"When Languages Die" author/linguist K. David Harrison

[pamisterios]

language is politics. money rules. this guy does a great job. I wish I could spend my life doig this kind of thing.

[urdude67]

yes go and visit the places where languages are dying, aren't they all just perfect examples of paradise? or are they crap-holes of backwardness? maybe they are spoken by the last denizens of failed societies. study what you want, interesting film, but I won't waste time weeping for them.

[9zreed]

keeping languages alive is inefficient though. I understand studying them, recording them, analyzing them and gleaning their knowledge but to assume that we could ever keep a dying language alive, or SHOULD keep it alive is silly. The very fact that it is dying is a sign that it has lost its real usefulness. It doesn't mean there aren't things we can learn from them, but it would be too expensive and down right ignorant to pretend it is important to keep them living.

[Domsta333]

@carameluz Do you even know what you're talking about? The New Age movement is related to religion, spirituality, this is linguistics!

[Edbrye2008]

Stimulating interview. - When thinking about responsible action, a tension exists between seeing languages fall into disuse vs. the speech communities themselves choosing other languages for reasons that reflect their changing values. - Ideally, enough time would be set aside to carry out a full language development program for each language, culminating in a lexicon that would "capture" all categories ever used. - When surveying Baldemu in 2000, I met a last speaker i.e. a man in his mid-90s.

[NorseRonin]

i'm thinking about becoming a linguist, is there jobs and things that are readily available after training that pay enough for me to live "comfortably"? i don't want to become a homeless linguist is what i'm saying :P

[onikin]

@NorseRonin Depends on your field. Specify in certain modern languages and can easily get a job teaching that language, especially if it's in demand like English. Anything to do with computers (computational linguistics) will pay the best these days, I believe.

[urdude67]

@NorseRonin be careful what languages you study. think about where you want to live and what kind of work you want to do. try to avoid academic dead-ends. Arabic, Chinese, Spanish are all eminently useful and employable, but there are others. good luck

[pocketmarrow]

Recruit me!

[scarlettbond]

David Harrison is not only smart, but also hot as hell. Really... brains are what is most arousing in a man imho.

[speedproductions797]

Wow, that's incredible, I didn't know that happens to linguistics; super intelligence!

[femmefatale1990]

@speedproductions797 Yes, I learned this while learning French and Italian. Even the Italian language is going to die. The board of education got rid of the Italian AP test. Why would students want to learn Italian now if they can't take the AP test? and Italian is the closest language to Latin....

[slimithy13]

@femmefatale1990 how can the italian language die? as long as there is an itialian nation where millions of people speak it, there will be an itialain language, right? or am i missing somthing?

[femmefatale1990]

@slimithy13 It can die within a few years. That's not hard to believe, and very few millions speak it and it's mostly in Italy, itself. Less and less people speak it. It's not really required and more Italians are learning other languages as well.

[slimithy13]

@femmefatale1990 sorry, i dont mean to argue with you but italy has a population of around 60 million people, all of which speak itialian. so it's in no more danger of dying then dutch, german, japanese, tukish or greek. all of those languages are hardly spoken by other people and they all have simular populations too. i think the italian language isnt going anywhere for now, so i think you can rest easy.

[onikin]

@femmefatale1990 Language endangerment doesn't even happen until the oldest fluent speakers die off, and as kids still learn it in Italy, that would take at least 100 years from now. Then at least 1 more generation for the speakers with some knowledge to die out and the language with it. Don't talk out of your butt, please.

[femmefatale1990]

@onikin don't repond to a message I wrote 3 months ago, snake motherfucker.

[femmefatale1990]

@onikin I never hide my dislike for people and it's rare for someone to be as rude as you.

Also, good for you. I will end anyone you live with if I found out what your address is. Go away, now.

[dmarker21]

I get depressed when I visit my relatives in Sicily and none of the young people want to speak Sicilian. They want to be American, meanwhile their beautiful culture is rapidly dying.

[lyoizisi]

Laz and Mingrelian languages are dying Georgia and Turkey.Young people dont speak Laz in towns, in villages parents dont wanna teach the tongue and Turkish afraid roughly 60 years later there will be not Laz

[casperado666]

Ukrainian is dying out because of Russian fascist language politics during the soviet times. Fucken barbarians

[JohnAdamCulligan]

Alas, imperial domination is likely the cause of the popularity of all major languages.

[lyoizisi]

Ukrainian is a dialect of the Russian just liek Azerbaijani of Turkish.After the Stalinisation of Soviets both of them borned as a language

[casperado666]

It's actually vice versa, if you concider that the Russian ethnicity is a mixture of Rusyns (population of Kievan Rus) and finno-ugric tribes who are autochtonous on the territory of contemporary Russia.

