Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Kaslin
Good analysis. Nonetheless when you think 25 years out there's a big problem in the picture in the Ukraine:

Television and the Internet are radically shrinking the world. TV has in fact killed the Southern accent in Texas so that I hear it only amongst people over 60; I expect TV and the internet to kill most of the world's languages in the next 30 years. My guess would be that languages which will still be in use by 2050 will include:

In particular, I don't see Ukranian surviving another 30 years. There isn't any great opera or literature in Ukranian and anybody in the Ukraine who isn't retarded can speak Russian now. The difference between Russian and Ukrainian is similar to the difference between our English and Chaucer's.

26 posted on 03/02/2014 6:53:18 AM PST by varmintman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: varmintman
In particular, I don't see Ukranian surviving another 30 years.

Maybe the difference isn't language, so much as general outlook and orientation. People talking now about splitting up the US based on ideology ought to be able to understand how that works and why there might be different countries with different ideas about freedom and different religious ideas.

But actually, I'm not sure all those other languages are going to disappear. While knowing English (or Mandarin, I guess) is advantageous today, so is being part of a group that has its own language that foreigners can't immediately understand or easily learn. Language is one barrier against people from anywhere moving in and changing things -- not an insurmountable barrier -- but still, it does stand in the way of globalization.

36 posted on 03/02/2014 11:13:54 AM PST by x
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson