 |
|
You are not logged in! F.A.Q Log in Register |
 |
|
 |
 Now online (2)Roger Wilco dariusgriffin ...and 71 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
 |
Members 8025Messages 2614125 Today 4 Topics 127542 |
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
globalisation is a problem, in my eyes, but for a culture to truly counteract this problem they must do so with complete independence from external entities - otherwise their culture will be preserved inaccurately (almost as a globalised view of their culture). |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
yeah, good point. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
"i don't think diversity should be forced" exactly my thoughts, it's like an enforcing individualism - it just doesnt happen! |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
just let nature take it's course... well, that's the main problem.. is this nature taking its course? would this language die out if africa hadn't been colonized? |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
thank you, I've been wondering what he actually said for many years. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
and I do agree with the "not forcing" thing, and I don't really see anything else to be done, which is why part of my initial question was "how could this be done." of course, I hope these cultures don't die, but there seems to be little to be done about it. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
human beings and their actions are natural. i don't think cultures should be preserved as such, but rather globalisation should be resisted. Stuart Hall's studies on globalisation make good reading, with his 3 predicted consequences of globalisation: 1. decrease in diversity through globalisation of cultures. 2. sustainment of diversity through cultural resistance to globalisation. 3. increase in diversity through the forming of new 'hybrid cultures', due to increased inter-culture relationships and communications. [my recollection of this theory may be a bit rusty :D] |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
hmmm good point. i know i've said "let nature take it's course", but that's not a good reason to be indifferent with respect to these dying cultures. the answer is in anthropology itself, i guess. study those cultures before they actually die (which seems to be inevitable). that way, we can learn from them as much as we can. and that's perhaps another way of preserving them. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
the problem is, to truly understand a culture you have to live it, not just study it. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
perhaps, but that would imply keeping those cultures artificially alive (with the danger of modifying them anyways). study is a good compromise, i guess. there just isn't a perfect solution. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
back to the initial question: should we do our best to preserve "dying" cultures, and how would this be done? the best way to do this, for me, is to allow cultures to grow/evolve by themselves, and do not force any culture on them. cultures naturally evolve, but this progression is too often interrupted by multi-national companies wishing to widen their potential-customer "net", and this involves bringing along their culture. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
i agree with you, but i think you've missed a point. (or i've missed yours.) a dying culture is "dying" because it isn't able to grow or evolve by itself anymore. how much evolution do you expect from a language which is spoken by 5 people? so from your words i make you'd say to let these cultures die, because it seems to be their natural evolution. if that's the case, ok, i still agree, and i'd like to add: study them as good as possible, just in case there's something useful in there. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
yes, when a culture is that small, the size of a single family, it is almost certainly dead. the rot of globalisation/westernisation/americanisation has set in too deep, there is no more that can be done to rejuvinate the culture. all that is left, it seems, is to document it. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
what a great thread. I think it'd be a good idea to recognise the fact that dead languages can be brought back to life if there is sufficient written material in the language. Take Hebrew for example - it was entirely dead until the Israeli state was established, with hebrew as its national language, and now there are native speakers of hebrew once more. The problem is, however, that most of these tribal African languages, as cited in the first post, have not been written down. Once they die, they're dead. However, since language is truly "an aspect of the soul", and one people feel very passionate about (just look at the French, people of the Basque region, and indeed ), if the language belongs to a modern society - ie, not a tribal setting - and the speech community reaches low numbers, around a couple of hundred, people will notice and things will be done. I think the topic of the dominance of the English language around the world is far more interesting and important however. It is due to convenience and necessity when it comes to globalised trade. I think the current situation is just fine - except for one thing, that english is perceived by youth culture all around europe as cooler than their native language, and more useful. I think the solution to this is just advertising and a raising of cultural awareness and national pride. On the flipside, there's an association in America that's fighting the growing prominence of spanish, which I find quite amusing. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
let me just say that the african languages ARE recorded too (how else would we know what the people were saying?) and there are interpreters, but they are most often not part of that culture, but rather the other culture that wants to know what those 10 people in the corner are talking about... what you say about english being a language percieved as "cooler" is a trend that I actually hope and think is turning. There used to be tons of bands here in norway singing in english and when asked why, they mostly replied "it's more poetic" or "it's cooler." However, as of late, and actually starting with the hip-hop culture, this has turned.. more and more bands/acts/whatever are using norwegian (and often in their own dialect although some people switch (there has been a rather weird case of a (hot) chick from the north part of the country switching to the dialect spoken in oslo whenever she sings.. (she was a non-winner in norwegian idol, but I think she'll be the one to stay, btw))). but another thought just occured to me.. what if "american" takes over and "english" is forgotten somehow (this would take many many years, but could be possible)? the harbor has color. would we want to save "english"? It's almost like two dialects, and again an example from here in norway where there are two "languages" which mostly are just different dialects. No-one really speaks the standardized form of each (the one found in textbooks), but we learn both at school and culture researchers think that it's important that we preserve the "new-norwegian" (which, oddly enough, has been around longer than the other one.. long story) "language" and culture. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