Just because Russian culture was politically dominant in the region in the last centuries doesn't mean it's the source of the slavic culture.

[railadvocate]

Wow! I thought this was an absolutely excellent interview. -From subject matter to the way it was delivered. So now to the book.

[geekyviking]

"Linguistics is bullshit, its NOT a science."

And what are the grounds for this bullshit statement?

[furaha72]

This is probably the only instance where Africans seem to have persevered compared to most cultures: we've managed to retain the majority of our local languages: Zulu, Hausa, Yoruba, Kirwanda, etc.

I'd love to know the comparisons between continents and cultures.

[betokkikke]

As a living organism, languages born, develope and die butbeyond the poor job done by goverments to preserve the native communities of speakers (as in Mexico where there are more than 50 alive) the real decay arrives when their speakers loose interest on spealing their mother's language. See how hispanic migrants have influenced English linguistic habits today while small languages as raramuri or tarahumara on Chihuahua montains dissapeare, and then a whole culture is gone forever.

[harshvgaus]

old lady swearing hahaha

[D0CT0R90210]

i speak english and spanish and it would be nice to learn some rare language like ummm maybe "icelandic" idk

[FoxtrotNinja]

Learn Gaelic. It's what the Irish once spoke, before Britain invaded.

It sounds INCREDIBLE, and it's almost dead.

[shavedmarmoset]

There are places where Irish (that's what they call it in Ireland) is still spoken as a first language, although all speakers also speak English. They have a pretty successful language revival program in Ireland and there are about 300,000 native speakers now.

[albionmoonlight1]

my syntax professor studied irish, it pretty much defies and challenges the chomskian structure of underlying language, that paradigm, interesting language, one of the few european people who weren't done away with by modern europ's ancestors: gaelic & basque

[Gaeilgeoir]

Maybe you're thinking of Scottish Gaelic vs. Irish Gaelic, which the Irish never spoke. Irish has been on the rebound for some time, is fully modernized and no longer in danger of dying. (Scottish) Gaelic isn't in as good shape but it's hanging on and being encouraged and protected by law.

[midnightblue80]

Icelandic isn't so rare or endangered. You should learn and revive an extinct language like Siuslaw or Esselen

[dLimboStick]

Crisis! He says. In a language that was born of extinct languages. There is no crisis. Languages evolve, flourish, and die. English will too. It's nice to study them, but their demise is far from a crisis, but more a matter of course.

[andogigi5]

Beowolf was written in a "basically" extinct language. Aren't we glad someone knew how to translate it?

Can you imagine if someone of the caliber of Shakespeare, Goethe, or Dante had written in an extinct language and nobody could read it?

Try reading the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example. You'll go crazy. The orginal clay tablets it was written on were smashed in a war. The translation frequently says "fragment missing". What a terrible loss to humanity! Such a waste of genius!

[AbcSchoolOfPolish]

Interesting material. Thanks for the video. I actually live in the Kashuby region in Poland. The local dialect is also dieing out.

[Gaeilgeoir]

:-(

[pixelminx]

Odd, my comment vanished. I wonder if someone has a hard time accepting constructive criticism, or if it was just hiccup in the system.

[jazzdrums610]

Or if those incharge of youtube erased your statement

[pixelminx]

I can't even remember what my original comment was about, and I don't intend to watch this vid again to figure it out. They wouldn't delete a comment that was valid and didn't contain something inappropriate. They leave up porn advert comments and racist comments (which is fine [see: free speech], just using those as an example for the argument against your guess).

[pixelminx]

Oh wait, looking at the video thumbnails on the comments page reminded me of what my comment was about. I believe my comment was a criticism of how the interviewer has more camera time and is better lit than the person being interviewed. I'd rather see the person talking not watch the over-acting interviewer blink and look serious.

[howardleung]

sorry but couldn't help the fact to notice the women said suka at 1:53..lol other then that is very well done work good job.

[awesome220]

=bitch, right?

[howardleung]

yep

[brtloughlin]

David Harrison's research are fascinating! I recommend this interview as well as Mark Molaro's channel. Great show!

[transliteration]

great video, the story is sad :(

[transliteration]

Great video, sad story :(

[SjpielseWolf]

Great work! I hope more people see the power of their language.. Unfortunately, most people just giggle about it, because it's allways concerning minorities.. Just like my own language, when spoken elsewhere in the region, we are being laughed at, and called "dumb farmers"

This is the place where the dying out should stop - by the "bigger people" stopping to put us down, and respect even the smaller cultures/population.There is NO acknowledgement whatsoever..Please change that :-)

Gr8 vid!

