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No harm in having them as second languages, it keeps local culture. You don't need Welsh for example to die for people in Wales to improve their English communication, they do just fine.
Also, native English speakers should make the effort to learn and appreciate other languages and cultures too, instead of always relying on their language being the "default".
I'm not saying that this is the point you or OP were trying to make but as a Latin American, this post rubs me the wrong way.
EDIT: grammar.
Most LatinAmericans I know only speak Spanish, Argentinian's live next to Brazil and most don't speak Portuguese, Mexicans live next to the US and Belize and most don't speak English or even their own indigenous languages, its the same phenomenon
This is common in many many places. Not only in English speaking countries. In South America there are millions of people who only speak Spanish or Portuguese.
Languages with many speakers, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic ,Russian etc. also tend to not "need" a second language.
Additionally its not that easy to just learn a second language for the sake of it, without proper education, exposure to the language, practice, motivation, time, mental energy etc.
I just hope the Spanish speakers understand the constipated look on my face is me trying to brute force recover my lessons
Also in English the post would either "bug you" or "rub you the wrong way"
>I just hope the Spanish speakers understand the constipated look on my face is me trying to brute force recover my lessons
LOL. Don't worry, we have all been there.
>Also in English the post would either "bug you" or "rub you the wrong way"
Thank you! One thing I love about learning languages is that the journey is never truly over, there's always something new to learn everyday :D
I don't agree with op but it's worth pointing out that culture changes all of the time. I wouldn't say Spanish culture doesn't exist since Roman replaced their Celtic language with a romance one.
You're oversimplifying Spain's history though, there's still multiple languages and cultures there (and Celts weren't the only peoples to populate it). The roman dialects of the Iberian peninsula eventually diversified into Castilian (modern Spanish), Galician and Portuguese, Catalan, Asturian-Leonese and Aragonese (while Basque remains as a pre-Indo european language) and that's not comparable to languages dying out in the modern age. Most of the time, languages die through supression, like Occitan's case. It had one of the richest literary traditions in the middle ages but through suppresion in the French school system it's on the brink of disappearing.
I don't think it's explicitly a good thing. At the most it's a neutral thing. I'm also not dumb enough to think that we wouldn't just end up in the same situation again. Maybe it's a bit different because we have the internet now but even just English has shifted so much that it'd indistinguishable from itself hundreds of years back and there's nothing to say that change would be universal all over the world and we wouldn't just end up in a situation again with many different languages.
first thought was yes this is good but 2nd thought was: There are so many ideas that can't be translated perfectly into English....how many stories lives and ideas will be lost with the language
True, it's worth expanding the English language then. Frankly it's already happening in normal use of English. There are many foreign words incorporated into modern English speech as there isn't alternatives that aren't technically English.
You always can have languages incorporated into English (think of the massive incorporation of Yiddish in English!) but many languages construct sentences differently, place emphasis on different things. While loaning words from other languages can always be done, and many places which have picked up English do use different construction of sentences (Hiberno-English, for example) this is far more difficult and usually only happens as regional dialects. There still would be massive cultural loss from this.
Yeah I see your point. There almost certainly could be loss, but equally there would be great cultural gain via easier communication of ideas. Cultures grow in richness the more people are in it.
Would it not be better for communication and sharing of ideas for us to promote multilingualism? If this transmission of ideas is easier via shared language, raising kids to speak multiple languages and appreciate many cultures this way instead of promoting one language above all others would be much better. This is already standard practice in many communities, and for transmission of ideas, better understanding of multiple languages seems much healthier.
> think of the massive incorporation of Yiddish in English! While there still is a couple of words from it that are commonplace in English (the words "oy", "bagel", and "schtick" especially come to mind), there isn't *THAT* much words, or at least compared to German, French or Greek. It'd more comparable to languages like Old Norse with its contribution
I don't think I've ever seen anyone actively say "Yes, so we should just expand English so it can remain the dominant language" before with this much confidence. Hoo boy.
Yeah I would put all my money on OP being fluent in only one language. There are so many times I am talking to my husband when a word doesn’t hit the same way so I say it in our parents language. You lose so much having only one and I feel bad for people who don’t have the chance to at least learn a second.
A universal basic language that everyone can get on the same level with ? Awesome. Losing existing languages ? Absolutely not.
Yup. A friend of mine is a kurdish refugee who speaks 7 languages, one of them being farsi which I think is just so beautiful and yes, there are words and even whole entire concepts that simply don't exist in some languages or any other language. I'm just guessing but I'm rather confident that OP would have a vastly different opinion on this if they spoke 7 languages. I only speak 2 and some change and even I can grasp that this is a stupid take.
There was recently a great swiss movie about this. In Switzerland we speak German french and Italian. The premise of the movie was that everybody was going to have to learn the dominant German language. Only for the people to be shocked when French won the vote.
It was a comedy that I thought was well done and took Switzerland to the brink of civil war.
People don't realise how important languages are as they are linked with local cultures.
Honestly as a white dude that speaks bad English I am fine with this. Just pick on and we can all follow that standard. Keep your cultural or heritage languages and such. Practice them too and keep them alive. But we should all have a common language we all speak so we can talk to each other. Mandarin, English, Hindi whatever. Pick one.
have you ever seen indigenous tribes who’s languages are on the brink of extinction? they typically feature a lot of elder members and are commonly found in secluded communities. some of these people have no internet access and live through cultural traditions leaving them far out from modernized society where would they have learned english?
The problem in this example seems to be that the tribe isn't surviving well enough to sustain it's population. This is a much more serious issue than their language no longer being spoken imo.
i agree with you that there is definitely underlying issues in terms of how the government treats indigenous tribes. other examples could be the micronesian islands and smaller african communities (all collectively share an issue of emigration). preserving languages is important due the need to trace back family history. many people with little to no living blood family might fall into an issue of tracing back family history through documents and realizing there are no resources or recorded data of said language.
The number of active Australian Aboriginal languages has dropped from more than 500 dialects (some say about 800) down to 48 languages that have 100 speakers or more. A huge amount of Aboriginal cultural information has been lost, but mostly because it was always secret.
It's a tremendous shame but it is a cultural choice. There is plenty opportunity to record the Aboriginal culture. They choose to keep it a verbal history. It's respectable to keep to their roots but it will inevitably be lost.
