Always remember this, as we head into the sad time of massive language extinctions that is coming. Ask around the village and find the age of the youngest people using a language every day for all their normal conversational interaction. If the answer is a number larger than 5, the language is probably dying. If the answer is a number larger than 10, it is very probably doomed. If the answer is a number larger than 20, you can kiss it goodbye right now: no amount of nostalgic appreciation of it will make it last even one more generation as a going concern. That's the way languages are.
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Language death
Today, Geoffrey K. Pullum takes a hard look at attempts to "revive" the Cornish language, and gives us this sobering conclusion:
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2 comments:
I remember in college that I attempted to learn some cornish, belive it or not. I think the only think I remember is something like "ewe aval" which is probably spelled all wrong, but it meant something like "I want an apple"
Chris Libby
Haha :D
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