On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:32:03 +0100, Padraig Breathnach
wrote:

Hatunen wrote:

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:41:17 +0100, Padraig Breathnach
wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:

Padraig Breathnach writes:

Yes there is a point. For example, it can aid the understanding of the
human psyche.

Only if there is an active community speaking it.

No. All you need is people capable of understanding it, and a
reasonable repository of instances of authentic usage.

That's not saving a language; it takes a sort of critical mass of
native speakers to save a language.

There has been some rapid drift in the discussion. I have switched
focus on to the matter of how any language might have something to
contribute to human understanding.

And I'm disagreeing to the extent that it is a generality.

Unless they are native
speakers they will not truly understand the language anymore than
I could truly understand German, no matter how fluent I became.

That might be true of you in your circumstances, but it is not a
universal pattern. Many Irish people speak Gaelic as a second language
and, because of the community in which we live, at least some of us
can "truly understand" it.

Thousands of languages have died out over the millenia, from well
before the invention of writing, even, and only a few are of any
particular improtance today. Etruscan would be nice to know.

And knowing it could contribute to our understanding.

Which is why I mention it as an exception of a language it might
have been good to preserve.

They say the island of New Guinea has hundreds of languages, but,
frankly, it really won't make a bit of difference if some of them
die out because the native speakers find English or some form
Asian language much more useful.

This could move very quickly into the area of economics versus quality
of life. It's an important argument, but not one in which I wish to
engage in usenet, which seems to be populated by people who have very
definite views on such questions, and all of whom know best.

Excluding yourself, I presume.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *