Gaelic hasnt been lost. It’s never died or been brought back. There’s an unbroken line of native speakers going back to the beginning of the language. That doesn’t seem like a ‘lost’ language to me. Furthermore I’m not sure what ‘artificial life-support’ means in this context. Gaelic is given funding for schools because there’s still native speakers of the language. It’s no more artificial than money being given to schools for English language lessons.
If anything is ‘artificial’ its the imposition of a foreign language
(English) into a Gaelic majority zone and native speakers having to
fight for decades to be able to be taught in their own language. Native speakers being forced to learn English to exist within their own regions because a central government would not allow services to be given in a people’s own language.
But then the clock only goes back so far with people who wish that minority languages would just die. There’s nothing artificial about shooting someone but suddenly it becomes an ‘artificial’ act to maybe phone an ambulance?
“There’s nothing artificial about shooting someone but suddenly it becomes an ‘artificial’ act to maybe phone an ambulance?” — THIS RIGHT HERE
Also just gonna point out here:
In the UK, the languages Gaelige, Gaelic, Cymraeg and Kernewek (that’s Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Cornish respectively) didn’t just “die out.” There was a concerted effort by the English to kill them off.
For example, in Wales, if a child was heard speaking Welsh in a classroom, they’d be given a “Welsh Not”, a wooden plaque engraved with “WN” to hang around their neck. They’d pass it onto the next child heard speaking Welsh, and whoever had the Welsh Not at the end of the day was punished – usually with a beating.
Kernewek was revived after a long hard struggle by the Cornish folk, and is now being taught again, but a lot about it has been lost because everyone who grew up speaking it has died.
And languages are never revived “just because.” The language of a place can offer so much insight into its history, so if you’re content to let a language die then you’re content to let history die.
People talk about “dead” languages as if they dwindle away gradually, naturally coming to an end and evolving into something else, but that’s rarely the case. Languages like Cymraeg and Gaelige and especially Kernewek didn’t have the chance to die with dignity, they were literally beaten out of my parents and grandparents.
Is it any wonder every other country hate the English? We invade their country, steal their history, claim pieces of their history as ours or flat out re-write it, and kill every part of their culture that we can.
It’s a miracle that any of the Celtic languages survived, so even if you don’t see the point in keeping them alive, the actual natives of each country we’ve fucked over are clinging onto what heritage they have left through the only thing they can: their language.
Hey OP, póg mo thóin!
*snerk* xD
I would like to point all of these “just let it die” assholes directly at Hebrew.
The language was effectively dead. It had been murdered and forced-assimilated away.
But there was this dude named Ben Yehuda.
And he said “no.”
“The language of my people for four thousand years or more,” he said, “should not stop existing because of a bunch of assholes.” (Okay, this is a dramatic retelling. He probably didn’t actually say assholes.)
So he started an official movement to recreate Hebrew as closely as possible to how it had been spoken about a thousand years prior.
Today, ancient Hebrew is spoken by millions of Jews around the world weekly in our prayers and Torah readings, and modern Hebrew is the official language of eight and a half million people–many of them having been born speaking it as a first language. Many people in the first group also speak at least some modern Hebrew–and it’s possible you do, too! A lot of loan words from Hebrew and Yiddish have made their way into English (like klutz, mensch, and kibitz).
That’s hardly “on life support.” Hebrew is growing, living, and thriving because of the Enlightenment efforts of the 1800s. The same COULD be done for languages like Welsh, Navajo, and Basque if the larger powers that be said “this is important” rather than forcing a giant bastion of culture–the language in which a people lived, loved, thought, told stories, and explained their world–to die.
there is a distinct difference between language that has died because it stopped meeting the needs of the people using it and language that has been deliberately killed by oppressors
I remember reading a linguist’s thoughts on this a while back. They noted that languages are not only an important cultural heritage, but also an important historical artifact that offers a look into the unique perspective of a culture. The things that we name and how we name them reflect our values and priorities. For example, Inuktitut is said to have several different words for snow that categorize them by various metrics. This reflects a need for communication regarding what the snow was like, which naturally would be important to a people who deal with snow on a near constant basis. There are nine different ways to say “you’re welcome” in Native Hawaiian, each responding to a different level of gratitude. You don’t respond the same way to “thanks for giving me a donut” as you do to “thanks for saving my life.” This reflects a culture of accountability and honor.
