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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
(Score: 3, Funny) by RedIsNotGreen on Wednesday July 31 2019, @04:10PM (6 children)
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 31 2019, @04:18PM (5 children)
. . . stop making fun of my google translated How else do you think the Star Trek Federation got it's universal translator? They built on the prior work of google, of course. We're in the early days of this kind of technology. Raise your hand, if you'd gladly pay for a universal translator. Give the sign, if you could have it all stuffed into a star trek emblem that could be worn like a pin.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 31 2019, @04:21PM (2 children)
... filters, filtered out my insert language tag. Which. I should have known was going to be filtered, because they sanitize the use of the less than and greater than signs.
Should have read
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @05:20PM (1 child)
"I said in my haste, It's technology's fault." RFP 116:11
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:30PM
"He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castle of aaarrrrggh"
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:32PM
In a Deep Space Nine episode where a few Ferengi landed in 1947 Roswell NM, (don't ask), the universal translators were in their ears, or skulls. One Ferengi's translator was malfunctioning and thus he couldn't understand the strange English language spoken by the Humans of New Mexico.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:52PM
I'm still waiting for the version of Siri/Alexa/whatever where you can replace the voice with Majel Roddenberry.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"