I think learning a second language is such an eye opener. It changes the way you think. As South Africans, we had to start learning English at six years old. It was initially very mind-twisting.
Excellent Dr. Harrison. I am currently teaching an introductory summer course entitled "Languages in Danger" at Western Washington University using your book and the video 'The Linguists'.
I get depressed when I visit my relatives in Sicily and none of the young people want to speak Sicilian. They want to be American, meanwhile their beautiful culture is rapidly dying.
Great work! I hope more people see the power of their language.. Unfortunately, most people just giggle about it, because it's allways concerning minorities.. Just like my own language, when spoken elsewhere in the region, we are being laughed at, and called "dumb farmers" This is the place where the dying out should stop - by the "bigger people" stopping to put us down, and respect even the smaller cultures/population.There is NO acknowledgement whatsoever..Please change that :-) Gr8 vid!
my syntax professor studied irish, it pretty much defies and challenges the chomskian structure of underlying language, that paradigm, interesting language, one of the few european people who weren't done away with by modern europ's ancestors: gaelic & basque
@NorseRonin Depends on your field. Specify in certain modern languages and can easily get a job teaching that language, especially if it's in demand like English. Anything to do with computers (computational linguistics) will pay the best these days, I believe.
I agree with you, but I can see OP's point because languages have died before, we have lost knowledge that may be considered valuable, but we survived. There will always be new thinkers and inventors, new storytellers and rulers. Things do change and die, and the the world really doesn't *need* to record everything in a culture, even if it could be interesting and useful. I think OP simply wants to say that languages die, and studying them is kind of like reviving a dead thing, it stifles change
Maybe you're thinking of Scottish Gaelic vs. Irish Gaelic, which the Irish never spoke. Irish has been on the rebound for some time, is fully modernized and no longer in danger of dying. (Scottish) Gaelic isn't in as good shape but it's hanging on and being encouraged and protected by law.
offical: ATTENTION mankind: Nyungar language from south west of Western Australia is now extinct- this is written with respect and with deep hurt and sadness, jopossum
I can't even remember what my original comment was about, and I don't intend to watch this vid again to figure it out. They wouldn't delete a comment that was valid and didn't contain something inappropriate. They leave up porn advert comments and racist comments (which is fine [see: free speech], just using those as an example for the argument against your guess).
Beowolf was written in a "basically" extinct language. Aren't we glad someone knew how to translate it? Can you imagine if someone of the caliber of Shakespeare, Goethe, or Dante had written in an extinct language and nobody could read it? Try reading the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example. You'll go crazy. The orginal clay tablets it was written on were smashed in a war. The translation frequently says "fragment missing". What a terrible loss to humanity! Such a waste of genius!
i'm thinking about becoming a linguist, is there jobs and things that are readily available after training that pay enough for me to live "comfortably"? i don't want to become a homeless linguist is what i'm saying :P
Oh wait, looking at the video thumbnails on the comments page reminded me of what my comment was about. I believe my comment was a criticism of how the interviewer has more camera time and is better lit than the person being interviewed. I'd rather see the person talking not watch the over-acting interviewer blink and look serious.
@slimithy13 It can die within a few years. That's not hard to believe, and very few millions speak it and it's mostly in Italy, itself. Less and less people speak it. It's not really required and more Italians are learning other languages as well.
@speedproductions797 Yes, I learned this while learning French and Italian. Even the Italian language is going to die. The board of education got rid of the Italian AP test. Why would students want to learn Italian now if they can't take the AP test? and Italian is the closest language to Latin....
@NorseRonin be careful what languages you study. think about where you want to live and what kind of work you want to do. try to avoid academic dead-ends. Arabic, Chinese, Spanish are all eminently useful and employable, but there are others. good luck
You don't seem to understand the definition of the word "analogy." The person used Babel (a ficitional place/building) in place of actual historical facts. This is always bad. Let's talk about how languages REALLY arose and became so varied. To dismiss an issue with fiction only does more damage.
Laz and Mingrelian languages are dying Georgia and Turkey.Young people dont speak Laz in towns, in villages parents dont wanna teach the tongue and Turkish afraid roughly 60 years later there will be not Laz
I don't think accusing someone of being uneducated, crazy, and republican actually adds anything of value to this conversation. Stay on topic and you will sound far more intelligent.
I don't apprciate that your comment has been graded so bad but you're point is terribly weak. What you claim is impossible because all languages evolve out an anterior one. If English wasn't so popular, you wouldn't give a crap about learning it.
