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A comment on Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014). Parent comment

Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014) by ktRolster on Monday July 04, 2016 @01:43AM (#12029051)
Alan Perlis said, "A programming language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing."

Similarly, it might be said that a human language that doesn't affect your world-view is not worth learning. The language is the door to the culture.

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Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014) by technomancy on Monday July 04, 2016 @10:35PM (#12034096)
Bingo. I've learned more about English itself the past couple years studying Thai than I have since I was a young child; particularly how daft our orthography is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography#Defective...

One of the strengths of English is that it adapts by assimilation from other language; if it were the only language around it would stagnate.

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