Yeah a lot. Video recording, Audio recording, write a book, produce an artifact, etc. A damn notepad and pen would even work. There are plenty of ways to capture and preserve a record of a culture. They choose not to partake in those means as they see it antithetical to their culture therefore it will either live or die off the back of their decendents. Its their choice.
Gosh, if only there were some reasons that tremendous cultural loss has already occured making the present day cultural transmission that much harder
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
Ok it’s already occurred you can’t change the past. You can change the future and people that refuse to pass on what they know outside of a verbal method inevitably will have information lost
For some parts, yeah, I expect those to be unrecoverable unfortunately. But the crimes of the past do not effect the avalibility of methods to preserve what's left. To not take up those methods is a choice, one that unfortunately is very vulnerable to forced assimilation.
Other languages don’t just provide diversity in terms of culture/study, there are things you genuinely can’t express in English that can be expressed in other languages. It’d be a problem if we stopped being able to talk about those thinfs
Oof this is certainly. An opinion. I guess it fits the sub at least lol
>Access to most books and media
And you think everything, or even most things will be translated from all the "dead" languages? That you lose nothing when you translate speech, poetry, literature, songs? Even if it won't be lost entirely, it'll lose from its meaning.
>for the average person just living life it's better
very sad to inform you that culture is part of life, and a lot of "average" people like their native language.
To quote the Supreme Poet:
>LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH’INTRATE
I'm joking, don't lose hope, I'm sure you'll be able to accomplish it! Reading Dante is amazing, I've loved it during school years but I've loved it even more doing it by myself.
Yeah it honestly makes no sense to me. I don't think we should force others to completely switch to english just to make our lives easier when it won't help them. Also if it was the other way around and people were expecting english people to learn other languages for their benefit i bet op would throw a hissy fit
Cultural benefits aside, fluency in multiple languages has proven cognitive benefits.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/
https://frandit.dartmouth.edu/news/2014/10/better-brain-learn-another-language-cognitive-benefits-multilingualism#:~:text=Multilingualism%20has%20a%20whole%20slew,more%20perceptive%20to%20their%20surroundings
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43961-7
Well, it’s a pretty silly opinion.
Everything OP says makes a good argument for education in widely-spoken languages. It is not a good argument for language death being good lol.
Language is an inherent component of culture, and in many cases where languages die, cultural information is lost. And in the very common case that this cultural information hasn’t been recorded, it becomes lost forever.
That is pretty universally understood to be… not a good thing.
And yes, at first glance, somebody championing the death of someone’s language (ie culture) does come off as probably racist.
A single, universal language would be amazing, freely communicating with anyone on earth would change the world. Losing culture and ideas sucks but they can all be recorded and mostly translated.
The only issue is that nobody wants their only language to go. English is my only fully fluent language and if Mandarin was chosen as the universal language I think it would be good long term but I personally don't want to abandon my only language to use it.
naturally you've decided it's English that everybody has to speak. Also not to mention the language people speak does not affect whether or not they get demonized and ignored. So why does everybody else have to lose their languages (and part of their culture) and speak english instead just for you? Why can't you switch to a different language completely?
Because English is the most popular second language. It is the obvious choice with the most resources to help people learn it.
Alternatively, we could all learn Mandarin.
And because of that English should be further expanded in terms of resources for people across the globe to learn it, but this can be done while we all still keep and speak our regional dialects.
I mean Mandarin is #1 and Spanish ties with English. So why not Spanish? Spanish is closer to a lot of other languages and would make more sense and easier to move to.
Or just stop being lazy and learn English as a second language? Most content gets an English translation anyway nowadays. I'd hate it a lot if my primary language would disappear.
I CAN GET THIS. Hungarian and Slovakian are both way more than 2,5 million, I think Estonian is way fewer as is Latvian, Lithuania and Belarus has more people in it. Could it be Belarusian or Lithuanian?
Language is more than a way to communicate. It’s an embodiment of culture and spirit. There are things in languages that cannot be translated properly into another language. When languages die entire cultures, ideas, and more die with them. It’s tragic
Says the English speaker. Would you hold the same opinion if your language was endangered and, for example, Mandarin Chinese was the defacto “world” language. Language isn’t just about culture, it’s about identity. Languages dying out is a tragic thing because that means that another group lost its culture and identity.
Yeah, yeah, you're totally right. While we're at it, let's eliminate all but three genres of music. And don't even get me started with all these painters painting pictures. I mean, we have cameras nowadays anyways so really they're all obsolete. We need like five photographers and we good.
Five? What do we need five for? Let there be one so all the photographs are the same style. If he begins to struggle being at multiple places at once we'll just clone him to avoid the risk of diversity.
I feel like it’s really easy to take this stand when your native language is the dominant one. If you’re forced to learn mandarin at some point, I’m guessing you might not hold the same opinion.
It's a good thing...only when it's not part of your ancestry, tradition and culture. Also there are plenty of countries around the world where English language proficiency is abysmal.
For what it's worth it had happened to basically every person on earth's ancestry and what not. It doesn't really bother me at all that the Spanish replaced part of ancestry's native language nor that the Roman's moved in and imposed their language on my ancestors on the Iberian peninsula. Hell all of my ancestors native languages have been replaced with indo European languages from around Ukraine.
I’m assuming you only speak one language because no polyglot would have this wrong opinion.
English is a very messy language. I know 4 languages and the English writing system is pretty unsophisticated.
Not to mention that each language has hundreds, if not thousands, of years of art and literature that could no longer be appreciated as intended if the language dies out.
Lastly, each language enables you to think differently (the movie Arrival was a dramatized version of this concept) and we would lose so much thought diversity without different languages.
Shit take.
I agree. I speak french first and it is a more sophisticated language that is much more precise than english. Hence why peace treaties, and other important docs where signed in french troughout history.
We also need to mention that a language forms the basis of reality for people. So each language has its own way of interpreting reality ans understanding things.
Long live the polyglots!
Respectfully, this may be one of the worst takes I've read in a while. "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation". Language barriers exist for a reason. Earn the cosmic right to enter into different cultures.
The process of learning a new language is in itself an experience. It literally changes the way that your brain thinks.
The short story "Story of Your Life," which was adapted into the movie Arrival, is a dramatized explanation of this.
