Here is why I love languages

English as a Second Language What do you want to talk about?
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Let’s brainstorm some reasons why languages are so valuable. As of now, there exist about 7000 languages worldwide with one of them disappearing each week without any chance of bringing it back. We nowadays hear so much about how important it is to protect and save our environment and I think it’s time we also start preserving and developing the most precious resource we have: our languages.

So, one of the reasons why I love languages is that they can’t be commoditized and commercialized. They can be used by anyone at any time for free. Languages can not be owned by corporations or regulated by authorities. They are free to use. In addition, a language can not be corrupted or distorted. They grows and evolves no matter how hard you try to restrain and control it.

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Hello, Sir Torsten.

Please, I do not understand, how is one of the languages disappearing each week?

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Hi Torsten,

With you all the way on those sentiments but don’t forget Orwell’s 1984, where he shows how language can be (to use your word) ‘corrupted’.

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Incidentally came across today for the first time a young writer called Mark Forsyth. Do you know him? Catch him on YouTube with one of his short talks. I think you would find him right up your street.

Alan

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In most cases a language dies when their speakers are forced to start using another language instead of their mother tongue due to political and economic reasons. Here are some examples: Gaelic languages such as Irish, Welsh and Scottish were replaced by English, Belarusian is being replaced by Russian and will disappear soon, etc.

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Just watching his piece on ‘Snollygoster’ – very interesting!

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Thank you, Sir Torsten, for your brilliant explanation.

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You are absolutely right, Alan. Language can be twisted, distorted and corrupted as Eric Arthur Blair illustrates in his brilliant book 1984. However, the language survives and resists any attempts to damage or deform it permanently. The Nazis to distort the German language by creating and using their own propaganda terminology while they ruled the country but as soon as they were removed so were the horrible terms and phrases they had invented. The German language survived the Nazis because it is extremely resilient and self-curing.

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