[birkrevarro]

Outstanding work

[Arissef]

The two women were drunk. I would be discouraged as well.

[existentialsartre]

This interview is a masterpiece. David Harrison is amazing!

[caesarjulschicken]

Mann1979 - you don't get it at all mann... You're really uncultured and that's sad. We should not all have the same primary language - we're not robots retard.

[SousaMendes40]

I agree, that was probably the dumbest response I've seen on youtube

[byram5]

-7 cool points for calling someone "uncultured" and a retard in the same response.

[Mann1979HH]

My point is that we all should have the same primary language. If then sb wants to preserve and archive and learn and speak one of the old languages, he shall do it. But, I didn't like being born into a world full of useless and expensive and nerve-wrecking language barriers which are called "diversity of cultures"! Damn it! Why don't we all learn the language of the deaf people? That would mean culture!

[labunner1]

Interesting field of research.

[Mann1979HH]

What's so bad about then languages die? I would loved it being raised in English. It's a hell of an effort to me to learn English more or less properly. All languages are badly-structured and should be replaced by a brand new one.

[Guellard]

I don't apprciate that your comment has been graded so bad but you're point is terribly weak.

What you claim is impossible because all languages evolve out an anterior one.

If English wasn't so popular, you wouldn't give a crap about learning it.

[Mann1979HH]

It is not about the popularity of the English, but its power especially on the internet. My point is that there are many native-speakers of English who speak English better than me though they have put less effort on the liguistic skills than me. that is simply not fair. My point is not terribly weak, but terribly unpopular. That is not the same!

[gregviangelos]

Losing any language is a tragedy - the point here usenetports is that we don't realize what we're losing when a language goes extinct.

[usenetposts]

Languages have been dying faster than they have been being produced evcer since Babel. The irony is that the rate of language death is right now probably LOWER than at any point in human history.

Let's also come away from the idea that one language equals another. This is not the case. A language's value is equivalent to the knowledge and culture that would be lost if that language were lost.

[pixelminx]

"ever since Babel" ... what does a folktale have to do with the actual reality of languages?

[usenetposts]

You are mistaken. It actually comes from one of the earlier chapters of Genesis. It deals with how linguistic diversity started in the human race, and answers the monogenesis/polygenesis debate which linguists have been unable to resolve adequately when refusing recourse to supernatural arguments.

[pixelminx]

I never said which part of the bible I thought it came from. Yes, it is indeed a folktale/myth.

[FoxtrotNinja]

If you haven't figured it out yet, pixelminx is saying LOL BIBLE IS FAKE

[misspulga]

Go to university and you won't ask these kinds of questions.

[pixelminx]

Usually when someone inserts religion into everything they talk about it usually indicates they don't have much of an education (or have pushed what they learned aside) and thus have no other REAL material to pull from.

[awesome220]

An anology, you idiot.

[pixelminx]

You don't seem to understand the definition of the word "analogy." The person used Babel (a ficitional place/building) in place of actual historical facts. This is always bad. Let's talk about how languages REALLY arose and became so varied. To dismiss an issue with fiction only does more damage.

[awesome220]

He used it as a metaphor you idiot!

[pixelminx]

Repeating yourself without moving forward in the conversation is not going to elicit a different response. Cry moar.

[awesome220]

It's a damn metaphor. What is so hard to understand about that?

[resclive]

Panic44 is right Honda - quit being such a prick and educate yourself! You're another right-wing nutjob - time to get out of the way while we fix the mess you've all left. Happy vacation!

[pixelminx]

I don't think accusing someone of being uneducated, crazy, and republican actually adds anything of value to this conversation. Stay on topic and you will sound far more intelligent.

[honda1386]

I'll pull my head out of my ass if you pull your head out of your ass.

But that's not likely. YOu'd actually have to think beyond these ideas!

[resclive]

Great job - I had no idea about the extinction of languages. Fascinating and scary.

[honda1386]

WOw, it's like every wacky liberal screed in one place!

We're killing the planet, we're killing democracy, we're killing diversity, we're killing language.

Never have I felt so scared, empty....yet so righteous.

[panick44]

Hey man,

Why don't you do everyone a favour and pull your head out of you ass?

Or maybe you just like being a prick? I guess that's possible too.

[GaryVromona]

Superb work!

[rgriscom]

Wow, awesome. I wish I could find that movie somewhere, but Ironbound doesn't offer any information about purchase.

Thanks for sharing.

[spittyfire3]

It has yet to be released. Netflix has it on it's waiting list.

[pennilesscripple]

this is great

thank you