congo family.
People abandon their native tongues for a variety of reasons. The break-up of a language can disappear when its users come into association with a more aggressive or economically stronger culture. Children will learn the language of the dominant culture, especially as a means to get a job. Some minorities and their languages come under attack from groups of people who destroy their environment to extract minerals, timber, and/or oil from it. Occasionally authorities discourage the use of local languages in schools, local government and the media. Other times the speakers of the language just die out and the society collapses.
English, especially American English, is quickly becoming the universal language. In science and business it is already the language of record. The world appears to moving very fast toward the acceptance of English as the planet’s language and that accelerates the demise of regional tongues.
But isn’t that a good thing? Fewer languages means better communication, right? Beyond being an academic exercise for linguists is there any point in saving almost extinct languages? The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has spent considerable effort on promoting disappearing tongues. According to UNESCO:
They (languages) are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to development fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.
That’s a tall order for the speakers of Rotokos and Keder. But the Rosetta Project will be there if a person or a nation wants a return to a long-gone language. Unlike an endangered animal species, an endangered or extinct language can be saved through a determined language policy. In Japan for example, only eight people spoke Ainu on the island of Hokkaido in the late 1980s, but today it is being revived after years of ostracism and decline. An Ainu museum has been opened there and the language is being taught to young people, who are rediscovering it. Sometimes languages that have actually died out have been “raised from the dead,” such as Cornish, in England, which became extinct in 1777 but has been revived in recent years, with nearly 1,000 people now speaking it as a second language. The question is wouldn’t it make more sense to learn French or Spanish rather than Cornish as your second language?
In many ways the Rosetta Project feels very much like the actual Rosetta Stone; a historical curiosity that reveals a past that is linguistically interesting, but not a reason to start writing my friends in hieroglyphs. You could speak Yug, but what’s the point?
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They should put a few of these where the “Crypt of Civilization” is, of course, they need to put them every five years, for the next 1,200 year intervals. I see that becoming a “little” expensive.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s a way, long forgotten, to say something like “I love you” that conveys its meaning far better than our modern languages.
TDavis said: “Maybe, just maybe, there’s a way, long forgotten, to say something like “I love you” that conveys its meaning far better than our modern languages.”
Maybe a single word meaning somthing like I love you but I’m not IN love with you. :)
I’m sure the military has taken interest in this project for uses in code encription. I know the military used algonquin* or charakee* (*Probibly not spelled right) to transmit coded intel. I think there was a movie about that but I never saw it.
One question: Where can I get mine?
I think languages should be allowed to die out- Darwinism should apply to languages. No?
lahuard said: “I think languages should be allowed to die out- Darwinism should apply to languages. No?”
This brings up damn interesting questions about why English is, and is continuing to become, so dominant. There are certainly other languages that are just as expressive as English but easier to learn. English is really a terribly difficult language with all its grammatical, contextual, and spellingual (?!) oddities and exceptions.
Is English’s popularity simply because the US is such a major player in global affairs? It’s certainly not winning on ease of use.
When I saw the actual Rosetta Stone… it brought tears to my eyes. Now I know why.
English’s popularity is primarily to the reasons you mentioned, the US is such a dominant country in all global affairs. Another reason is that in the US, children growing up rarely learn more than the most basic elements of a second language, whereas in Europe and Asia, it is not uncommon for children to grow up learning 2 or 3 different languages, including English. In this way its much simplier because Americans rarely know another language whereas most everyone know at least some English.
Chanticrow said: “This brings up damn interesting questions about why English is, and is continuing to become, so dominant. “
Maybe because America thinks it’s the center of the universe.
And I say that as an American.
I speak Votian fluently.
English is a combination of all languages (sort of) like the word kayak or grandeur. People are tolerant of the English language because it often incorperates words from their culture
English, especially American English, is quickly becoming the universal language.
Unfortunately, english is probably one of the ugliest languages spoken in the planet, and the american accent is really awful, and it seems to be getting worse with time…
The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawn mower. Think about it.
