Are we going to be out of a job soon? ('2,500 languages threatened with extinction')
Alan R King Spain Local time: 18:17 Basque to English + ...
Please...
Mar 25, 2009
Alexandre Coutu wrote:
As for being out of a job, if you are translating a language that is almost extinct, you are pretty much already out of a job.
While I can't help sympathize with the loss of a language and of a culture, I do agree that it is a normal and constant process. When a language dies, that branch stops growing. Same as with any living species.
Since we have the highest population we ever had, we probably have more languages than we ever had. We are most certainly more aware of the death of any language than we ever were.
Sorry to disagree but that is full of inaccuracies and flawed arguments - too many to mention in fact, so I'll just answer the one in the first sentence quoted, which is not only incorrect but frivolous (and hence insensitive, since language loss is in fact a human tragedy, certainly for the remaining speakers...). The most obvious reason why the assertion isn't true is that it overlooks the time scale of language extinction. It is in fact perfectly possible to dedicate one's entire lifetime to a language which is already almost extinct when one started out. Languages may (or may not) take a long time to "become extinct", which is all the more reason why one CAN do something about it in many cases, and also why there may (or may not) still be a market for translating them. Let us exercise our neurons thinking of ways to keep language alive rather than inventing excuses for fiddling while Rome burns.
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chica nueva New Zealand Local time: 04:17 Chinese to English
New Zealand Maori: pride, etc; Southern Maori dialect
I say here that even though Maori is now an official language of NZ and taught in schools, I don't think it is out of the woods yet ... The situation has developed in recent decades through the Maori Renaissance, to Treaty Settlements (still ongoing), and we currently have a Maori Party in the Government.
I agree that pride for a people is probably important for language maintenance, a lot of political and institutional support, and perhaps sometimes also non-dispersed settlements (such as South Auckland for Pasifika languages.)
(I refer to NZ Maori, because there is also Cook Islands Maori. )
2,500 languages threatened with extinction: UNESCO
by Amer Ouali Amer Ouali – Thu Feb 19, 12:17 pm ET
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Governments in Peru, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Mexico have been successful in their efforts to prevent indigenous languages from dying out.
UNESCO deputy director Francoise Riviere applauded government efforts to support linguistic diversity but added that "people have to be proud to speak their language" to ensure it thrives.
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2009-02-20 17:29 GMT]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngāi_Tahu#Dialect
Ngāi Tahu speak or spoke a distinct dialect of Māori (sometimes referred to as Southern Māori). Harlow argues that this dialect has become extinct.[2] The dialect displayed sufficient differences that an early missionary, Rev. James Watkin, based at Karitane, found materials prepared by North Island missions unusable in Otago.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Māori_language#South_Island_dialects
Until the last decade or so[update], authorities actively discouraged southern Māori in favour of standard (northern North Island) Māori, the only form used by government and by most institutions. The southern dialect has gained acceptance in recent years, however, leading to changes in the official names and translations of several southern places and institutions.
[Edited at 2009-03-25 20:32 GMT]
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chica nueva New Zealand Local time: 04:17 Chinese to English
Maori; Spolsky
Apr 19, 2009
lai an wrote:
... even though Maori is now an official language of NZ and taught in schools, I don't think it is out of the woods yet ...
Lesley
Here is what Spolsky says about it:
'... it is still only spoken by less than a quarter of the Maori population and 4% of New Zealanders. ... ' http://www.hrelp.org/events/publiclecture2009/index.html
Rescuing Maori: the last 40 years
[Edited at 2009-04-19 20:28 GMT]
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The translation workplace 
