[Air-l] Language on the Internet (was AoIR in Latin-America)

[Alex Kuskis]

Nils,
"You can never understand one language until you understand at least 
two." -Ronald Searle (1920- )



That quotation might be debatable. What is not is that the major languages, 
especially English, dispersed world wide via the Internet, are putting 
pressure on minority languages far more than previous electronic media such 
as TV (see below). So, it's not just a matter of language adaptation, but 
rather of survival. German will adapt and survive, as will other major 
languages like French and Spanish. They will be interesting case studies. 
But aboriginal languages worldwide are threatened, as are many in Africa and 
South America, which is a loss of cultural diversity (as suggested by the 
Safir quote someone posted). Yes, for better or worse, English has become 
the lingua franca, more so than Latin or French ever were.........Alex 
Kuskis

Minority languages at risk: UNESCO
Last Updated Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:54:11 EST
CBC Arts
More than half of the world's nearly 6,000 languages are in danger of 
disappearing, pushed aside by dominant languages such as English, UNESCO 
warned Tuesday.
A group of linguistic specialists gathered in Paris Tuesday for a conference 
marking the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 
Organization's sixth annual International Mother Language Day.
When a language dies, "it's a vision of the world that disappears," UNESCO 
director general Koichiro Matsuura said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Delegates at the conference discussed new initiatives to protect linguistic 
diversity worldwide, including a plan for an Italian museum dedicated to 
languages and the elevating of the African Academy of Languages to a more 
significant role in the African Union.
Participants, who included delegates from Europe, Africa and Latin America, 
shared stories about the difficulties faced by those who speak minority 
languages.
Former Iceland president Vigdis Finnbogadottir, who led the country as its 
first female president from 1980 through 1996, also presented the 2005 
Danish documentary In Languages We Live - Voices of the World, which 
examines the impact of disappearing languages through the stories of 
individuals.
This year, the conference also looked at the specific issue of linguistic 
diversity on the internet.
"It is not necessary that these [minority] languages disappear under the 
weight of others," said Musa Bin Jaafar Bin Hassan, president of the General 
Conference of UNESCO.
"They should be means of expression that live and exist alongside the major 
languages of the world."
http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/02/21/unesco-languages-disappear.html

Alex,
you just indicated why English speaker indeed
should learn another language, or why it is not
such a bad idea, despite the fact that all the
others do speak some form of English... the
reasons to learn a language go beyond love or
curiosity... to speak or understand a language  -
not the same thing necessarily - also means to
understand a culture, or is at least a gateway to
begin to understand... language also transports
meaning and culture..

"The Internet
is not static, continues to evolve, mostly out of the English-
speaking realm where it's so integrated with the culture, "

if this is true for the Internet, then other
languages may give a hint on how these adapt to
this technology, how they see the world etc...
also we all can communicate with English as a
lingua franca, we may not understand the other
rightly..

just a thought....

best
nilz

>The downside of all this for the English-speaking
>world is that it reinforces mono-lingualism and language
>chauvinism. It's admirable to learn a language for love or curiosity,
>but the fact is that most people do it for economic advantage and
>up until recently, English speakers haven't had to.

-- 
Dr. Nils Zurawski
Universität Hamburg
Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung
Allende-Platz 1
20146 Hamburg
Germany
tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185
fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328

Projekt zu Videoüberwachung: http://www.surveillance-studies.org