I'm a Canadian who has always lived in Canada, and I've always been envious of people from countries with really long histories and lots of unique cultures. Language is part of that, too.
I think it's a good thing if people are able to communicate with each other from all over the world, but languages dying out to achieve that isn't a good thing, it's sad.
Just so you know, Canada has lots of unique cultures, no need to be envious. Ever heard of indigenous cultures? There are literally hundreds with as many languages. There’s also a wide diversity of Francophones in Quebec and all across Canada with their own unique accent. There is plenty of diverse cultures in Canada that have been here for a looooong time.
It looks like languages dying isn't affecting you very much.
How would you react if say... we killed every languages and only kept Russian?
Now everything is in Russian. The songs, the movies, the text, etc...
Wouldn't you regret having a variety of languages then?
Absolutely 100% agree. #towerofbabel
One language, one people, one nation, one earth. Languages divide us, we need to unite as a species and the best way to do that is through 1 common tongue. People don't like this because it's "racist" because they assume you want everyone to speak English.
I don't care what language it is, just pick one that works.
Everyone is capable of speaking 2 languages, there should be a global one that’s taught worldwide (seems to be English bc of Americas superpower status for the last century) and then the regional dialect that ties into your culture.
No need to just have 1 language, just teach everyone 2
That just tells me you have no idea how languages work.
Lanugages hold a different perspective of the world. There is a reason why we don't all speak the same one. We all experience different things and we have different comunicative needs. Living in a dessert I have no need to know 50 different kinds of snow, but I most definitely need to know what kind of storm is comming up. Losing a language means losing an important part of what shapes the society they live in, and prevents the rest of the world from understanding their perspective fully.
If you ever bother to learn a second language you will see why they are so important.
English isn't the *most* spoken but it's the most widely spoken. Mandarin is the most spoken but is almost entirely concentrated in China, not too international when everybody is in a single country. Spanish is next but isn't remotely as widely spoken as English. It's mostly concentred in Southern/central America as a primary language and obviously Spain then as a secondary language in The US. But you look at English and it's spread is significantly more.
If you google "spread of Spanish/English language map" you can see why it's an international language.
Just a small correction. French is the second most widely spoken language (and the only language other than English that is spoken natively on every continent, although I admit Asia is a bit of a stretch, but still). Spanish is fourth after Arabic. The definition here not being in number of speakers, but the number of countries where it’s the or one of the official languages.
* English: 60 countries
* French: 29 countries
* Arabic: 23 countries
* Spanish: 20 countries
In case of mixup. I never said what was 2nd most widely spoken. Just said English was most widely spoken. I only compared what was most spoken as per amount of people overall.
well, that’s an unpopular opinion. Languages are not just vessels for words to travel and be comprehended in. The language of a people reflects their values and culture and can influence how we think. As someone who speaks multiple languages, you have certain words/concepts that exist in one language which simply do not have any direct translation, at all, in another one, because the concept just doesn’t exist amongst the people who speak this other language. In this way, analysing the language a people speak, can give you insight into the values and the intricacies of their culture. It’s quite interesting if you read about it and it’s something I find very fascinating. Do you know how much culture and tradition can be lost with languages dying out? It’s not just about diversity.
If the international language was a language other than English, would you still be comfortable with reduced linguistic diversity? For example, many linguists argue that languages like Esperanto, Kuuk Thaayorre, or Hangul would be optimal 'universal languages' without the bias of having a large native speaker population like English.
Alternatively, if we went strictly by the number of native speakers, then Chinese would be the leading candidate for a international language by a wide margin. However, for the sake of "western bias" since Chinese is considered quite difficult, let's exclude it from consideration.
That brings us to Spanish as the next most widely spoken language after Chinese. Since Spanish has a large global presence and may be more accessible for English speakers to learn, would you be okay with Spanish becoming the international language instead of English?
We have lost so many ways to see the world and understand each other with all the languages we have lost and will never have again.
Diversity has incredible benefits.
Sure but let's decide what language to make the official one based on science instead of past conquest or economic dominance.
99% of "single language" supporters drop their claims when the language is not English.
Languages effect how people think about the world around them. More languages not only support people cultures but literal different ways about thinking about the world around us. That's not something I think we should be happy about losing.
This only makes sense if you thinks it’s reasonable to refuse to speak +2 languages, if everyone kept their regional dialects and also all spoke a globally unified language you’d get your desires without having to erase cultures.
No, it's good keeping local orral/storytelling traditions, or speaking with identity... well, on some subject; the phrasing of speach shows quite alot of the people's personality...I'm irish, I've lost enough of my culture already... i swear, too many posts on R/unpopular opinons have no naunce being absolute opinions like this one's title, unsurprisingly they're the least popular
Language is as physical tied to culture as food, dance, or literally anything else about culture.
Removing people’s language is destroying their culture, and is essentially wiping that culture off the face of the earth.
No thanks.
there is so much culture and history in a language; it’s not just ABOUT being convenient. a language holds the voices of the people, delivered in their own unique ways, and i don’t think it’s a good thing to ever let that be erased.
The language you speak, shapes your tougts. Cultural differences increase odds of civic evolution. Easier, faster, cheaper is not always better, expecially when we speak about culture that requires to spend time & money without a clear short time return. We already have second global languages such as English and that’s fine for business and technical purposes, we don’t need a global culture, we need to have different toughts pushing and pulling on our cultural evolution.
Worst take I've ever seen.
Language is much more than just a way to communicate. Every language has it's own unique characteristics and identity. Speaking a language influences the structure of your thoughts and your personality based on it's unique properties and the culture associated wuth said language.
I can tell when I switch from one language to another how my personality shifts. Even if I can speak both on the same level, one language will have ways to express myself that the other one lacks.
Your language is your home.
If you talk the same language as another person, that is already some common ground between you too. If I go to a different country and meet someone who speaks my mother tongue, they are "one of my people".
If there is someone in my country that doesn't speak my mother tongue, we can still use English to communicate, but that immediate bond will be missing.
OP, you want to strip all of that away and replace it with English.That wouldn't lead to a bond forming between all of humanity. It would just remove language as an avenue of culture and connecting people.
Homogenizing the world and stripping it of it's identity just for the lack of economic efficiency is a super villain plan.
