Thursday, September 24, 2009
Deciding whether or not to save a language
When deciding whether or not to save a language there is one condition which must be met, the benefits of saving the language must be greater than the cost of saving the language. There are several ways to analyze the cost and benefits of saving a language. Most importantly it is easier to save a language with a large community of speakers. The cost of saving the language is significantly less if this condition is true. Other things that would bring down the cost of saving a language are conditions such as, the existence of a written form, the potential to be modernized, and if or how it is used in everyday life and religion. Although this list does not contain all the conditions that would lower cost, these are a few of the most important ones. After analyzing the cost of saving the language, the next step would be to analyze the benefits of saving the language. When trying to understand the value of saving a language there are a few things to keep in mind. Some conditions that would make a language more valuable would be an integral part to culture,an important part of religious ceremonies, or even the language's role in national pride. However, the most important benefit would be the amount of information or art recorded in the language. Analyzing the true benefit of saving a language is a very tricky process. In many cases information contained within the language will not be discovered until years after the saving of the language. Because of this, when analyzing the benefits of saving a language the possibility of finding additional information contained within the language should be taken into account.
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I like how you made the simple generalization in the beginning about how saving a language is worth it if the benefits of saving it are greater than the costs. This statement is a nice way to simplify all the factors that play a part in the decision process. Although I agree that it would be easier to save a language with a larger community of speakers, I don't agree that the cost would be less. I think that it's easier with more speakers because there are more people who know the language and there are more people to pass it down to. The more speakers there are, however, the more more money people will have to put into education and translation services, which tend to be very expensive.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the more people there are that speak the language, the less expensive it would be. This is because when working with a language that only has a few speakers, the goal is to advance the language to the point that there are a good amount of speakers. Therefore, if you start off with a lower number, then there are more people that you have to teach that have never spoken the language. Therefore, you need more teachers and materials to start from beginning level all the way through difficult. However, if there are more speakers, then there are less people who will start from the beginning level and therefore, less materials overall needed.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you answered this prompt by bringing up the aspect of weighing the costs and benefits against each other. Also, you made a unique argument about language playing a part in religion as well as national pride. You can improve your analysis by giving more support for your assertions. For example, when you claim that the cost is lower when there is a larger population of fluent speakers (which is a subjective claim), you should add an explanation for your claim which Elisha did for you in her comment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brenda you must weigh the cost of saving the language with the benefits of saving it. The number of people speaking a language is somewhat important to saving the language but i don't think that it is the most important thing. You might want to discuss whether the presence of a written language has an effect on saving a language.
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