I have taken a bizzarely Randian turn for the past few days, which is odd considering:
The thought continued while watching "Baby Animal Planet" for solace. Awwww, Lucy the baby lion being raised as if she was a kitty. The show ended with the narrator claiming that Nature wanted "the survival of all species". That's bunk - survival of the fittest, surely. And I got to thinking about endangered species, and how nice of us it is to save them, and how ultimately pointless. If you're an African Wader with a silly breeding strategy, of course you don't stand a chance. We forget: we wiped out our wildlife centuries ago, so as endearing as orangutans are should they not be cleared in the way of progress, as we did our black bears and native wolves? Let's invite the wolverines and wooly mammoths back while we're at it!
And finally, to language. Why do we save language? I'm divided, even as I collect zombie languages to learn. In the next 10 years, 90% of the world's languages shall die out - they will remained like stuffed animals, museum pieces. Of course, their contents must be preserved but...saving languages like Guernsey French is a happy-Tory, Green And Pleasant Land, home-jam-making sort of idea. Because it's so nice, and we can wheel it out once a year with the bonnets, and the weaving, and the beanjar and can-making; and forget that plastic is superior to copper milk cans, and that the bonnets are made from synthetic materials, and that nobody actually likes bean jar - it's just, y'know, traditional.
Part of me says that. Loudly. I can now say "hello, how are you doing?", in a language no one can reply to. Brilliant!
At the same time, words are the expression of a people. A book in translation is necessarily different from it's original. And Guernsey French has a word for a cat's fur, ruffled the wrong way; and a verb for "touching food with hands which might not necessarily be clean"; and one for a certain note in the song of a songthrush. Pointless. Priceless.
I'm excited by a future when everyone speaks the same language (especially if it's English, and i don't have to do any more work). We'll be able to exchange those ideas and concepts encoded in our national languages and achieve world peace. At the same time, how can we preserve those ideas at all if we do not have the words?
A la perchoine!
- Rand is a nut
- See one.
The thought continued while watching "Baby Animal Planet" for solace. Awwww, Lucy the baby lion being raised as if she was a kitty. The show ended with the narrator claiming that Nature wanted "the survival of all species". That's bunk - survival of the fittest, surely. And I got to thinking about endangered species, and how nice of us it is to save them, and how ultimately pointless. If you're an African Wader with a silly breeding strategy, of course you don't stand a chance. We forget: we wiped out our wildlife centuries ago, so as endearing as orangutans are should they not be cleared in the way of progress, as we did our black bears and native wolves? Let's invite the wolverines and wooly mammoths back while we're at it!
And finally, to language. Why do we save language? I'm divided, even as I collect zombie languages to learn. In the next 10 years, 90% of the world's languages shall die out - they will remained like stuffed animals, museum pieces. Of course, their contents must be preserved but...saving languages like Guernsey French is a happy-Tory, Green And Pleasant Land, home-jam-making sort of idea. Because it's so nice, and we can wheel it out once a year with the bonnets, and the weaving, and the beanjar and can-making; and forget that plastic is superior to copper milk cans, and that the bonnets are made from synthetic materials, and that nobody actually likes bean jar - it's just, y'know, traditional.
Part of me says that. Loudly. I can now say "hello, how are you doing?", in a language no one can reply to. Brilliant!
At the same time, words are the expression of a people. A book in translation is necessarily different from it's original. And Guernsey French has a word for a cat's fur, ruffled the wrong way; and a verb for "touching food with hands which might not necessarily be clean"; and one for a certain note in the song of a songthrush. Pointless. Priceless.
I'm excited by a future when everyone speaks the same language (especially if it's English, and i don't have to do any more work). We'll be able to exchange those ideas and concepts encoded in our national languages and achieve world peace. At the same time, how can we preserve those ideas at all if we do not have the words?
A la perchoine!
