LL-L "Language survival" 2010.12.20 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 December 2010 - Volume 01
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From: "dealangeam" <atdelange at iburst.co.za>

Subject: "Language survival" [EN]



Dear Lowlanders



I wrote:

>>When a country has more than two cultures, each with its own language,
these cultures die off one after the other. It seems to be in line with
Darwinian evolution, survival of the fittest. But should one of the
languages be colonial like Portugese, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian and
German, it is rather like the invasion of an alien plant or animal species.



Andy Eagle replied



>That is a misrepresentation of Darwinian evolution as an explanation for
the diversity of life forms on the planet. In biological species natural
selection occurs over generations due to changes in the natural environment
in which a species lives. Survival of the fittest does not mean survival of
the strongest or most powerful but survival of those best fitted to cope
with the change in the environment.



Andy, you quoted only the first two sentences so that i had to quote the
whole paragraph again. It gives the context for any sentence in it.
Similarly the phrase "It seems to be..." is part of the second sentence.
That is why i did not write "It is ..." That would indeed be a
misrepresentation. Furthermore, i never used the words "strongest" and
"powerful".



Living species is little fitted to cope with sudden changes like a massive
meteor hitting the earth or a volcano erupting with super force. Both can
cause a winter lasting for more than a hundred years. Likewise living
species is little fitted to cope with large changes. The introduction of
colonial languages in the 1600's to human cultures all over the world, was
sudden and large.



To explain it without the rest of the history of cultures as context, would
most probably be a misrepresentation. Imperialism has a clear history of
some 5,000 years old. Going back another 5,000 years into the dawn of
history is treacherous. Anyway, the last 350 years of colonialism compared
to 5,000 years of imperialism gives an error margin of 4.4% even for the
best of explanations. The last 50 years is excluded because globalism
replaced colonialism.



You wrote:

>Language change in human societies is the result of decisions made by human
beings, there is nothing ‘natural’ or inevitable about any particular
outcome.

I would say "Language change in human societies is the result of human
thinking”. Although our species is named "Homo sapiens", thinking wisely is
rare among humans. As for the "or inevitable", I would qualify it carefully.
In short, it comes to this. If the native speakers "have to use" a lingua
franca other than their mother tongue for the higher faculties of learning,
the outcome is inevitable  extinction. With the "have to use" i mean they
are ignorant of the fact that their mother tongue is good for any learning,
or they are forced to use the lingua franca since business and civil service
do not make provision for them.



Mooi loop

At de Lange



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