Re: Language Death

From: Richard Wordingham <richard.wordingham_at_ntlworld.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 23:54:41 +0000

On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 13:47:46 +0000
Marion Gunn <mgunn_at_egt.ie> wrote:

> Unicode can do a lot to slow down this process, by facilitating the
> registration of characters needed by the latter, to match the full
> complement already available to the former, thereby accordiing both
> languages equal access to electronic resources.

Does this really have much effect on the vitality of languages?
Language death becomes a possibility when a community is bilingual. If
either language can be written, then makeshifts will work for the other
if people really want to use it.

As to the Internet, what happens is that if you want to tell the world
something, you tell people in a widely understood language. That is
why there are, for example, Finns contributing to the English Wikipedia,
and even Frenchmen publishing research papers in English.

Richard.
Received on Wed Dec 11 2013 - 17:56:42 CST

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