English being a worldwide language has nothing to do with America being a global power. We speak English because we took that language with us when we migrated over the ocean. Several countries have English as their language and have been around longer than we have. All english settled countries for example. Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, USA, Canada(quebec not included), etc… Some of my history may be a little off but my point is the world is much larger than the United States of America, Everyone getting together and picking English as the worlds language is not what took place. The world is accepting English for the same reasons the USA accepted English. Everyone else is using it, so should we
I agree with stephentross, English is the dominate language primarily because of colonialism by the United Kingdom. Remember Britain colonised much of the world, beginning in the Elizabethan era, and the Pilgims took the language to the New World. Another reason English is dominant is due to the policy of removing indigenous children from their families (Australia and America certainly, I am not sure about other countries), and insisting the children spoke English only in an attempt to eliminate the culture and replace it with the dominant white one, and language is central to one’s culture. Europeans dominated trade, Hong Kong for example, a British colony until the late 20th century. The fact that English incorporates words from so many other languages is also a factor as mentioned. English has replaced French as the international language, and is the language of international business (to my knowledge). What a wonderful concept the Rosetta Project is.
Forgot to add, and i can’t see an edit, so………….I assume everyone has heard about the whistling language of the Canary Islands. You can hear a sample of it on this site. I wonder if it has been included in the project.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/11/18/whistle.language.ap/
mrjondoe said: “Another reason is that in the US, children growing up rarely learn more than the most basic elements of a second language, whereas in Europe and Asia, it is not uncommon for children to grow up learning 2 or 3 different languages, including English. In this way its much simplier because Americans rarely know another language whereas most everyone know at least some English.”
Here in England we were taught 2nd or even 3rd languages throughout high school but since that only starts when you’re 12 its too late to learn properly. It should really start in infancy, setting up the basics when learning any language is easier. In private schools they are often forced to learn latin which is already an extinct language (except maybe with the clergy and some other losers) instead of learning a useful (in Global terms) language such as Japanese, Chinese, French, German etc. Generally though most people adopt a similar attitude as in America “I don’t need to learn a foreign language: all the foreigners speak English.” Pretty selfish way of thinking really, especially seeing as English apparently has the most words of any language in the world.
Most of the comments I would have made have already been stated, however I would like to stress the importance of Sign Language. It’s primary drawback is that it can’t be written, so another language is necessary for that purpose. However, it’s superior in many ways because of it’s range and simplicity. Anyone capable of recognizing and performing gestures can communicate… including babies. You may have heard about gorillas that communicate with trainers using sign language, and in one instance, a female gorilla teaching her child some signs.
Arithon8,
Daniel Lew wrote about the whistling language of the Canary Islands a couple of months ago here on Damn Interesting.
white_matter said: “Maybe a single word meaning somthing like I love you but I’m not IN love with you. :)
I’m sure the military has taken interest in this project for uses in code encription. I know the military used algonquin* or charakee* (*Probibly not spelled right) to transmit coded intel. I think there was a movie about that but I never saw it.”
It was Navajo that they used in WWII to fool the Japanese. And it wasnt just the language, they used the language to create a code.
Anonymous User said: ”
Unfortunately, english is probably one of the ugliest languages spoken in the planet, and the american accent is really awful, and it seems to be getting worse with time…”
It’s funny you say that because there are several American accents: New York, New Jersey, California surfer, Louisanian, Creole, and the list goes on and on. You are most likely a native english speaker that probably doesnt speak another language. Once you speak a language fluently, it looses its appeal somewhat.
English isn’t that bad at all, and it is very straight forward and clear, perfect for business and science, as mentioned. Languages that make me cringe are the likes of dutch and swiss german, but dutch especially (kind of sounds like a cat making love to a frog — my opinion — i just say this to mess with my dutch friends). Now italian, french and arabic (classical/egyptian) those are candy to the ears.
As for the Rosetta project, I am thankful that they have had the far-sight to use something else than digital media. What perplexes me is, how do they make a comprehensive translator for so many languages in such a small object? 27,000 language data pages- 27 pages for each language, and it is micro-etched, okay but surely it isn’t in dictionary form. What is the contents of the information on the stone? It can’t be Ptolemy V’s decree, that would be ridiculous. Anyone?
I agree with the statement that languages should be allowed to undergo the selectivity of Darwinism. Much more than that, I believe that we should keep a record of what is lost and develop tools to be able to reconstruct the past when needed, like keeping genetic samples of every living species past and present. These things have great value for the future (and i don’t mean a meagre 1000 years ahead, i mean 10.000 to 100,000+ years). Imagine all the contents of the library of Alexandria stored in a reconstructible way in other formats resistent to fire and wear. The world would be a better place today (i think).
Also, I propose we catapult a couple of these rosettas into space…just a thought. And to spicen up the whole enterprise, maybe put a cat on the catapult…making love to a frog (to REALLY spicen things up). That would go down as one hell of a cosmic practical joke. Imagine the look on “their” faces (not to mention the frog’s and cat’s faces)!