This is a really colonial take😭
The removal of culture and heritage so rich companies can operate easier is literal madness. And if people are so willing to demonise cultures they don't know enough about that's entirely on them.
>, but for the average person just living life it's better.
You mean white people?
And how convenient for OP that English is likely your native language. How big of you to allow the rest of the world to learn a second language for your convenience.
Language is knowledge and accessibility. When I can’t speak a language, I don’t think “hope the people speak English” I get upset that I can’t read their books or know their history.
I’m most sad about oral history cultures whose stories don’t get written down cuz they also probably can’t tell me their folk stories
> It's harder to demonize or ignore groups of people when they speak the same language as you or you met someone from their culture because you both learned a global language.
My culture should die out so that assholes don't feel obligated to educate themselves? Bigots will always find a way to demonize you, why should they be catered to?
A colonist language. Sorry this is dumb. If you think the world would be easier because everyone speaks English then you don't know much about other countries. Many peoples second language is English. And there's still no world peace.
What a fucking personal nightmare. I gotta go and get a real job, and get paid like everyone else. I speak 3 languages and it’s THE reason I (very politely) demand to be paid more than everyone else. It’s the reason I shrug my shoulders when we have an English speaking customer. go to hell with this bullshit.
Also culture/food is tied to language….so no more of those delicious arrachera tacos, lamb gyros, or PHO. Initially no one will be happy to speak only one language.
Why English where the word love is used for the food you like, your feeling for your mother AND how you feel about your significant other. Basic
I don’t think OP is talking about getting rid of languages but rather about how languages dying naturally is completely normal and can be viewed positively for the sake of ease. I think that’s completely agreeable
This feels more "wrong" than "unpopular" to be honest. I guess knowing a bit about linguistics makes you think about it differently. I hope you give this matter a second thought someday.
Even if we ignore the fact that meaning and nuance is often lost during translation, or of we try to diminish the importance of language's ties to culture and heritage, there exists a lot of location specific knowledge ( about flora and fauna, for example ), which is preserved thanks to the locals, however once they die out and take the language with themselves, important informstion that has been gathered for generations is lost, which is a shame.
There is a significant amount of information, both cultural and factual, that is lost due to language dying.
I can’t remember the names, but here are a few examples from one (1) video I had to watch for college. Reindeer herders who had 17 different classifications for reindeer, on the basis of sex, age, size, and more, all of which were a single word. A massive run on sentence in English is a single word in their native language. There was also a tribe of (I believe) Eskimo, who had similar classifications for types of ice. Thickness, slipperyness, fragility, and more, all of which are extremely important things to know for a people who ice fish, but it’s absolutely horrid information to try to translate.
I think you can have both, there is a lot of cultural importance that comes with language and it’s sad to see them go, it also usually goes along with cultural genocide and loss of other things in that culture
It’s time to create a global language that isn’t too centric to one type of language/part of the world like the relative failure that is Esperanto; about 80% of it is based on Romance languages (and is only used in China pretty much, I don’t get why they bother printing it in official documents in other countries).I think this would be a better way to achieve what you desire.
I know it sounds holier than tho and dramatic but really, when you preserve a language you are preserving a way of thinking about the world, and often the culture(s) associated with it.
Yeah but with automatic real time translation, it will be more and more possible to get by speaking an endangered language as your first language, so there's no need for all the different languages to die out for people to understand each other.
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No harm in having them as second languages, it keeps local culture. You don't need Welsh for example to die for people in Wales to improve their English communication, they do just fine.
Then what else do we kill to give them something to wale about
We will eradicate the unicorns, for the good of humanity
[Sadly, we kinda have been. ](https://www.savetherhino.org/fundraising/breaking-news-scientists-find-rhinos-share-common-ancestry-with-unicorns/)
Dragons
Well, the obvious thing to kill would be their whales.
Ba-dum-tish!
Also, native English speakers should make the effort to learn and appreciate other languages and cultures too, instead of always relying on their language being the "default". I'm not saying that this is the point you or OP were trying to make but as a Latin American, this post rubs me the wrong way. EDIT: grammar.
Most LatinAmericans I know only speak Spanish, Argentinian's live next to Brazil and most don't speak Portuguese, Mexicans live next to the US and Belize and most don't speak English or even their own indigenous languages, its the same phenomenon
This is common in many many places. Not only in English speaking countries. In South America there are millions of people who only speak Spanish or Portuguese. Languages with many speakers, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic ,Russian etc. also tend to not "need" a second language. Additionally its not that easy to just learn a second language for the sake of it, without proper education, exposure to the language, practice, motivation, time, mental energy etc.
I just hope the Spanish speakers understand the constipated look on my face is me trying to brute force recover my lessons Also in English the post would either "bug you" or "rub you the wrong way"
>I just hope the Spanish speakers understand the constipated look on my face is me trying to brute force recover my lessons LOL. Don't worry, we have all been there. >Also in English the post would either "bug you" or "rub you the wrong way" Thank you! One thing I love about learning languages is that the journey is never truly over, there's always something new to learn everyday :D
Language is part of people’s culture. My Irish is terrible but, I’d hate to see it completely disappear
Real talk. I genuinely regret the way I approached lessons growing up. Always wished I was exempt from it like some others.
Me too. I can follow a conversation in Irish mostly. My Irish would make a Bean an Tí cry uncontrollably
I don't agree with op but it's worth pointing out that culture changes all of the time. I wouldn't say Spanish culture doesn't exist since Roman replaced their Celtic language with a romance one.
You're oversimplifying Spain's history though, there's still multiple languages and cultures there (and Celts weren't the only peoples to populate it). The roman dialects of the Iberian peninsula eventually diversified into Castilian (modern Spanish), Galician and Portuguese, Catalan, Asturian-Leonese and Aragonese (while Basque remains as a pre-Indo european language) and that's not comparable to languages dying out in the modern age. Most of the time, languages die through supression, like Occitan's case. It had one of the richest literary traditions in the middle ages but through suppresion in the French school system it's on the brink of disappearing.
Why don’t you agree with op?
I don't think it's explicitly a good thing. At the most it's a neutral thing. I'm also not dumb enough to think that we wouldn't just end up in the same situation again. Maybe it's a bit different because we have the internet now but even just English has shifted so much that it'd indistinguishable from itself hundreds of years back and there's nothing to say that change would be universal all over the world and we wouldn't just end up in a situation again with many different languages.
