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Post by Verbivore on Jan 17, 2022 11:29:28 GMT
Plodding along, Twod.
Details in a PM so that I don’t clutter the board.
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 19, 2022 12:09:55 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 21, 2022 0:12:21 GMT
Almost half of the world's 6,511 languages are now endangered, according to a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature. Without immediate intervention, over 1,500 of these languages could be lost by the end of the century. There are more than 250 Indigenous languages in Australia but, according to a AIATSIS 2018–19 survey, only 123 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are still in use. Of those, only about 12 are relatively strong and being taught to children. The many AU Indigenous language groupsIt’s claimed that language loss could triple in the next four years. That's equivalent to losing a language per month for the rest of the century. Upcoming Decade of Indigenous Languages
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 21, 2022 18:39:21 GMT
At first sight, Vv, that seems a terrible thing. But …
Isn’t the purpose of language to communicate? Those societies which are losing their original languages are not ceasing to communicate; they have just found a different (more popular) language in which to do so. For them, there is no loss of communicative ability. For the wider world, there is a GAIN. Is that bad?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 21, 2022 23:35:19 GMT
I think that moribund languages are worth preserving. I think the Great Pyramid of Giza is worth preserving. I think that the music Mahler and the Beatles and the works of Shakespeare and the Taj Mahal are worth preserving. They are all part of our cultural heritage. The world must inevitably be a poorer place without any of these things. I do not have any great love for the work of Mahler and I have seen the Great Pyramid but millions of other people have not and should be able to have the opportunity of experiencing these things.
Dying languages may have no practical, communication importance but they should, at least, be recorded in writing and sound. The world will be a poor place without them. We regret the loss of some languages of antiquity and the historical perspectives they must offer. Today, we have the technical means to secure those that are dying now.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 22, 2022 4:42:54 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 23, 2022 2:30:04 GMT
At first sight, Vv, that seems a terrible thing. But … Isn’t the purpose of language to communicate? Those societies which are losing their original languages are not ceasing to communicate; they have just found a different (more popular) language in which to do so. For them, there is no loss of communicative ability. For the wider world, there is a GAIN. Is that bad? The Australian Indigenous peoples (those few who are left after the massacres and maltreatments perpetrated by the invaders) have largely lost their cultures; language is a large part of that. If their languages are preserved, especially in a used and usable format, there’s a chance many aspects of their cultures won’t die out. Certainly, many Indigenes have adopted the western life and cuture, but there are those who haven’t and who try to maintain their non-western ways. Others, such as the late actor David Gulpilil, ‘walked between two worlds’.
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 23, 2022 7:30:46 GMT
Yes, I now see the wider cultural aspects.
I do myself get annoyed at the influence on British life and language of Americaniness, so can imagine how much more damaging the westernising of more widely-differing cultures will be.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 25, 2022 9:10:46 GMT
On 21 December I announced that I was having problems accessing the board owing to a malware threat perceived by my anti-malware goodies. Since then I've been accessing the site via my older Mac.
This evening, with no warning and for no obvious reason, I can again access the board from my usual Mac.
I do love technology – when it works!
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 25, 2022 20:36:51 GMT
Tautology? “The front facade of Old Parliament House” – from ABC News (caption to 5th photo). The OED’s primary definition is: “the face or front of a building towards a street or other open place, especially the principal front”. I suppose that technically one could have a rear or side facade / façade, but perhaps main facade would have served as well or better (if facade were even used at all; how about main entrance?). It was a photo caption after all, and captions are, in my experience, usually supplied by the photographer and those are renowned for their suboptimal spellings.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 26, 2022 13:31:09 GMT
I have been trying to decide what I think about all this. It doesn’t seem to me to be a seriously heinous use of language. I don’t know about the architecture of the Old Parliament Building in Canberra but I think that many large, classical buildings and palaces do have more than one “face” fronting onto streets or open spaces. Whether the main entrance would be on the “front“ of the building is a matter of opinion perhaps. I remember visiting the Schönbrunn Palace near Vienna a few years ago and I would have thought that the main façade was that facing the gardens which so far as I can remember was not where the main entrance was. I think I would prefer to talk about the north façade or the south façade or whatever.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 27, 2022 21:06:43 GMT
Origins of the index.Whether at the back of a book or when we use search engines, the index is something we all use, consciously or not.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 27, 2022 21:53:54 GMT
Here's a spelling that's new to me: nower days for nowadays. (Okay, it was in a YouTube comment, hardly the home of high literacy.)
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 27, 2022 22:08:32 GMT
Here's a spelling that's new to me: nower days for nowadays. I’m intrigues at the idea of “nower”. Is the present not present enough?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 29, 2022 9:56:48 GMT
I have just come across this abbreviation in invitation to attend an online webinar. We have talked before about these “alphabetic“ abbreviations so I thought people might be interested to see this one. I’m afraid it doesn’t mean anything very much to me. Can anyone help? 2SLGBTQIA+.
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