@femmefatale1990 Language endangerment doesn't even happen until the oldest fluent speakers die off, and as kids still learn it in Italy, that would take at least 100 years from now. Then at least 1 more generation for the speakers with some knowledge to die out and the language with it. Don't talk out of your butt, please.
Crisis! He says. In a language that was born of extinct languages. There is no crisis. Languages evolve, flourish, and die. English will too. It's nice to study them, but their demise is far from a crisis, but more a matter of course.
keeping languages alive is inefficient though. I understand studying them, recording them, analyzing them and gleaning their knowledge but to assume that we could ever keep a dying language alive, or SHOULD keep it alive is silly. The very fact that it is dying is a sign that it has lost its real usefulness. It doesn't mean there aren't things we can learn from them, but it would be too expensive and down right ignorant to pretend it is important to keep them living.
yes go and visit the places where languages are dying, aren't they all just perfect examples of paradise? or are they crap-holes of backwardness? maybe they are spoken by the last denizens of failed societies. study what you want, interesting film, but I won't waste time weeping for them.
I think learning a second language is such an eye opener. It changes the way you think. As South Africans, we had to start learning English at six years old. It was initially very mind-twisting.
Excellent Dr. Harrison. I am currently teaching an introductory summer course entitled "Languages in Danger" at Western Washington University using your book and the video 'The Linguists'.
Very enlightening and effective! I still feel its relevance despite being released 12 years ago!
I get depressed when I visit my relatives in Sicily and none of the young people want to speak Sicilian. They want to be American, meanwhile their beautiful culture is rapidly dying.
Excellent interview and excellent job the one done by Dr Harrison. Thanks to Mr Molaro for let us know.
wonderful guy! wonderful projects! wonderful views!
The science bias, and the progress bias, don't fall prey to them!
Interesting material. Thanks for the video. I actually live in the Kashuby region in Poland. The local dialect is also dieing out.
I remembered being invited to watch this during a presentation in linguist anthropology during a seminar.
Wow, awesome. I wish I could find that movie somewhere, but Ironbound doesn't offer any information about purchase.
Thanks for sharing.
Great work! I hope more people see the power of their language.. Unfortunately, most people just giggle about it, because it's allways concerning minorities.. Just like my own language, when spoken elsewhere in the region, we are being laughed at, and called "dumb farmers"
This is the place where the dying out should stop - by the "bigger people" stopping to put us down, and respect even the smaller cultures/population.There is NO acknowledgement whatsoever..Please change that :-)
Gr8 vid!
It has yet to be released. Netflix has it on it's waiting list.
my syntax professor studied irish, it pretty much defies and challenges the chomskian structure of underlying language, that paradigm, interesting language, one of the few european people who weren't done away with by modern europ's ancestors: gaelic & basque
@NorseRonin Depends on your field. Specify in certain modern languages and can easily get a job teaching that language, especially if it's in demand like English. Anything to do with computers (computational linguistics) will pay the best these days, I believe.
I agree with you, but I can see OP's point because languages have died before, we have lost knowledge that may be considered valuable, but we survived. There will always be new thinkers and inventors, new storytellers and rulers. Things do change and die, and the the world really doesn't *need* to record everything in a culture, even if it could be interesting and useful. I think OP simply wants to say that languages die, and studying them is kind of like reviving a dead thing, it stifles change
language is politics. money rules. this guy does a great job. I wish I could spend my life doig this kind of thing.
Maybe you're thinking of Scottish Gaelic vs. Irish Gaelic, which the Irish never spoke. Irish has been on the rebound for some time, is fully modernized and no longer in danger of dying. (Scottish) Gaelic isn't in as good shape but it's hanging on and being encouraged and protected by law.
Learn Gaelic. It's what the Irish once spoke, before Britain invaded.
It sounds INCREDIBLE, and it's almost dead.
offical: ATTENTION mankind: Nyungar language from south west of Western Australia is now extinct- this is written with respect and with deep hurt and sadness, jopossum
Could we get USA-Americans to be bilingual by teaching them the easy, neutral, second language, Esperanto? Thousands of Esperanto speakers think so.
Some laguages are only spoken others are written and spoken
Why did you stop having these great talks with those great even thinkers before they became globally cannonized in their branches?
I can't even remember what my original comment was about, and I don't intend to watch this vid again to figure it out. They wouldn't delete a comment that was valid and didn't contain something inappropriate. They leave up porn advert comments and racist comments (which is fine [see: free speech], just using those as an example for the argument against your guess).
Beowolf was written in a "basically" extinct language. Aren't we glad someone knew how to translate it?
Can you imagine if someone of the caliber of Shakespeare, Goethe, or Dante had written in an extinct language and nobody could read it?
