Dead Languages. Why Should We Learn Them?
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- Date Submitted: 03/12/2011 07:22 PM
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Dead languages. Why should we learn them?
With this presentation I intend, from a practical point of view, to prove the importance of the study of the dead languages. The question that I want to make is Why is it important for the students to learn languages that are no longer in use, languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit or, for example, Old English?
Many students, of secondary school, high school and even university, have had at least once in their lives this question: Why should I study a language that is no longer spoken, another foreign language, but one that I will never speak with anyone? And many of them have agreed that learning a language like this is useless, has completely no importance in their lives. Others, in change, admit that learning Latin or Ancient Greek is useful. There is a third category of people that, without being asked this question, have answered that a dead language is the perfect hobby, that knowing its vocabulary, how to analyze and translate it into the mother tongue is the most exciting thing.
But before entering the matter of dead languages I should make clear some important points about the “life of the languages”. Nowadays, in the world there are about seven thousand spoken languages. This means that there are native speakers of each and every of those about seven thousand languages. But this number has not been so forever, because there were some languages that due to historical, political, social or religious reasons have disappeared. These are the dead and extinct languages. Normally the transition from a dead to an extinct one occurs when a language undergoes language death, also known as linguicide (the Latin term) or glottophagy( the Greek term) while is being replaced by another different one. Such is the example of the Native American languages that were replaced by English, French, Spanish and Portuguese as a result of colonization. Language extinction may also occur when a...
With this presentation I intend, from a practical point of view, to prove the importance of the study of the dead languages. The question that I want to make is Why is it important for the students to learn languages that are no longer in use, languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit or, for example, Old English?
Many students, of secondary school, high school and even university, have had at least once in their lives this question: Why should I study a language that is no longer spoken, another foreign language, but one that I will never speak with anyone? And many of them have agreed that learning a language like this is useless, has completely no importance in their lives. Others, in change, admit that learning Latin or Ancient Greek is useful. There is a third category of people that, without being asked this question, have answered that a dead language is the perfect hobby, that knowing its vocabulary, how to analyze and translate it into the mother tongue is the most exciting thing.
But before entering the matter of dead languages I should make clear some important points about the “life of the languages”. Nowadays, in the world there are about seven thousand spoken languages. This means that there are native speakers of each and every of those about seven thousand languages. But this number has not been so forever, because there were some languages that due to historical, political, social or religious reasons have disappeared. These are the dead and extinct languages. Normally the transition from a dead to an extinct one occurs when a language undergoes language death, also known as linguicide (the Latin term) or glottophagy( the Greek term) while is being replaced by another different one. Such is the example of the Native American languages that were replaced by English, French, Spanish and Portuguese as a result of colonization. Language extinction may also occur when a...