The study and preservation of indigenous languages worldwide is vital to the enrichment of our global culture. You don’t have to be fluent in multiple languages to be able to understand the perspective that is offered by nurturing this tradition. Our ability to communicate is one of our greatest gifts – what a waste it would be to throw that away simply because providing institutions of cultural heritage is too inconvenient.
I just want to emphasize the cultural component here. Languages die off like this due to people trying to wipe out that culture. Take a look at the Hague’s definition of genocide and see how it talks about trying to destroy that culture through forced assimilation, population control, and theft of children. Language destruction goes hand in hand with all of that.
When you stop to think about it, when do you hear of a language people just stopped speaking? When is it not associated with form of genocide?
Here are arguments I’ve seen in support of denying medical care (transplants) to what they consider low-functioning autistics. These are symptoms/ parameters being described:
1. Requires 24 HR care:
So do young children and many elderly people, particularly those with alzheimer’s. A paraplegic will require assistance bathing and feeding themselves. All of these people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?
2. Soils themselves:
So do people with incontinence caused by age or neurological conditions. This is a symptom that can be managed and these people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?
3. Nonverbal:
Many nonverbal autistics can communicate using other methods. Nonverbal autistics are self-aware and able to process information. They may be unable to speak some or all of the time, but so is someone with mutism. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?
4. Unintelligent:
Aside from the fact that many autistics have an average to high IQ, and the fact that being nonverbal and experiencing other symptoms is NOT a sign of low intelligence… basing someone’s value on their intelligence is ableist. Most people with downs syndrome have a lower IQ and lead full lives. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?
5. Meltdowns/ Screaming/ Self Injury:
Allistics (non-autistics) can also experience mental breakdowns and self-injurous behavior, even if these symptoms are triggered by different reasons. Allistics can also scream when they are upset. These behaviors do not make an autistic “unmanageable” as a patient. People with other psychiatric conditions can experience meltdowns and self-injury sometimes. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?
You see… When you target one group with your ableism and try to pretend it’s limited to just these “severe” cases, you’re not talking about ALL autistics or ALL disabled people…
Yes, you are. Ableism and eugenics spreads.
If you don’t support one group of disabled people, you don’t support any of us. And I for one am standing up to say I equally value the lives of all disabled people.
It affects all of us. In every group. In every level of severity or functioning or whatever misinformed labels you try to use.
So when you say that a given group of people shouldn’t be eligible for life-saving medical care because they’ll be a waste of treatment:
YOU ARE SAYING THAT YOU VALUE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES LESS.
Some symptoms may not be as palatable to you, but you don’t get to draw a line between who deserves to live and who doesn’t.
“
Some symptoms may not be as palatable to you, but you don’t get to draw a line between who deserves to live and who doesn’t.
“
That line is gonna keep shifting until it includes you if you isn’t one of the rich, white, able, men (in the US – other countries has their own criteria for who is worthy).
don’t use gay, it’s a derogatory term that’s been used against us for years and still happens today!!!
you can reclaim it for yourself, but there is no gay community because it’s a fucking slur, not an umbrella term.
teddyisabear said: I know this post is a joke but like you’re being really insensitive and ugly. Queer is a fucking slur and gay has never been a slur lmao get it together
have you perhaps been outside or at least in a public school or maybe looked at LGBT+ history
growing up, gay was quite frequently used as an insult. Constantly used in a derogatory manner.
growing up, the word gay had negative connotations. Do I ask people to tag things as g sl*r? No, because that would be homophobic. So why the fuck is it okay for people to tag stuff as q sl*r?
High school was a constant parade of people calling bad things “that’s so gay” meanwhile there were no publicly out students or any GSA type organization until after I graduated. But no one there was getting called queer as a slur, just gay. I recognize that use of negative meanings of queer is regional, but “that’s so gay” was pretty much universal for several years at least, in recent memory.
When I was in high school, I knew damn well who was gay or bi. But we literally didn’t dare utter the words. The only way I heard that word at all on school grounds was as a weapon, usually backed by a fist.
The time I spent in public school taught me 6 neat ways to remember the formula for calculating speed, and that if you don’t like someone, the first thing you do is call them gay.
You know, for a paper that regularly calls young people “snowflakes” for stuff like not being 100% on board with racism and maybe wanting jobs that pay more than a pittance, the Express has a truly impressive lineup of readers pissing themselves with terror at the thought of some women talking about football on TV.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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