With only eight fluent Nyiyaparli speakers remaining, an Aboriginal group is racing against time to save its 41,000-year-old language.
    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      That’s the utilitarian point of view. Even though I often take this POV on many subjects, it would be totalitarian to apply it to cultural matters. Should we adopt one world cuisine that is the easiest to work with? Should we settle everyone on one musical scale and religion, too? It would be a lot more efficient and would facilitate global interaction better.

      Only problem: it would erase who we are.

    • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      Even most Esperanto speakers have abadoned the ideology of Finvenkismo (the belief that Esperanto will become the primary language of the world, overtaking other languages) as it’s both unrealistic and has several flaws

      Esperanto is a flawed, Eurocentric language, and we should celebrate linguistic diversity, not treat it as a problem needing to be solved

      • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 hour ago

        The concept of a global language is compatible with linguistic diversity. The Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves all have their own languages, but they also speak the same Common Tongue.

        Our world just doesn’t have a common tongue. It has a handful of very colonially dominant languages.