Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!swrinde!pipex!uknet!festival!edcogsci!iad
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Language Extinction
Message-ID: <D4pCBJ.797@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3ir083$9dq@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 08:45:15 GMT
Lines: 46

In article <3ir083$9dq@agate.berkeley.edu> coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Coby (Jacob) Lubliner) writes:
>Am I the only one on the net with heart so hard as to be unmoved by
>the plight of languages facing extinction?

You're not, but few of those who feel that way have the courage to
make it known.  Here's what happens to the ones who do:

\begin{flame}

>Was there ever a period in history (NOT prehistory) when languages
>did not die out as their speakers assimilated to more powerful cultures?

<biting his net.tongue before suggesting that the spread of US English
 is a result of assimilation to a most powerful lack of culture>

No, there wasn't.  Nor was there ever a period when people didn't die
in epidemies.  I take it we might as well bring back the plague.
(Same goes for war, famine and so on.)

>What happened to Oscan, Umbrian, Messapian, Ligurian,
>Etruscan, Rhaetian, Iberian, the Celtic languages of the Continent?

What happened to Smirnenski?  He died of tuberculosis (at the age of 25).
So why did people bother to look for a treatment for it?  It's a natural
thing, is it not?

>Great careers in Egyptology and Assyriology would not have happened
>if the respective languages had remained alive.

Possibly, but all those great careers put together can't be counted as
more than the meagrest compensation for the loss of the respective
languages.  I'm sure that no great Egyptologist or Assyriologist could
have been pleased that the respective languages had died, enabling him
to make a name for himself.

>Let's face it, folks, (language) shift happens!

True, but that doesn't mean that we have to be happy with it
and should not do what we can to prevent it.

\end{flame}
-- 
`I'm sendin a flood tae pit an end tae it aw.  But dinny worry yersel, Noah.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)    (J Stuart, _Auld Testament Tales_)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
