Re:Google: Introducing The Endangered Languages Project
by DanBC on Friday June 22, 2012 @07:34AM
(#4146312)
> 1) The authors would not have been capable of expressing their view with similar levels of 'feel' if they were not born to an English Speaking language hence imparting the 'feel' to English and not just to the authors
No, paganel is saying that translating from one language to another results in less 'feel', not that 'feel' depends on English.
> You are not feeling the 'feel' more intensely because you are not a native English speaker hence the language and wordplay are less obvious to you as those who speak English primarily.
The parent comment says that the original English is better, not worse. Thus, there is more 'feel' in the original than in translation.
Re:Google: Introducing The Endangered Languages Project
by mayanksinghal on Friday June 22, 2012 @08:05AM
(#4146393)
My argument is that if the original material was written in the language that translation is in, as will be the case if there is one universal language, there would have been no loss of 'feel'.
I don't think this argumentation is correct. There are two things that you are assuming -
(1) The authors would not have been capable of expressing their view with similar levels of 'feel' if they were not born to an English Speaking language hence imparting the 'feel' to English and not just to the authors
(2) You are not feeling the 'feel' more intensely because you are not a native English speaker hence the language and wordplay are less obvious to you as those who speak English primarily.
Secondly as beautiful as the description of multiple languages it may be in GP, I fail to see why won't people adapt the one single language to have extensions - words that describe feelings, emotions and expressions not available originally. Any modern language is, in fact, not the same as it was say a 100 years ago. It has been modified to add newly invented objects like for Computers and Televisions, or newly discovered ones like Idli and Dosa. I think that our desire of saving languages is not pragmatic but aesthetic.