Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014) by drauh on Sunday July 03, 2016 @09:22PM (#12028461)

Additionally, there is a richness of thought and experience that other languages bring to the human experience. Just google for "untranslateable words that should exist in English" or something similar.

Not to mention that even computer languages have a similar quality: different languages allow one to think about things in different ways. How much would computer science suck if the only language available was Fortran 77?

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Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014) by proteinbased on Monday July 04, 2016 @05:44AM (#12029680)

I'm not so sure about the richness, though I get your point. (I recently pondered about the german word "jenseits" not in the sense of heaven, which it may mean, but rather as a pompous form of beyond).

I agree with the FORTRAN 77 part. But this is a misleading example. This "small" language has a very specific audience in scientists and engineers (not even computer engineers). I think the point the top comment makes assumes we all wrote something like python with C and FORTRAN extensions used when appropriate.

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