Now take the rosetta/frog/cat-a-pult one step further and add marmite to the whole lot. The earth would get blown to smithereens in no time, with no chance for appeal. What an insult.
Languages die because no one wants to speak them, so let them die. What difference does it make to life in general. I’m sure the few people who know Votian can speak Russian or something too, so whats the problem. Language is just a medium its not some priceless treasure. Besides, having an international language makes travelling a lot easier.
I’m sure the military has taken interest in this project for uses in code encription. I know the military used algonquin* or charakee* (*Probibly not spelled right) to transmit coded intel. I think there was a movie about that but I never saw it.”
Josh Harding said: “It was Navajo that they used in WWII to fool the Japanese. And it wasnt just the language, they used the language to create a code.”
The movie about the codetalkers is called “Windtalkers”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windtalkers
http://imdb.com/title/tt0245562/
God of Biscuits said: “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawn mower. Think about it.”
I’m very quickly falling in love with God of Biscuits.
That’s beside the point. Is more than one of those Rosetta Project ball things? (Sorry. Ball thing is the best I can describe it. I missed the name for it, if there is one.) I think it’s a good idea from history’s standpoint. Just because something is gone doesn’t mean it should be forgotten.
Anonymous User said: “English, especially American English, is quickly becoming the universal language.
Unfortunately, english is probably one of the ugliest languages spoken in the planet, and the american accent is really awful, and it seems to be getting worse with time…”
how you can say that escapes me.
English is a beautiful language, despite and _for_ all its complexities and quirks.
alipardiwala said: “Languages die because no one wants to speak them, so let them die. What difference does it make to life in general. I’m sure the few people who know Votian can speak Russian or something too, so whats the problem. Language is just a medium its not some priceless treasure. Besides, having an international language makes travelling a lot easier.”
wel, that’s not necessarily true – languages die because they are superceded (despite the connotations of the word) by other languages which hold more “prestige” in the minds of the speakers. languages also drift – contemporary English (by this, i mean all dialects) descend from middle english, which is not only inflected, but also includes letters and phonemes which are not current in English today.
put it his way – is Shakespeare REALLY Shakespaeare when you recontextualise the language?
“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? T’is the East, and Juliet is the Sun”
“hang on, what’s that light? oh, Juliet’s turned the light on”
ok, so my example is facetious, but Shakespeare’s metaphor stands, and has become part of the linguisitic culture. when a language dies, all its metaphoric power, and all its similes die with it. this is why i’m sceptical of the ultimate functionality of the rosetta project – it just doesn’t capture the essence of the languages it records.
language is not just about the grammar, words and sounds – it is a way of thinking about the world. when a language dies, our intellectual vocabulary is impoverished. it is, perhaps, possible that another language may capture part of the essence of another, but it’s not the same.
God of Biscuits said: “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawn mower. Think about it.”
or the weed wacker
There’s no need to worry about losing languages because when eveyone speaks the same language God will probably throw another bitch fit and scatter us all around the world with different tounges again and so the cycle will continue.
But seriously I think we should have our own country’s language and a universal language like Esperanto that makes the most sense. (Also esperanto was developed to be easy to learn it doesn’t have any odd spelings, irregular verbs, etc.) So then everyone would have their own language and a language to talk to other people from different countries.
Anonymous User said: “English, especially American English, is quickly becoming the universal language.
Unfortunately, english is probably one of the ugliest languages spoken in the planet, and the american accent is really awful, and it seems to be getting worse with time…”
Have you heard German? It’s hideous.
TDavis said: “Maybe, just maybe, there’s a way, long forgotten, to say something like “I love you” that conveys its meaning far better than our modern languages.”
(Sorry I’m know I’m multiposting)
Greek has four words for love there’s friendly love, lustfull love (eros, I think) and others that I forget.
I just want people to stop telling me Eskimos have however many billion words for snow. We also have many defintions for snow we just use two words. Pack snow, wet snow, dry snow.
Newspeak, anyone?
Stuart said: “Generally though most people adopt a similar attitude as in America “I don’t need to learn a foreign language: all the foreigners speak English.” Pretty selfish way of thinking really, especially seeing as English apparently has the most words of any language in the world.”
Ah, but we Americans *don’t* need to learn a foreign language and that, in fact, is the problem. I grew up in Kansas. I learned a little Spanish as a child, took a few years of French in the middle grades and a year of German in high school. I never tried to communicate with anyone who didn’t speak fluent English until visiting Europe for the first time at the age of 23. I would love to speak another language or two but still can’t say which one I would have been best off trying to learn first. I now live in Texas so wish I’d stuck with Spanish but I’m not sure even the kids with Spanish names new any Spanish where I grew up.