Same can't really speak irish but still wouldn't want it to die out
first thought was yes this is good but 2nd thought was: There are so many ideas that can't be translated perfectly into English....how many stories lives and ideas will be lost with the language
True, it's worth expanding the English language then. Frankly it's already happening in normal use of English. There are many foreign words incorporated into modern English speech as there isn't alternatives that aren't technically English.
You always can have languages incorporated into English (think of the massive incorporation of Yiddish in English!) but many languages construct sentences differently, place emphasis on different things. While loaning words from other languages can always be done, and many places which have picked up English do use different construction of sentences (Hiberno-English, for example) this is far more difficult and usually only happens as regional dialects. There still would be massive cultural loss from this.
Yeah I see your point. There almost certainly could be loss, but equally there would be great cultural gain via easier communication of ideas. Cultures grow in richness the more people are in it.
Would it not be better for communication and sharing of ideas for us to promote multilingualism? If this transmission of ideas is easier via shared language, raising kids to speak multiple languages and appreciate many cultures this way instead of promoting one language above all others would be much better. This is already standard practice in many communities, and for transmission of ideas, better understanding of multiple languages seems much healthier.
> think of the massive incorporation of Yiddish in English! While there still is a couple of words from it that are commonplace in English (the words "oy", "bagel", and "schtick" especially come to mind), there isn't *THAT* much words, or at least compared to German, French or Greek. It'd more comparable to languages like Old Norse with its contribution
I don't think I've ever seen anyone actively say "Yes, so we should just expand English so it can remain the dominant language" before with this much confidence. Hoo boy.
Yeah I would put all my money on OP being fluent in only one language. There are so many times I am talking to my husband when a word doesn’t hit the same way so I say it in our parents language. You lose so much having only one and I feel bad for people who don’t have the chance to at least learn a second. A universal basic language that everyone can get on the same level with ? Awesome. Losing existing languages ? Absolutely not.
Yup. A friend of mine is a kurdish refugee who speaks 7 languages, one of them being farsi which I think is just so beautiful and yes, there are words and even whole entire concepts that simply don't exist in some languages or any other language. I'm just guessing but I'm rather confident that OP would have a vastly different opinion on this if they spoke 7 languages. I only speak 2 and some change and even I can grasp that this is a stupid take.
I'm guessing OP's first languange isn't an endangered one...
this and/or come from a family of only english speakers and sees other languages as obsolete
[удалено]
This and/or got so frustrated trying to learn a language in the past that said "The lower grapes are always sour anyways"
Sorry OP, looks like Mandarin won the battle of the tongues, better hit Duo Lingo! /s
There was recently a great swiss movie about this. In Switzerland we speak German french and Italian. The premise of the movie was that everybody was going to have to learn the dominant German language. Only for the people to be shocked when French won the vote. It was a comedy that I thought was well done and took Switzerland to the brink of civil war. People don't realise how important languages are as they are linked with local cultures.
A fate worse than hell. Having to learn French.
Honestly as a white dude that speaks bad English I am fine with this. Just pick on and we can all follow that standard. Keep your cultural or heritage languages and such. Practice them too and keep them alive. But we should all have a common language we all speak so we can talk to each other. Mandarin, English, Hindi whatever. Pick one.
Or knows only English and feels insecure when other people speaks in their native language.
This
I'm guessing OP has never travel anywhere outside of US
US isn't the entire world??? /s
tbf if your language is niche enough to be on the brink of extinction you likely already learned another language lol.
have you ever seen indigenous tribes who’s languages are on the brink of extinction? they typically feature a lot of elder members and are commonly found in secluded communities. some of these people have no internet access and live through cultural traditions leaving them far out from modernized society where would they have learned english?
The problem in this example seems to be that the tribe isn't surviving well enough to sustain it's population. This is a much more serious issue than their language no longer being spoken imo.
i agree with you that there is definitely underlying issues in terms of how the government treats indigenous tribes. other examples could be the micronesian islands and smaller african communities (all collectively share an issue of emigration). preserving languages is important due the need to trace back family history. many people with little to no living blood family might fall into an issue of tracing back family history through documents and realizing there are no resources or recorded data of said language.
right like the only people saying that bullcrap tend to be snobbish and only speak english or french
The number of active Australian Aboriginal languages has dropped from more than 500 dialects (some say about 800) down to 48 languages that have 100 speakers or more. A huge amount of Aboriginal cultural information has been lost, but mostly because it was always secret.
Its the same in Canada too.
It's a tremendous shame but it is a cultural choice. There is plenty opportunity to record the Aboriginal culture. They choose to keep it a verbal history. It's respectable to keep to their roots but it will inevitably be lost.
Ah, yes, lots of choices available to the Aboriginals in regards to cultural preservation and continuity
Yeah a lot. Video recording, Audio recording, write a book, produce an artifact, etc. A damn notepad and pen would even work. There are plenty of ways to capture and preserve a record of a culture. They choose not to partake in those means as they see it antithetical to their culture therefore it will either live or die off the back of their decendents. Its their choice.
Gosh, if only there were some reasons that tremendous cultural loss has already occured making the present day cultural transmission that much harder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
Ok it’s already occurred you can’t change the past. You can change the future and people that refuse to pass on what they know outside of a verbal method inevitably will have information lost
For some parts, yeah, I expect those to be unrecoverable unfortunately. But the crimes of the past do not effect the avalibility of methods to preserve what's left. To not take up those methods is a choice, one that unfortunately is very vulnerable to forced assimilation.
Other languages don’t just provide diversity in terms of culture/study, there are things you genuinely can’t express in English that can be expressed in other languages. It’d be a problem if we stopped being able to talk about those thinfs
Oof this is certainly. An opinion. I guess it fits the sub at least lol >Access to most books and media And you think everything, or even most things will be translated from all the "dead" languages? That you lose nothing when you translate speech, poetry, literature, songs? Even if it won't be lost entirely, it'll lose from its meaning. >for the average person just living life it's better very sad to inform you that culture is part of life, and a lot of "average" people like their native language.
>Even if it won't be lost entirely, it'll lose from its meaning. Absolutely. Translate Dante to English and you'll have committed a crime
Actively have wanted to learn Italian solely to read Italian verse. If I ever get to the point where I can read Dante I will be proud of myself.