Try reading the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example. You'll go crazy. The orginal clay tablets it was written on were smashed in a war. The translation frequently says "fragment missing". What a terrible loss to humanity! Such a waste of genius!
David Harrison is not only smart, but also hot as hell. Really... brains are what is most arousing in a man imho.
Odd, my comment vanished. I wonder if someone has a hard time accepting constructive criticism, or if it was just hiccup in the system.
i'm thinking about becoming a linguist, is there jobs and things that are readily available after training that pay enough for me to live "comfortably"? i don't want to become a homeless linguist is what i'm saying :P
Oh wait, looking at the video thumbnails on the comments page reminded me of what my comment was about. I believe my comment was a criticism of how the interviewer has more camera time and is better lit than the person being interviewed. I'd rather see the person talking not watch the over-acting interviewer blink and look serious.
sorry but couldn't help the fact to notice the women said suka at 1:53..lol other then that is very well done work good job.
@slimithy13 It can die within a few years. That's not hard to believe, and very few millions speak it and it's mostly in Italy, itself. Less and less people speak it. It's not really required and more Italians are learning other languages as well.
@speedproductions797 Yes, I learned this while learning French and Italian. Even the Italian language is going to die. The board of education got rid of the Italian AP test. Why would students want to learn Italian now if they can't take the AP test? and Italian is the closest language to Latin....
"ever since Babel" ... what does a folktale have to do with the actual reality of languages?
good
Wow, that's incredible, I didn't know that happens to linguistics; super intelligence!
I never said which part of the bible I thought it came from. Yes, it is indeed a folktale/myth.
i have a huge crush on david!
yep
Ukrainian is a dialect of the Russian just liek Azerbaijani of Turkish.After the Stalinisation of Soviets both of them borned as a language
Or if those incharge of youtube erased your statement
@carameluz Do you even know what you're talking about? The New Age movement is related to religion, spirituality, this is linguistics!
Some words sound like kazakh words
The two women were drunk. I would be discouraged as well.
It's a damn metaphor. What is so hard to understand about that?
@NorseRonin be careful what languages you study. think about where you want to live and what kind of work you want to do. try to avoid academic dead-ends. Arabic, Chinese, Spanish are all eminently useful and employable, but there are others. good luck
You don't seem to understand the definition of the word "analogy." The person used Babel (a ficitional place/building) in place of actual historical facts. This is always bad. Let's talk about how languages REALLY arose and became so varied. To dismiss an issue with fiction only does more damage.
Study linguistics + get a grant
Recruit me!
Laz and Mingrelian languages are dying Georgia and Turkey.Young people dont speak Laz in towns, in villages parents dont wanna teach the tongue and Turkish afraid roughly 60 years later there will be not Laz
9:30
“Imagine if half of the species on the species on the planet were gonna go extinct this century”
“Right.”
Hahahahahahahaha...oh no.
I don't think accusing someone of being uneducated, crazy, and republican actually adds anything of value to this conversation. Stay on topic and you will sound far more intelligent.
Go to university and you won't ask these kinds of questions.
If you haven't figured it out yet, pixelminx is saying LOL BIBLE IS FAKE
I don't apprciate that your comment has been graded so bad but you're point is terribly weak.
What you claim is impossible because all languages evolve out an anterior one.
If English wasn't so popular, you wouldn't give a crap about learning it.
Repeating yourself without moving forward in the conversation is not going to elicit a different response. Cry moar.
@femmefatale1990 Language endangerment doesn't even happen until the oldest fluent speakers die off, and as kids still learn it in Italy, that would take at least 100 years from now. Then at least 1 more generation for the speakers with some knowledge to die out and the language with it. Don't talk out of your butt, please.
Crisis! He says. In a language that was born of extinct languages. There is no crisis. Languages evolve, flourish, and die. English will too. It's nice to study them, but their demise is far from a crisis, but more a matter of course.
Languages will continue to die overtime until we get to a point where they'll only be one universal language, sad but it's the inevitable truth.
keeping languages alive is inefficient though. I understand studying them, recording them, analyzing them and gleaning their knowledge but to assume that we could ever keep a dying language alive, or SHOULD keep it alive is silly. The very fact that it is dying is a sign that it has lost its real usefulness. It doesn't mean there aren't things we can learn from them, but it would be too expensive and down right ignorant to pretend it is important to keep them living.
yes go and visit the places where languages are dying, aren't they all just perfect examples of paradise? or are they crap-holes of backwardness? maybe they are spoken by the last denizens of failed societies. study what you want, interesting film, but I won't waste time weeping for them.