Contrast that with a girl I met in Switzerland during that first European trip. She had classes from her earliest school days in Italian, French, German and English not because some school administrator thought kids needed exposure to other cultures but for the same reason I was learning English. She interacted daily with people whose home language was different than her own. She *needed* that knowledge.
The selfishness kicks in when we start *expecting* everyone else to speak English.
If a language dies, are they going to keep making another thing every 5 years anyway? Who is planning on paying for this? I bet they don’t know what they’re getting into.
Quid??!! Like skwigul, I grew up and continue to live in Kansas. I recall, back in the 60’s, we were told French was the universal language, so I took a couple of years of that. Now I wish I had learned Spanish because that is more widely used than French. Unfortunately, I had to have five (groan) long years of Latin! Yes, it has been long dead and the Catholic Church was leaning more to the vernacular. Latin didn’t “stick” with me and it was always a struggle. For a “dead” language, one just doesn’t strike up a conversation with someone else to keep the skills up! The idea of preserving the languages sounds good and could be a useful tool when looking into the past.
I don’t know why so many people are posting negative comments about this idea. Look how useful the rosetta stone has been to us. If these spheres are to a future civilization as the stone is to ours, the whole thing has been worthwhile. If not, well, it’s fun and cool to make neat looking things.
Also, english isn’t becoming the world’s universal language. Mandarin is. As far as I know, if a person wishes to go into international business, knowing mandarin is not just helpful, but required. If China continues its economic and social boom, mandarin will be a lot more popular than english.
AKALucifer said:
I just want people to stop telling me Eskimos have however many billion words for snow. We also have many defintions for snow we just use two words. Pack snow, wet snow, dry snow.”
You don’t even necessarily need two words. Slush, hardpack, flurries, ice, frost, etc… With two words we get way more.
And English isn’t actually particularly hard to learn, at least compared to other European languages. The hard part is the spelling (because it’s less regular than most), which isn’t even necessary in conversational usage.
There are only 6 tenses, one verb form with two conjugations, no masculine/femenine, and a pretty simple politeness system. Compare that with French (a dozen tenses, masculine/femenine forms for pretty much everything, three regular verb types totaling 18 conjugations, etc). Even better, compare that with trying to learn to write Mandarin.
And just so you know, I speak two and a half languages and I’ve discussed this with many friends for whom English is not their first language. This is the general feeling I get from them (them having learned English plus various other Euro languages).
In addition to the fact that there is no snooty central authority controlling English, most new technologies are developed and named in English (computers anyone?), and English culture tends to be inclusive of borrowed peices from other cultures it becomes obvious why English is our current lingua franca.
mHagarty said: “Also, english isn’t becoming the world’s universal language. Mandarin is. As far as I know, if a person wishes to go into international business, knowing mandarin is not just helpful, but required. If China continues its economic and social boom, mandarin will be a lot more popular than english.”
I agree. As a business person based in the Asia Pacific Region, English is the second language of choice. And frankly, whatever it is Americans speak, it isn’t English!
I think with the weight of comment we all feel compelled to make on the subject, we have proven one thing. We all feel an emotional attachment to our native tongue, (much like the attachment we form with the land of our birth) which explains the sense of loss when another one becomes extinct.
Perhaps that single point in itself is enough to warrant an idea such as the Rosetta Project?
mrjondoe said: “… Another reason is that in the US, children growing up rarely learn more than the most basic elements of a second language, whereas in Europe and Asia, it is not uncommon for children to grow up learning 2 or 3 different languages, including English. In this way its much simplier because Americans rarely know another language whereas most everyone know at least some English.”
I am an American and I have hashed this topic out over and over with Brits, Germans and whomever had an opinion about it. One of the big issues that I have heard is the disgust over the amount of americans that actually own a passport let alone use it at all. Unofficial tallies indicate that less then 20% of americans actually have one. I can see why most Europeans could not believe this; most brits I know take holiday in Ibiza or somewhere nice like that. Ibiza being in Spain one would have to know at least alittle Spanish…but why would an American go all the way to Spain when we have sunny Florida right next door?
Being prior service military, I was stationed in Germany and I’ve seen a fair share of Europe. Now, being a DOD employee living in South Korea, I’m seeing much more of the world than most of the people that I know back home. These people are lucky to get Canada or Mexico under their belts, let alone some peninsular country in Southeast Asia.
