How the Internet is killing the world’s languages

[Redfairen]

Less than five percent of current world languages are in use online, according to a recent study by prominent linguist Andras Kornai -- and the Internet may be helping the other 95 percent to their graves.

Those startling conclusions come from a paper published in the journal PLOSOne in October titled, appropriately, "Digital Language Death." The study sought to answer a question that's both inherently fascinating and little-discussed: How many languages exist online? (And, on the flip side, how many don't?)

For reference, at least 7,776 languages are in use in the greater offline world. To measure how many of those are also in use on the Internet, Kornai designed a program to crawl top-level Web domains and catalog the number of words in each language. He also analyzed Wikipedia pages, a key marker of a language's digital vibrancy, as well as language options for things like operating systems and spell-checkers. His finding: Less than five percent of languages in use now exist online.

Much of that gap can be attributed to the fact that the languages people use vary widely, in terms of scale and geography. More than 40 percent of world languages are already endangered, according to the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity. And even the ones that aren't technically endangered may be spoken by only a few thousand people -- often in places like sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia and South America, where Internet penetration can be lower.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/12/04/how-the-internet-is-killing-the-worlds-languages/

[frazzled]

1. Languages have been in constant flux since the beginning of time

Yes, that has accelerated as technology and globalization have accelerated. But linguistic change is a natural process. And perhaps there is an upside to it: as we become less diverse linguistically, perhaps intercultural understanding will increase and lead to less conflict. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Language diversity is the result of isolation (either geographical or cultural), and while it's nice to preserve a linguistic heritage, it's hard to do when economic and cultural assimilation lead to the need for common forms of communication. It has happened at many points in history as people began to travel and trade (and conquer), as the machine age made travel and communication more widespread, and now, in the digital age, when everything has accelerated at lightning speed.

It's fascinating, but I think putting words like "death" and "kill" in it suggest something far too ominous.

[bluedigger]

2. I blame Gutenberg.

It all started with his press.

[SheilaT]

3. You're right, even though I think you're simply

intending to be ironic or sarcastic.

A while back I was watching something or another about how European languages got fixed, and where there were different dialects, which is pretty much all of them, the one that won out was the one that had a Bible published in that dialect.

I also constantly read things bemoaning the loss of languages, and I think things like: how many different languages can any one person know? How truly useful is a language spoken by only a handful of people?

And I live in New Mexico where the past few years we've been honoring the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII.

[bluedigger]

5. The Church and the King of France both were early adopters.

I think France at the time had over thirty dialects and languages and the King (I forget which one) seized on printed text to unify and simplify his administration. It's well and good to bemoan the loss of linguistic diversity, but it is an inevitable consequence of globalization, and a trend that has been ongoing since Alexander the Great, really. The internet is just one more trial along the gauntlet, not the cause of the problem.

I think we had a code talker in town last week. Greetings from Cortez.

[Thor_MN]

4. I do too. Were Police Academies 3 and 4 really necessary?

[bluedigger]

6. That's Guttenberg.

But yeah, he has a LOT to atone for. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000430/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t1

[Thor_MN]

7. I know, but it seemed like an easy joke...

[bluedigger]

8. I wouldn't have expected any more from a Vikings fan.

Well played!

[valerief]

9. Languages are endangered? I thought you had to be living entity to be endangered.

Like plant or animal.

Can TV commercials be endangered?

Can rocks be endangered?

Can the decimal system be endangered?

Can these things really be endangered if nobody cares enough about them to keep them alive (sic) ? Do they "feel" danger?

[Igel]

10. A language can be living.

Endangered. Or extinct.

Originally metaphors, they're now lexicalized and not felt as a metaphor. Any more than calling a volcano "dormant" or "extinct" is.


Lots of critters and plants are also endangered even though nobody cares enough about them to keep them alive. They also don't feel danger.

[valerief]

12. Thanks! nt

[Igel]

11. Internet isn't relevant.

I don't think I'm less likely to speak a language because it has scant or no Internet presence.

You want to preseve small languages? Make having another, more widely spoken language of no emotional, social, financial, educati0nal, or political benefit to the younger speakers. Or somehow get them to consider the effort and expense of maintaining a second home language worth it--and make sure that the homes produced have at least two speakers of the small language.