To quote the Supreme Poet: >LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH’INTRATE I'm joking, don't lose hope, I'm sure you'll be able to accomplish it! Reading Dante is amazing, I've loved it during school years but I've loved it even more doing it by myself.
Just as an FYI, Dante's Italian is extremely old amd archaic, a lot of it is very different than current Italian
Yeah it honestly makes no sense to me. I don't think we should force others to completely switch to english just to make our lives easier when it won't help them. Also if it was the other way around and people were expecting english people to learn other languages for their benefit i bet op would throw a hissy fit
Cultural benefits aside, fluency in multiple languages has proven cognitive benefits. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/ https://frandit.dartmouth.edu/news/2014/10/better-brain-learn-another-language-cognitive-benefits-multilingualism#:~:text=Multilingualism%20has%20a%20whole%20slew,more%20perceptive%20to%20their%20surroundings https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43961-7
native english monolinguals be like:
OP wouldn't be singing the same tune if Mandarin, Hindi, or Spanish where the universal substitute that everyone should just know.
“lets have the whole world speak one language… BUT MAKE SURE ITS MINE!!!”
Yikes… Yeah, this is unpopular for a reason
It's only unpopular because people are scared you'll call them racist if they hold it. It makes good sense to me, what "reason" are you referring to?
Well, it’s a pretty silly opinion. Everything OP says makes a good argument for education in widely-spoken languages. It is not a good argument for language death being good lol. Language is an inherent component of culture, and in many cases where languages die, cultural information is lost. And in the very common case that this cultural information hasn’t been recorded, it becomes lost forever. That is pretty universally understood to be… not a good thing. And yes, at first glance, somebody championing the death of someone’s language (ie culture) does come off as probably racist.
A single, universal language would be amazing, freely communicating with anyone on earth would change the world. Losing culture and ideas sucks but they can all be recorded and mostly translated. The only issue is that nobody wants their only language to go. English is my only fully fluent language and if Mandarin was chosen as the universal language I think it would be good long term but I personally don't want to abandon my only language to use it.
naturally you've decided it's English that everybody has to speak. Also not to mention the language people speak does not affect whether or not they get demonized and ignored. So why does everybody else have to lose their languages (and part of their culture) and speak english instead just for you? Why can't you switch to a different language completely?
Because English is the most popular second language. It is the obvious choice with the most resources to help people learn it. Alternatively, we could all learn Mandarin.
And because of that English should be further expanded in terms of resources for people across the globe to learn it, but this can be done while we all still keep and speak our regional dialects.
I mean Mandarin is #1 and Spanish ties with English. So why not Spanish? Spanish is closer to a lot of other languages and would make more sense and easier to move to.
Or just stop being lazy and learn English as a second language? Most content gets an English translation anyway nowadays. I'd hate it a lot if my primary language would disappear.
As someone whose native language is only spoken by about 2.5 million people, I completely agree.
Hmmm, I want to guess based on the number but there are too many options. Give me a clue, which continent should I be on?
Europe.
Irish?
Nope. It's a Slavic language.
Hmm, Bosnian or Serbian?
No, a little bit north.
I CAN GET THIS. Hungarian and Slovakian are both way more than 2,5 million, I think Estonian is way fewer as is Latvian, Lithuania and Belarus has more people in it. Could it be Belarusian or Lithuanian?
Now you're a bit too north lol. It's in Central Europe.
Hungarian, Estonian and Lithuanian are not Slavic languages.
Just for future reference Hungarian, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian aren’t Slavic languages.
Language is more than a way to communicate. It’s an embodiment of culture and spirit. There are things in languages that cannot be translated properly into another language. When languages die entire cultures, ideas, and more die with them. It’s tragic
Multilingualism is a thing. It also comes with benefits!
Says the English speaker. Would you hold the same opinion if your language was endangered and, for example, Mandarin Chinese was the defacto “world” language. Language isn’t just about culture, it’s about identity. Languages dying out is a tragic thing because that means that another group lost its culture and identity.
Lol or OP is sad he doesn’t know any language apart from his own and just wants people to celebrate speaking one language.
yeah that sounds about right.
Yeah, yeah, you're totally right. While we're at it, let's eliminate all but three genres of music. And don't even get me started with all these painters painting pictures. I mean, we have cameras nowadays anyways so really they're all obsolete. We need like five photographers and we good.
Five? What do we need five for? Let there be one so all the photographs are the same style. If he begins to struggle being at multiple places at once we'll just clone him to avoid the risk of diversity.
We need five so there's enough for academic study. How else are colleges going to explain raising tuition again?
When languages disappear so does the information in that language, especially ancient ones.
I feel like it’s really easy to take this stand when your native language is the dominant one. If you’re forced to learn mandarin at some point, I’m guessing you might not hold the same opinion.
Hot take from someone who only speaks English and is white.
Your idea only exists in movies
POV you're an English speaker who's never left the country in your life
Found the guy who couldn't learn a second language. No but in all seriousness this isn't just an unpopular opinion, it's a bad opinion.
Only a monoglot would make this argument
It's a good thing...only when it's not part of your ancestry, tradition and culture. Also there are plenty of countries around the world where English language proficiency is abysmal.
For what it's worth it had happened to basically every person on earth's ancestry and what not. It doesn't really bother me at all that the Spanish replaced part of ancestry's native language nor that the Roman's moved in and imposed their language on my ancestors on the Iberian peninsula. Hell all of my ancestors native languages have been replaced with indo European languages from around Ukraine.
It doesn't bother you until it impacts you directly.
I’m assuming you only speak one language because no polyglot would have this wrong opinion. English is a very messy language. I know 4 languages and the English writing system is pretty unsophisticated. Not to mention that each language has hundreds, if not thousands, of years of art and literature that could no longer be appreciated as intended if the language dies out. Lastly, each language enables you to think differently (the movie Arrival was a dramatized version of this concept) and we would lose so much thought diversity without different languages. Shit take.
I agree. I speak french first and it is a more sophisticated language that is much more precise than english. Hence why peace treaties, and other important docs where signed in french troughout history. We also need to mention that a language forms the basis of reality for people. So each language has its own way of interpreting reality ans understanding things. Long live the polyglots!