America has the broadest spectrum of geographical features than any other country in the world. Want tropical: Florida, Hawaii. Want mountain ranges: Colorado. Want Dessert: Arizona. Want Rolling Hills sans Scotland: Kentucky. Want Tundra: Alaska. Why would anyone want to suffer through getting a passport only to suffer through a half day plane flight, custom inspections, jetlag…Oh did I mention that it’s wise to get a basic grasp of the local language and customs before taking off……..or would you rather go to a comparable place here in the states? Hmmm…..
Most Americans have absolutely no need to go to any other country for anything (aside from the occasional Amsterdam trip but after a few hours, verbal communication is pretty useless anyway). It’s not nessessarily American arrogance it just mostly unnessessary.
In short, we got it all right here baby!
Work smarter not harder.
How did this damn interesting article turn into a debate about which country or language is the best?! Come on people, leave your petty xenophobic squabbling opinions out of it, and input something relevant!
white_matter said: “In short, we got it all right here baby!”
Geographically you may have features in common with most of the world (though from what I’ve seen of Kentucky I think most Scots would be a little puzzled by your suggestion) but you seem to have missed the point of visiting other countries. Immersing yourself in a foreign culture is part of the reason for going to these countries, not just to look at land formations and experience different climates. And speaking of culture, America is seriously lacking in this area. You remind me of the American tourist groups I’ve seen going around European cities (Rome, Paris, Sienna etc), hoping to cram thousands of years of cultural history into an afternoon’s brief strolling and then hop back onto to the coach to get another condensed culture in the next city. Or do you think that you don’t even need to leave America to sample this aswell? I mean why go to Paris when you can just go to the Las Vegas Paris Hotel? In short, you don’t have it all baby!
Want Dessert: Arizona.
baked alaska sounds more appetising…
the100thmonkey said: “baked alaska sounds more appetising…”
further, the great majority of dutch people i’ve met speak _great_ english…
Here’s to preserving the past for a potential future.
Keep in mind that languages are not just collections of sounds strung together randomly. You cannot take anything more than simple, basic words and concepts (fork, bed, walk, eat) and create a one-to-one linkage of words and meanings across languages. Part of the art of translation is being able to come up with equivelant concepts across the languages, which may be so ingrained that the native speakers do not realize their concept doesn’t exist in another language.
Languages force a certain worldview upon the speaker, esp. the native speaker. When a language dies out, so does that particular worldview, that particular view of life that may provide an insight lacking in your native worldview.
Take Russian, for example. The word “mir” is often translated as “world” or “peace”. But more importantly, the word means “village”. Consider the implications of a culture where your village is your world, and the only place to find peace is within your village (i.e., outside your village is “not-peace”). Knowing this helped me to understand some of the actions of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Another example of how there is no one-to-one conversion of concepts: the action expressed in English as “making love” simply does not exist in Russian. The closest you can come is a word that is better translated in English as “the F-word”. You don’t ask your partner if they have (as you might say in English) “arrived”, you ask if they are finished.
The Rosetta Project is essential not to keep dead languages alive, but to make sure we don’t loose those worldviews that provide philisophical and intellectual diversity, much like those projects being run in parts of America to keep old-world varieties of fruits and vegetables around.
There all whole books of “untranslateables”. Words, emotions, and feelings that other languages have beautiful and precise ways to express. Some of these are dragooned into the English language (“zietgiest” for example) but other’s remain hopelessly outside the ability of English to express. That is why it is so vital to preserve dying languages. You are not just saving a method of communication, but an entire worldview.
If the Dutch would’ve kept New York and not trade it with Great Britain in the 17th century. Then we would all probably have Dutch as the universal language.
Would’ve made life somewhat easier for me… (as a Dutchman)
Fortunately, we as Dutch people speak English quite well.
As a student of linguistics in America, these types of conversations fascinate me (Especially when multi-lingual individuals partake). Most of my takes on this subject have already been expressed by others (languages offer different world views, language is learned on a need-to-know-basis, etc) so I won’t attempt to rehash them. I did want to comment, however, as an American growing up speaking only one language in the heart of the country.
For my entire life I’ve lived in an area where I would have to travel almost 1,000 miles (in any direction) before I would get to an area that does not treat English as the native language. This is beneficial for travel, but is also cumbersome when attempting to learn a new language. In that respect, I am envious of Europeans for their ability to live in such close proximity to many languages and cultures. That is what makes the continant so great to begin with, the diversity. With the way America is situated, even if we wanted to learn other languages it would take twice as long as many European nations. We don’t have the luxury of taking a weekend trip to France, Spain, The Neatherlands, etc. In fact, many Americans that do become fluent in other languages do so either by growing up with the second language present, or by spending a considerable amount of time in another country speaking it (such as Study Abroad programs). Without the exposure to the language and submersion in it, fluency is extremely difficult to acheive for many of us.
