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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-there-an-app-for-that? dept.

Aramaic, a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic, was the common tongue of the entire Middle East when the Middle East was the crossroads of the world. People used it for commerce and government across territory stretching from Egypt and the Holy Land to India and China. Parts of the Bible and the Jewish Talmud were written in it; the original "writing on the wall," presaging the fall of the Babylonians, was composed in it. As Jesus died on the cross, he cried in Aramaic, "Elahi, Elahi, lema shabaqtani?" ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?")

But Aramaic is down now to its last generation or two of speakers, most of them scattered over the past century from homelands where their language once flourished. In their new lands, few children and even fewer grandchildren learn it. (My father, a Jew born in Kurdish Iraq, is a native speaker and scholar of Aramaic; I grew up in Los Angeles and know just a few words.) This generational rupture marks a language's last days. For field linguists like Khan, recording native speakers—"informants," in the lingo—is both an act of cultural preservation and an investigation into how ancient languages shift and splinter over time.

In a highly connected global age, languages are in die-off. Fifty to 90 percent of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken today are expected to go silent by century's end. We live under an oligarchy of English and Mandarin and Spanish, in which 94 percent of the world's population speaks 6 percent of its languages. Yet among threatened languages, Aramaic stands out. Arguably no other still-spoken language has fallen farther.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-to-save-a-dying-language-4143017/?all


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:50PM (7 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:50PM (#873588)

    If any language needs saving, it is proper US-English. It seems to be devolving in to a mess of incoherent abbreviations and vague Unicode symbols expressed in broken, individual, incomplete sentences of 140 characters or less.

    Also, it is important to document old meanings and contexts.

    In an impossibly idyllic far future, a normal person would read the article with the word "god", and wonder why people were writing about imaginary child molesting sky fairies, until they understand the context that a long time ago stupid, drooling, primitives humans seriously believed this unbelievably dumb shit.

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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @05:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @05:00PM (#873611)

    👍 👏 😊

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:10PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:10PM (#873651)

    Speaking of which, where is our beloved President, realDonaldTrump? We haven't seen him since June.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:35PM (2 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:35PM (#873668) Journal

      I wondered that myself just minutes ago.

      I will build a casino wing onto the capital building if elected in 2024.
      Hey, I've seen a lot of casinos.
      This is the best, classiest casino you're ever going to see.
      Everyone who's ever come near one of my Trump casinos has said that they loved it.
      This casino will restore dignity and respect to the political process.
      Trust me, I know my casinos.
      And if some people don't want the casino, then we'll make it even bigger.
      And we'll make them pay for it.
      Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Classy beautiful stuff.
      And I'll build a clown circus wing on to the white house.
      I can use it to give speeches from the center ring. People will just love it.
      It will be a historical addition unlike anything the founders could have imagined.
      Believe me.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:49PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:49PM (#873700)

        You had me going there for a while, but I eventually realized this couldn't really have been Trump because there is no promise to make Mexico pay for the casino.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @09:00PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @09:00PM (#873726)

          Combo casino/detention centre?

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:19PM

    by Bot (3902) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:19PM (#873776) Journal

    All evidence points to ancient people being smarter than us tbh. Dawkins reasoning about religions is a prime example. Old time atheists would laugh at him. So, where are your advanced atheist ideas, that put to shame sacred texts? Just curious.

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @05:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @05:27PM (#874721)

    Aw how cute, some imaginary sky penis worshipers got all offended. Well, hopefully it's the imaginary sky dildo worshipers, it would be worrisome if Twitter users were that hostile.