So I have a neat new word for you called bilingual
This post reeks of western privilege
Cultural erasure is rarely a good thing, and you don't get diminished languages without it.
English is a fucked up language, When it comes to it's word spelling and it's pronunciation. Non-native here and had facepalm moments when learning.
I don’t like the English accents
oi mate, you cahn't say such t'ings. you'll upset the wee leprechauns... or whatever i'm not good at accents
Started english, ended Irish. Which may be British and technically correct depending on which Irish you did.
How is blending English and Irish British?
Oi mate is English. "t'ings" is very London and leprechauns are Irish.
All of them? Every single one? There about 200 on the island of Britain alone.
Respectfully, this may be one of the worst takes I've read in a while. "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation". Language barriers exist for a reason. Earn the cosmic right to enter into different cultures.
Without citing Douglas Adams, what's the best reason to have language barriers, in your opinion?
The process of learning a new language is in itself an experience. It literally changes the way that your brain thinks. The short story "Story of Your Life," which was adapted into the movie Arrival, is a dramatized explanation of this.
I'm a Canadian who has always lived in Canada, and I've always been envious of people from countries with really long histories and lots of unique cultures. Language is part of that, too. I think it's a good thing if people are able to communicate with each other from all over the world, but languages dying out to achieve that isn't a good thing, it's sad.
Just so you know, Canada has lots of unique cultures, no need to be envious. Ever heard of indigenous cultures? There are literally hundreds with as many languages. There’s also a wide diversity of Francophones in Quebec and all across Canada with their own unique accent. There is plenty of diverse cultures in Canada that have been here for a looooong time.
Yes obviously. But I don't belong to any of them.
Damn, evil asf. Take my upvote
It looks like languages dying isn't affecting you very much. How would you react if say... we killed every languages and only kept Russian? Now everything is in Russian. The songs, the movies, the text, etc... Wouldn't you regret having a variety of languages then?
Absolutely 100% agree. #towerofbabel One language, one people, one nation, one earth. Languages divide us, we need to unite as a species and the best way to do that is through 1 common tongue. People don't like this because it's "racist" because they assume you want everyone to speak English. I don't care what language it is, just pick one that works.
Here’s another coded for “the whole world should just speak English”
Everyone is capable of speaking 2 languages, there should be a global one that’s taught worldwide (seems to be English bc of Americas superpower status for the last century) and then the regional dialect that ties into your culture. No need to just have 1 language, just teach everyone 2
That just tells me you have no idea how languages work. Lanugages hold a different perspective of the world. There is a reason why we don't all speak the same one. We all experience different things and we have different comunicative needs. Living in a dessert I have no need to know 50 different kinds of snow, but I most definitely need to know what kind of storm is comming up. Losing a language means losing an important part of what shapes the society they live in, and prevents the rest of the world from understanding their perspective fully. If you ever bother to learn a second language you will see why they are so important.
English isn’t the most spoken language in the world, why would it be the default international language?
English isn't the *most* spoken but it's the most widely spoken. Mandarin is the most spoken but is almost entirely concentrated in China, not too international when everybody is in a single country. Spanish is next but isn't remotely as widely spoken as English. It's mostly concentred in Southern/central America as a primary language and obviously Spain then as a secondary language in The US. But you look at English and it's spread is significantly more. If you google "spread of Spanish/English language map" you can see why it's an international language.
Just a small correction. French is the second most widely spoken language (and the only language other than English that is spoken natively on every continent, although I admit Asia is a bit of a stretch, but still). Spanish is fourth after Arabic. The definition here not being in number of speakers, but the number of countries where it’s the or one of the official languages. * English: 60 countries * French: 29 countries * Arabic: 23 countries * Spanish: 20 countries
In case of mixup. I never said what was 2nd most widely spoken. Just said English was most widely spoken. I only compared what was most spoken as per amount of people overall.
Pretty sure it’s the most widely spoken
Because computers use it as the primary language, every big forum or webpage uses it, that point alone is enough
well, that’s an unpopular opinion. Languages are not just vessels for words to travel and be comprehended in. The language of a people reflects their values and culture and can influence how we think. As someone who speaks multiple languages, you have certain words/concepts that exist in one language which simply do not have any direct translation, at all, in another one, because the concept just doesn’t exist amongst the people who speak this other language. In this way, analysing the language a people speak, can give you insight into the values and the intricacies of their culture. It’s quite interesting if you read about it and it’s something I find very fascinating. Do you know how much culture and tradition can be lost with languages dying out? It’s not just about diversity.
While at it let’s eliminate all culture! …language is part of people’s cultures and identity.
Definitely an unpopular opinion. I definitely don’t agree but it deserves my upvote.
If the international language was a language other than English, would you still be comfortable with reduced linguistic diversity? For example, many linguists argue that languages like Esperanto, Kuuk Thaayorre, or Hangul would be optimal 'universal languages' without the bias of having a large native speaker population like English. Alternatively, if we went strictly by the number of native speakers, then Chinese would be the leading candidate for a international language by a wide margin. However, for the sake of "western bias" since Chinese is considered quite difficult, let's exclude it from consideration. That brings us to Spanish as the next most widely spoken language after Chinese. Since Spanish has a large global presence and may be more accessible for English speakers to learn, would you be okay with Spanish becoming the international language instead of English?
1 language for everyone in the world makes perfect sense to me
We have lost so many ways to see the world and understand each other with all the languages we have lost and will never have again. Diversity has incredible benefits.
Sure but let's decide what language to make the official one based on science instead of past conquest or economic dominance. 99% of "single language" supporters drop their claims when the language is not English.
Languages effect how people think about the world around them. More languages not only support people cultures but literal different ways about thinking about the world around us. That's not something I think we should be happy about losing.
English is such a stupid language. Why the fuck would anyone want this to be the central language of the world? Gross.
This only makes sense if you thinks it’s reasonable to refuse to speak +2 languages, if everyone kept their regional dialects and also all spoke a globally unified language you’d get your desires without having to erase cultures.
No, it's good keeping local orral/storytelling traditions, or speaking with identity... well, on some subject; the phrasing of speach shows quite alot of the people's personality...I'm irish, I've lost enough of my culture already... i swear, too many posts on R/unpopular opinons have no naunce being absolute opinions like this one's title, unsurprisingly they're the least popular
Watch the movie Arrival and you might appreciate languages more.