Same goes for the passport/travel issue. A trip to Europe, Asia, or any other continant is extremely expensive and not within the budget of many American families. That’s why Americans do tend to try and “soak up thousands of years worth of culture in a day.” It’s just too darned expensive not to. I’m 21 years old and will just be leaving the continant for the first time this summer to backpack Europe. This is not because I didn’t want to beforehand, but because I just didn’t have the money for it. And you can bet that I’m going to see as many places as possible on the short amount of time I have there, because it may be another 21 years before I have the money to go back and see everything I missed.
That being said, I think the attitude many Americans take about the rest of the world learning English is pompous and arrogant at the very least. When someone thinks they do not need to change because others will try to be more like them, it can only lead to an eventual rude awakening. So while there are some Americans that think they don’t need to know any other languages, there are still many more that would love to learn one but have not had the exposure to allow it.
APA7HY said: “Newspeak, anyone?”
Doubleplus good!
stephentross said: “English being a worldwide language has nothing to do with America being a global power. We speak English because we took that language with us when we migrated over the ocean. “
I really disagree! Other countries migrated over the ocean and spread their languages trough the world and that did not made their languages as internacional as English. Portuguese were the first to colonize the new world and had a great spread but Portuguese is not a world wide known language.
I think English is the actual lingua franca because due to America being a (the) (actual) global power.
Mmm… Has anyone here ever heard of Polish…? >_>
“Da Polski uner somethinghardashelltospellorpronounce.”
Polish is a nightmare language, even the people of Poland say it’s hard to speak. Many of the words of this particularly difficult language are unpronouncable in other languages, they combine consonant sounds such as “J” and “L”… There are so many little quirks and twists to the usage that the average age at which it’s mastered by *natives* is as far as ten years old.
How exactly are they going to preserve this incredibly conjested tongue in the Rosetta Project?
51st comment.
The only purpose I find with this is the Rosetta Project will be just a databank of the languages that have existed. Because, honestly, how the hell will an extinct language going to jumpstart to being the universal language, muchless be used again, if no one have used or carried it on in the first place.
Languages that have died today, because English is the universal language and everyone’s learning the tonuge, then what makes it going to be any different in the future with the current universal language. =/
You wont believe but it is said that US english is the most wrong form of english with wrong grammar and wrong pronounciation. Even english has evolved over the years largely. Dont thou think’st so?
Too good article. Only 50 people speak it? Only 50? It could classify as a code language used by some.
and anyways, why is the USA being dragged into the issue of the popularity of english??
it was created by UK who spread it by their vast colonial empire.
French has a wonderful word for a person with an ethnocentric view of the world: chauvin.
I’ve been lurking this site for a while now and, being the active worker bee i am, couldn’t resist spending some of the bosses time reading a few articles here. I saw indra c’s comment on the Dutch language:
Every language has a specific sound to it. In my opinion, you can describe the sound of any language… except your own native language. Now, being a native Dutch speaker myself living in the USA, I always wondered what Dutch sounds like to other people. Most of what I usually hear is “it sounds like you’re sick”. Inda, you have provided me with the most colorful description I’ve heard so far. Also, I like your comparison with Swiss German. I always liked the sound of it myself and now I know why. It’s hitting close to home!
Yes, English has a nice little word for an ethnocentric person too, Ericnea. “Frenchman”, or “The French” Shall I perhaps point to oooooooh, the Napoleonic war? The complete and utter failure of the Franks in taking over the isle of Britain, after the Roman occupation and later withdraw (in order to strengthen the Roman Legions and fight off the Visigoths), and their subsequent grudge that lasted THOUSANDS OF YEARS. Or the 300 year war? Any of this getting through?
God of Biscuits said: “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawn mower. Think about it.”
rofl. Nice comment. Agreed sort of.
Muzhik said: “Take Russian, for example. The word “mir” is often translated as “world” or “peace”. But more importantly, the word means “village”. Consider the implications of a culture where your village is your world, and the only place to find peace is within your village (i.e., outside your village is “not-peace”). Knowing this helped me to understand some of the actions of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Another example of how there is no one-to-one conversion of concepts: the action expressed in English as “making love” simply does not exist in Russian. The closest you can come is a word that is better translated in English as “the F-word”. You don’t ask your partner if they have (as you might say in English) “arrived”, you ask if they are finished.”
