Google Trying To Preserve Languages

[Nazi 0]

The search giant's philanthropic arm, Google.org, has launched the Endangered Language project, a website devoted to preserving those ancient tongues that are now only spoken by a few thousand of us.

The site, launched early Thursday, features videos and an interactive map. The curious can click on any one of the dots that hang over each country (including a suprising number in the U.S.), each representing a whole language.

You can hear the heartbreaking, beautiful sound of Koro being sung, or read 18th-century manuscripts written in a nearly-dead Native American tongue.

"Documenting the 3,000+ languages that are on the verge of extinction is an important step in preserving cultural diversity," write project managers Clara Rivera Rodriguez and Jason Rissman.

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This act of google is indeed fantastic. Google is always trying to do good things in some or the other way. It is really very important that all the ancient languages should be preserved as our history depends on these ancient languages. Preserving these languages is like preserving our culture.

 

There are some people who think that the whole world should speak only one common language (mainly english) because this will ease the gap of communication. Using only one language may help reducing boundaries and exchanging their ideas in a better way.

 

What do you think? Is it a good initiative or is this useless?

[Quatrux 4]

I think languages which won't become digital will die in one or another way, so the languages which want to survive needs to become digital. So google is doing a really great job.Speaking one language is quite a good idea, it would be much easier to communicate and a world would become even a more smaller place to live in, but still I think people could speak at least two languages, their mother tongue and lets say English or Esperanto or some other "world" language. My personal opinion that everyone should know 3 languages, it's much better for the person himself and for the brains too :DNowadays some people can't speak fluently any language, which in my opinion is really a bad thing.

[Nazi 0]

Yes Quatrux, I completely agree with you. It would be nice if all the people around the world speak one common language, but they should also try and preserve/retain language of their hometown. There is no doubt that the way of speaking a particular language changes as the time passes by. If you compare ancient english language and the english language which we speak now, it is changed. Right?But the main concern here is that people should be able to communicate and understand each other well.Language plays a very important role in every humans life. The way one speak, their actions or their choice of words used to communicate describes its attitude towards the person he/she is speaking to. English is a very plain language where sometimes we cannot show utmost respect with our words. Its same for all(elders, seniors, etc) while in some languages, there are words by which we can show respect and gratitude towards the person whom we are speaking to. So, whatever language you speak, your choice of words makes a big difference.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Language plays a very important role in every humans life. The way one speak, their actions or their choice of words used to communicate describes its attitude towards the person he/she is speaking to. English is a very plain language where sometimes we cannot show utmost respect with our words. Its same for all(elders, seniors, etc) while in some languages, there are words by which we can show respect and gratitude towards the person whom we are speaking to.So, whatever language you speak, your choice of words makes a big difference.

This is not necessarily true. Something I learned in the past is that you can tell what a particular group of people values most by looking at how many synonyms there are for words. For example, IIRC it's French that has a lot of words for love. So while language does definitely play a huge part in our lives, and each group of people, English is just like the others. It's not plain, it just values things different than others might (I forgot what English values most though...).