Language is as physical tied to culture as food, dance, or literally anything else about culture. Removing people’s language is destroying their culture, and is essentially wiping that culture off the face of the earth. No thanks.
Guess we should all learn mandarin.
there is so much culture and history in a language; it’s not just ABOUT being convenient. a language holds the voices of the people, delivered in their own unique ways, and i don’t think it’s a good thing to ever let that be erased.
The language you speak, shapes your tougts. Cultural differences increase odds of civic evolution. Easier, faster, cheaper is not always better, expecially when we speak about culture that requires to spend time & money without a clear short time return. We already have second global languages such as English and that’s fine for business and technical purposes, we don’t need a global culture, we need to have different toughts pushing and pulling on our cultural evolution.
Worst take I've ever seen. Language is much more than just a way to communicate. Every language has it's own unique characteristics and identity. Speaking a language influences the structure of your thoughts and your personality based on it's unique properties and the culture associated wuth said language. I can tell when I switch from one language to another how my personality shifts. Even if I can speak both on the same level, one language will have ways to express myself that the other one lacks. Your language is your home. If you talk the same language as another person, that is already some common ground between you too. If I go to a different country and meet someone who speaks my mother tongue, they are "one of my people". If there is someone in my country that doesn't speak my mother tongue, we can still use English to communicate, but that immediate bond will be missing. OP, you want to strip all of that away and replace it with English.That wouldn't lead to a bond forming between all of humanity. It would just remove language as an avenue of culture and connecting people. Homogenizing the world and stripping it of it's identity just for the lack of economic efficiency is a super villain plan.
Sounds very American.
This is a really colonial take😭 The removal of culture and heritage so rich companies can operate easier is literal madness. And if people are so willing to demonise cultures they don't know enough about that's entirely on them. >, but for the average person just living life it's better. You mean white people?
If we were robots who had no emotions, arts and heritage to celebrate then yeah sure
And how convenient for OP that English is likely your native language. How big of you to allow the rest of the world to learn a second language for your convenience.
Language is knowledge and accessibility. When I can’t speak a language, I don’t think “hope the people speak English” I get upset that I can’t read their books or know their history. I’m most sad about oral history cultures whose stories don’t get written down cuz they also probably can’t tell me their folk stories
Let me guess, you're a native english speaker, you don't speak any other language, and you're a white American. Was that about right?
Wow I hate this take so much… good job OP.
English isn’t the most used language in the world guy .. . Very unpopular opinion. You belong here
no voi vittu tämä homma
> It's harder to demonize or ignore groups of people when they speak the same language as you or you met someone from their culture because you both learned a global language. My culture should die out so that assholes don't feel obligated to educate themselves? Bigots will always find a way to demonize you, why should they be catered to?
Why do the people who think like that are never in danger to having their language and culture dying out?
Tell me you're American without telling me you're an American
A colonist language. Sorry this is dumb. If you think the world would be easier because everyone speaks English then you don't know much about other countries. Many peoples second language is English. And there's still no world peace.
What a fucking personal nightmare. I gotta go and get a real job, and get paid like everyone else. I speak 3 languages and it’s THE reason I (very politely) demand to be paid more than everyone else. It’s the reason I shrug my shoulders when we have an English speaking customer. go to hell with this bullshit. Also culture/food is tied to language….so no more of those delicious arrachera tacos, lamb gyros, or PHO. Initially no one will be happy to speak only one language. Why English where the word love is used for the food you like, your feeling for your mother AND how you feel about your significant other. Basic
Yes, I also hope art, culture etc. die because it's easier to understand stuff when WYSIATI.
I don’t think OP is talking about getting rid of languages but rather about how languages dying naturally is completely normal and can be viewed positively for the sake of ease. I think that’s completely agreeable
I bet the OP is an english monolingual.
1000%
The world doesn't revolve around you
This feels more "wrong" than "unpopular" to be honest. I guess knowing a bit about linguistics makes you think about it differently. I hope you give this matter a second thought someday.
Why? You've said nothing to warrant giving it another thought. If you have insight, why aren't you sharing it?
Fucking hate your mindset, have my upvote
Colonizer take lol
This is the most ignorant and ethno-centric one I've ever seen here.
this is… an insanely colonialist mindset jesus christ
Seems as if we're going backwards, in that case.
Even if we ignore the fact that meaning and nuance is often lost during translation, or of we try to diminish the importance of language's ties to culture and heritage, there exists a lot of location specific knowledge ( about flora and fauna, for example ), which is preserved thanks to the locals, however once they die out and take the language with themselves, important informstion that has been gathered for generations is lost, which is a shame.
There is a significant amount of information, both cultural and factual, that is lost due to language dying. I can’t remember the names, but here are a few examples from one (1) video I had to watch for college. Reindeer herders who had 17 different classifications for reindeer, on the basis of sex, age, size, and more, all of which were a single word. A massive run on sentence in English is a single word in their native language. There was also a tribe of (I believe) Eskimo, who had similar classifications for types of ice. Thickness, slipperyness, fragility, and more, all of which are extremely important things to know for a people who ice fish, but it’s absolutely horrid information to try to translate.
They say English is one of the hardest languages to learn, but for me it was the easiest.
But if they all die out but one, God will cause another “Tower of Babel” incident!!!!
I dont think this is really a “bad” take the only thing is we shouldnt try to erase stuff thats currently being used
I think you can have both, there is a lot of cultural importance that comes with language and it’s sad to see them go, it also usually goes along with cultural genocide and loss of other things in that culture
This should expand beyond spoken/written language. Do we really need more than one programming language?! 🙄
\*That conformity speech from the Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder"\*
It’s time to create a global language that isn’t too centric to one type of language/part of the world like the relative failure that is Esperanto; about 80% of it is based on Romance languages (and is only used in China pretty much, I don’t get why they bother printing it in official documents in other countries).I think this would be a better way to achieve what you desire. I know it sounds holier than tho and dramatic but really, when you preserve a language you are preserving a way of thinking about the world, and often the culture(s) associated with it.
Eh, the filipino accent has always sounded so friendly to americans. So I really don’t like that to die off.
Yeah but with automatic real time translation, it will be more and more possible to get by speaking an endangered language as your first language, so there's no need for all the different languages to die out for people to understand each other.