You’re way off, Muzhik. The word “mir” hasn’t meant “village” in at least the last 100 years, so you’re talking about archaic Russian, which doesn’t at all apply to Soviet Union or post-Soviet Russia. Furthermore “making love” translates directly into “zanimatsya ljubov’ju”. Just because you find your personal vocabulary lacking it doesn’t mean that the Russian language is any poorer than English or any other.
In general the project is a great idea. It’s not supposed to capture the entire language for our descendants. It’s suppsed to be a translation guide for current documents, when the language of origin is lost – like the Rosetta stone was for the Egyptian hieroglyphics
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to read all the comments and so hope I do not repeat anything previously said, or say something that has been disputed, but think that my ideas are more so speculative and curious, not factual or commanding. Some psychologist (forgive my ignorance and lack of research) has found that speakers of different languages have different brain patterns. The English language is not very artistic or melodic, at least in comparison to, say Chinese, and so English speakers use the left-half of their brain more when processing speech while Chinese, due to the way it is spoken and the way it is written, is considered more artistic and therefore is “understood” and “comprehended” with more input from the right hemisphere of the brain. It may seem like an innocuous difference, but what it amounts to is differences in thinking patterns – words, sentences, thoughts and most importantly IDEAS combine in the brain differently depending upon the language spoken. This can explain why some things are simply untranslatable – the words don’t exist, but also why some concepts are also untranslatable – it just would not or does not ahve the same impact upon an English speaker as it would on someone who speaks Chinese (these are basic examples, I am pretty sure it cna be applied to most very distinct, different languages [meaning that this occurrence is less marked, if present at all, between Spanish and Italian say, ebcause they are both Romance, have the same alphabet and underlying concept, so overlap is very common] though that’s just what I think, i don’t recall the psychologist or the study in superb detail, unfortunately).
What that means, theoretically and hypothetically, is that a particular language could be created and those who speak it, most especially as a primary language, would be better at, say, creative thinking or mathematical proofs or making connections and realizing patterns between abstract things – the language so strongly affects HOW people think, it can have difference. I know I have strayed a bit, but the ideas present in the article are somewhat related and excite my imagination. We should at least preserve the languages and have some people speak it because, perhaps, the language can lead its speakers to revolutionary ideas or advances and better human life. Sounds fanciful and overly optimistic, but I think it holds more merit than most would think at first glance.
As a welshborn brit, I can’t help but wonder if they’ve put welsh on there. Its a horrible language, I honestly believe its literally a huge linguistic joke started by language experts with a time machine. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.
I mean, really.
The one thing I’ve noticed that many of you have missed is how rapidly the phonetics of a language can change. The language you speak now will not sound the same 100 years from now. If you listen to a speach recorded as early as 50 years ago you can detect an accent that you no longer hear today.
I think that the reason they have wanted to create this stone is because they’re the type of people that would try to study ancient languages and sit around and think that they wished someone would have made something like this a thousand years ago to make it a little (scratch that, a lot) easier. Unfortuanately they can’t go back in time and suggest it to someone but they can do something here and now for the people in the future. Maybe when people stopped writing in hyroglifs (wrong spelling, i know, shush.) they thought “Why continue when we have developed something better?” There’s no way that they could know that people would be studying their culture centuries in the future.
That made me laugh for ten minutes. I just finished reading and annotating _1984_ in my LA class, and we had a big discussion about the destruction of languages. This is a really fascinating subject, actually. I really want to learn more languages (Italian, German, Portuguese, etc.), but my school doesn’t offer very many languages (French, Spanish, German!, Chinese), and even if it did, there’s no more room in my schedule for one. The American school system definitely doesn’t make it easy to take lots of languages.
For sooth! Thou ‘s most…
Ack. I give up.
XD
My native language is german. I learned english, rench and latin in school, started learning japanese later and know a few phrases in spanish. I also had a few discussions with native speakers of hebrew, finnish and other slavic languages about the grammatical peculiarities of their tongues.
Having said as much, I think english has to be one of the easiest languages to learn for non-native speakers. The grammar is ridiculously easy. Conjugation and declension are almost non-existant compared with other languages.
Some spellings and pronounciations are what you would call unintuitive, but those are details not really necessary for successful communication – most people will gather from context whether their conversation partner is talking about bears or beers ;-)
did you learn english with an american accent by any chance? where i come from bears and beers sound completely different i thought it silly that they could possibly be muddled. Ha.
Cosmopolitanism = homogenization.
Mandarin Chinese + English + ? = ?