This relates somehow to the problem of Canada... which is the province of Québec. I live in it, I'm one of those "100% pure laine" Québécois who's family have been here for centuries. I speak French. We're 8 million people, living and surrounded completely by 300 million North Americans speaking another language. We are part of them, but also we aren't like them. We're a completely different cultural entity. We talk French for a start, but we have to fiight had to *save* this cultural identity. We instored laws that protect our language and way of living, and also facilitates the entry of immigrants. Its still today a very controvertial law, and I do agree it has its fair share of good and bad points (anyway, nothing is black or white, its all gray). You all know how American culture is really heavy, now imagine being surrounded, East, West, South, with it (Ontario = USA disguised) and being continually blasted by American culture. Again, for its good and also, for its bad. ;-) So when you speak of Norway, well you guys aren't really "in the middle of it". We're like the Asterix Gaul village. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
heh.. I was just using norway as an example simply because I know how it is here as opposed to canada. I knew that canada had both french and english as official languages, but I have no idea how it is there... we also have "trøndersk" which simply is a dialect of norwegian, but I have a harder time understanding that than I have understanding english... I also giggled at the ambiguity in calling american culture "heavy" |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
Yeah I wasn't putting Norway down, not at all. In a way, Americanism/globalism is omnipresent everywhere. There are good and bad parts to this, and cultural identity is something that can be loss from that omnipresence. It's just that we have the geopolitical aspect to it, they are our neighbours! (we're their biggest neighbour also). We're also neighbours with Ontario and the east part of Canada, which is 98% English. We're more like 90% French here in Québec ;) Speaking of dialect, well our language in itself is a form of dialect compared to "pure French", or the dictionnary form. A funny anecdote, when movies from Québec are shown in France, they are subtitled! |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
THE WEST IS THE BEST. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
hahah! french subtitles from semi-french... could be useful in real-life when talking to "trøndere" too... |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
i'm really into languages and preserving culture so i agree with you totally. iceland itself is a very small community and the changes that this nation has gone through over the last 60 years are massive. there has always been a strong tradition for preserving the icelandic language, which can be shown by the fact that most people can with, not so much difficulty, read books that were written some 800 years ago. another thing is that, when most nations take new words from other cultures they don't change the word much. this is the case with danish for example. they might change the spelling but the word looks and/or sounds exactly like the english (most often) word. this doesn't make the word very danish to me. we of course have slang and such but most of the time new words are made by putting together old words. it's a rather "seethrough" language in the sense that you most often know what a word means although you've never seen it. i don't find this to be the case with english because it has got so many latin/greek words. i think all of this will change though in the near future. american/english influences will probably "destroy" the language for the most parts. many would say that this is just a natural evolution but to me fighting back and trying to preserve culture is just as natural. and as for you tolstoyed...my views on english are somewhat similar although i don't find it very boring. it lacks some words and phrases, sure, and i feel that i can never quite say what i want to say and could do much better with my own language...but that also has something to do with my lack of knowledge in english. i'm a great fan of languages, as said above, but i haven't studied slovenian. i went there last summer (well croatia actually) and drove through slovenia 2 times. i thought croatian was a bit strange (not boring, just strange) but that is probably because it's very much different from icelandic. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
wow, that was long. taken from wikipedia: "Slovenians are said to be 'a nation of poets' due to their language". funny enough, this has sometimes been said about icelanders as well so those two nations might have more in common than one might think... |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
sometimes i wonder how far humans will go to save data, experience, forms. perhaps in the future we will have only museums, and making new objects will be forbidden. we will have run out of space. i'm at work and can't read the entire thread, but i wonder if, with languages, we must be content to let go and realize that as language evolves, outdated "formats" must be retired. it's a tremendously emotional issue for those whose culture is interwoven with the language, but it seems there's no way to forestall the inevitable. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
Go West! Life is peaceful there Go West! In the Open Air Go West! Where the skie are blue Go West! This is what we're gonna do |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
yeah, I like it better when new words and slang is made from norweigan words than english... unfortunately, I can't get around some parts of the development myself and actually use the (norwegianified) "kidsa" (about kids.. I also only say "kids," but that's because the dialect I speak doesn't have "female" words and the -a ending is "female"), "word" (although I only use this a bit jokingly) and "ma'fakka!" (also jokingly, but it appears I joke too much, 'cause I use them very often... |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
your dialect doesn't have female words? i thought most forms of norwegian didn't have female endings just like danish, except for gammel norsk maybe or something like that. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
i think this is a suitable time to post comic :D |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
great comic! |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
no, it's pretty much only bergen (and maybe some surrounding areas) I think... |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Messageboard index
|
|||||||||
