New CBB

With the advent of global communication, can languages continue to fracture into dialects and then new languages? Or does globalization inhibit that? Just a thought I had.

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I am a conlanger, a guitarist, a liar, a songwriter, a marijuana smoker, and a reader. Who are you?

Yes it does.

I've seen no evidence that globalisation inhibits the formation of dialects.
I have seen evidence that it slows the decline of endangered languages, however.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Only superficially. It only prevent language extinction, not langauge death.

... ? I'm not sure I understand the distinction.
In any case, I'm only claiming I've seen the decline slowed. I've never seen it stopped.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Language death: The lang isn't used anymore, but there's documents describing it and in it.

Language extinction: The lang is used anymore, and there's no documents in it whatsoever, so it's lost completely.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

Where do you get this distinction from?

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КЕРВЕНСКИЙ

It was just an educated guess.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

I think globalisation will kill off many of the smaller languages but I'm skeptical it will inhibit dialectal development. Many people on my Facebook friend list write in our regional slang, for example, 'youse' is used, it doesn't seem like it is slowing it down, only providing a new platform for people to communicate in their own regional dialects, it actually reinforces a dialect in a way. This is only my opinion and from my knowledge of course, I couldn't comment about anywhere else.

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Native speaker! | Learning, slowly but surely! | Dabbling in!

Not necessarily no one uses it, just no one uses it as their primary language and children are not learning it as a first language.

In what ways?

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constructedlanguages.net

He has no arguments in favour of his position. His grasp of linguistics is tenuous at best.

People who speak to each other, influences each others speech. With the modern television and internet it is unlikely dialects will diverge more than they already are.

I think that's called "moribund".

Not if both conditions are satisfied.

One phenomenon that we will see some more examples of in coming years is "language rebirth". It has happened with Hebrew and Gaelic. Godwilling, Coptic will follow suit. As many languages die out, a few will reignite somehow, someway. Plus, with the added "virtual seedbank" of texts and recordings and (improving) linguistic methods of transcription and analysis, it will be easier to do so for those so motivated in the future.


Otherwise, I think the Internet and education are forces that may tend to concretize language, or give room for more variation to exist simultaneously within a language continuum, but actually prevent those changes from actually coalescing enough to make actual linguistic mitosis into daughter languages. We're just too much in contact with one another nowadays.


moribund = little motivation for new speakers to acquire, structures not innovating and fossilized, loss of prestige & too much competition from other languages

extinct = kaput (may or may not have a written/textual legacy)





This may speak to the argument that Internet slows down language/dialect death.

15-20 years ago, almost everyone on the block I live on would have used the same "youse" pronoun.
Now, that pronoun is no longer uttered. I don't even "youse" it.
Perhaps it's because those who speak it still have shifted to another area. I think education drummed it out of a lot of people's speech. That, and then a whole other generation started growing up hearing the use of "y'all" as prestigious, mainly in hip-hop music, but from other sources as well. Once in a while, in a heated argument, I may hear someone say "Youse can't tell me....." but that's not so common. The "youse"; not the arguing.

Dude, you do not master the linguistic terminology whatsoever, you should not try and tell people what words mean when you have no idea yourself. Go and play with whatever toys you got last christmas and perhaps read a book when you're done. I hear there's good adventurous stories about anthropomorphic animals for children your age.

Moribound is if no children are learning the language, if it doesn't have any adult speakers eaither it's not moribound, it's either dead or extinct.

Basically, his point was that it helps prevent endangered languages from dissappearing forever without a trace. This is true. Do you not agree? Even if he's mixed up or not on terminology.

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Know phrases in more languages than can fit in this signature.
Speaks English and Spanish.
Reads Sumerian.
There is more.

Yes, if it doesn't have adult speakers it's dead. That is true. HOWEVER, a language can go unused without being extinct: the last few speakers generally won't use the language even if they can speak it fairly well simply because there's no use using it, no one to speak to in it.

IIRC there's even been cases where the last two speakers of a language have hated each other.

Also, arilando, your use of English is weird: first you say "x is sufficient", then someone says "no, when x is satisfied, that's called something else", then you butt in with "I am right, if also y", but no, you're not right then - that makes x insufficient by itself without y.