cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/cool/p/1517755/game-designed-to-save-dying-aboriginal-language-wins-global-awards
With only eight fluent Nyiyaparli speakers remaining, an Aboriginal group is racing against time to save its 41,000-year-old language.
Wish them luck, but I honestly feel like this should be more about preserving a dying language over saving it. From the numbers provided in the article I would highly doubt this can save it. It can definitely draw attention and allow it to be preserved a lot easier though, which will help it be recognized easier in the future.
What is the distinction between saving and preserving a language?
This might not be totally the right definition, but I think it is:
Latin is dead, but we still understand it. There’s no one left who speaks it really, but we know how to use it.
Isn’t the ‘dead’ part more that nobody speaks it as a mother tongue any more, so it doesn’t really evolve like a living language would even though it’s still spoken in specific contexts? I think it contrasts with an extinct language which nobody speaks for any reason.
I’m just guessing what they meant but I took it as the difference between:
saving = getting enough people to keep speaking it that it remains a living language
preserving = documenting it for posterity so that it is not utterly forgotten for all time
Everyone should learn Esperanto and all other languages should be archived.
Dear heavens, no! Miss me with that masculine-as-default bullshit
Even most Esperanto speakers have abadoned the ideology of Finvenkismo (the belief that Esperanto will become the primary language of the world, overtaking other languages) as it’s both unrealistic and has several flaws
Esperanto is a flawed, Eurocentric language, and we should celebrate linguistic diversity, not treat it as a problem needing to be solved
I was only joking. Esperanto is cool but obviously not going to overtake all other languages lol
The concept of a global language is compatible with linguistic diversity. The Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves all have their own languages, but they also speak the same Common Tongue.
Our world just doesn’t have a common tongue. It has a handful of very colonially dominant languages.
That’s the utilitarian point of view. Even though I often take this POV on many subjects, it would be totalitarian to apply it to cultural matters. Should we adopt one world cuisine that is the easiest to work with? Should we settle everyone on one musical scale and religion, too? It would be a lot more efficient and would facilitate global interaction better.
Only problem: it would erase who we are.
Diversity is a good thing
No. Everyone should learn Esperanto as a second language and preserve the cultural tapestry of existing languages.
All cultural loss is a tragedy.