| > you have to work hard to promote only a single version of it Yes, you do have to work to make it happen. Up to now we've given languages a free cultural pass, whereas diseases and poverty we keep shoveling trillions into, and we're proud when we've made a 20% dent. It takes work to pull the species out of what is natural, because what is natural is very often terrible. Diseases naturally evolve to terrorize us. We fight them and sometimes we win. The first step is admitting that how languages have evolved naturally up to now sucks for an ethical, roughly egalitarian 21st century information-based society. The sooner we can de-link language from local culture, the better. And of course that begs the question: can language be delinked from culture? Yes: my native language isn't the one I'm writing in to you now, and my native culture is whatever I'm making up for myself as I go along, to the chagrin of my parents and many in the culture I was born into. |
I'm too, my native language isn't the one I am writing here. I have lived in quite a few different places. Culture is not something I could make up for myself as I go along, I don't think anyone could do so in isolation. I took in the different bits of cultures that i have experienced through, sometimes to the dismay of those around me. I appreciate the perspective that cultures create languages, and without the cultural reference the language would cease its importance and would die.