Re:A small town in Sweden fights to preserve Elfdalian, a dy...
by azangru on Friday July 09, 2021 @08:09PM
(#27789862)
> Languages do not map to eachother one to one. The works of Shakespeare, for instance, are untranslatable to another language, without some loss of meaning.
But isn't it exactly why in the ideal world everyone would speak the same language? Otherwise, due to the untranslatability, every Shakespeare is lost to the rest of the world that doesn't speak his language.
Re:A small town in Sweden fights to preserve Elfdalian, a dy...
by DoreenMichele on Friday July 09, 2021 @08:11PM
(#27789875)
English somewhat often adopts foreign words when we don't have a word that means exactly the same thing.
Ideas and experiences precede words and inform language, not the other way around.
Re:A small town in Sweden fights to preserve Elfdalian, a dy...
by vkou on Friday July 09, 2021 @08:23PM
(#27789954)
It's not lost to the world, you just need to learn the still-living language it's written in.
And on whatever lingua franca you choose to adopt, there will be an unbounded number of yet-to-be-written-works-of-shakespeare, that this language would lack the ability to express.
Re:A small town in Sweden fights to preserve Elfdalian, a dy...
by azangru on Friday July 09, 2021 @08:35PM
(#27790031)
> It's not lost to the world, you just need to learn the still-living language it's written in.
Just?
Given how complex every language is, and the level of mastery that is required to read and appreciate the hypothetical Shakespeare of that language, and the time and effort that is required to achieve this level of mastery, this is highly impractical.
Some are not phased by the loss of historic culture in that brave new world, but not everyone feels the same way.