One time two Russians were in New York and they needed directions. They initially asked three New Yorkers in Russian but none of them understood. So one of the Russians asked in French. Still no luck. Finally, the other one asked in German but to no avail. The Russians gave up and disgustingly walked away. One of the New Yorkers said, “You know, it’s about time I learned a foreign language.” Another of New Yorkers replied, “What for? Those guys knew three different foreign languages and it didn’t help them.”
*
I’m sick of hearing Europeans complain that Americans don’t know anything about International culture. The US is roughly the size of the ENTIRE CONTINENT of Europe. Why don’t Americans speak 3 languages? Because California and Boston speak (roughly) :D the same language.
The same goes for culture. Americans don’t know as much about the intricacies of French culture as an Italian for a simple reason: America’s ON THE OTHER SIDE ON AN OCEAN.
The end.
I think Klingon should be added the Rosetta Project. We should be proactive now, so that we can communicate with them when they arrive in a few hundred years.
Languages are just like animals in this way. When they go extinct, they get turned into stone and buried for long periods of time until somebody digs them up again and tries to reconstruct them. The Rosetta Stone was like the ichthyosaur of all languages. There was also the Epic of Gilgamesh with its Cuneiform writing which was like the Tyrannosaurus Rex of all languages. Languages without written components, like shell-less invertebrates, do not get fossilized. This project is like the thylacine in the jar of preservative, on a grand scale.
In this extended metaphor, Latin is the little dinosaur that evolved into the archeopteryx and from there into all the myriad birds in the world, and Anglo-Saxon is the little rat creature that evolved into all the various hairy beasts of the world. Neither of them is around anymore, but their descendants are, in great numbers. And one of those descendants of the Anglo-Saxon rat creature is in the process of taking over the world.
And thus can the English language be directly compared to the human race.
Some things about language in Flanders, where I come from.
We are the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. The other part speaks French, a few speak German. Everyone in Belgium is tought Dutch and French in school, but most Flemish have great trouble with French and most Walloons have trouble with Dutch.
Virtually everyone in Flanders speaks reasonable English, because from an early age we watch English movies and shows with Dutch subtitles.
Every single tiny village in Flanders used to have it’s own dialect, with differences in accent, vocabulary, expressions… from the next village. These are dissappearing now, but people from one side of Flanders still have trouble understanding people from the other side. And it’s a very small country…
For some reason, people from the north of Holland don’t understand us at all, while we understand them reasonably well. They do sound like cats making love to a frog. I think my particular brand of Dutch sounds a bit like Danish.
And then there’s Brussels, where they speak French with Flemish accents, proverbs etc.
Oddly, we don’t have a common phrase for “I love you”, the closest we get is “‘k zin aa geire” (I like seeing you). This is a bit of a problem in Flemish love songs.
There should be at least 7000 more Rosetta Discs for all the variants of Flemish alone. I’ve always wondered if this is the same in other countries.
Going back to a few early points:
Mandarin may be the most spoken 1st language, but only because there are over a billion Chinese people speaking it. English is the most spoken language on the planet because, and I hope you Americans are paying attention to this, not because America is a global superpower, it is because Britain was expanding its worldwide empire, and spreading our culture / language, while you were just shooting natives and pinching their land! English has been used around the globe ALOT longer than your country has even existed for. So to claim that it is on its way to becoming the universal because of you is quite ridiculous!
I do, on the whole, like Americans, but your general egotistical naivety frustrates me!
I can speak relatively fluently in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. Maybe because English is my native language, but I find it the easiest to communicate in. I go all over Europe on business, and it’s always conducted in English, but I’ve always tried to speak to people in their own tongue because they really appreciate it. Nothing gets business going smoother then getting drunk with a group of German while they’re trying to teach you to sing Das Lied der Deutschen.
Languages may come and go but people will always be protective of their language.
On the previously mentioned connection between language and brain patterns, I saw an experiment a few years ago based on colours. A couple of scientists were in Africa talking to a regional tribe, they showed them a screen with 12 coloured squares on and asked them to point out the odd one out. Seeing the screen it was obvious there were 11 green squares and 1 blue, but no one from this tribe could differentiate. They then showed the 12 squares again and asked the same question, this time I could tell no difference, they all looked green to me, but all the tribe pointed to the same square. This was basically because this tribe has many different names for different greens, and nothing for blue. Because they talk about colours in a different way, they see differently to English speakers. So language is more more than just words.
I expected the article to be about the Rosetta stone. Oh well, the project will do. It is an awesome idea.