That’s exactly right. There’s too much bias in society that if something isn’t perfect, then why bother? Nothing is perfect, so with that attitude there can be no progress. Thank you for doing important work!
You can check the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_time_of_e...
To make an example and be blunt: I do not expect any European country official language to get extinct anytime during our lifespan unless that country gets destroyed, which obviously won't be a good thing.
As for brain implants, I won't hold my breath.
As for a European country official language (strange line to draw), Icelandic is already in a state where younger Icelandic natives speak to each other in English because smartphones do not support their native language. It is entirely possible that Icelandic will be in danger of extinction this century[2].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3qbYFvOHwk [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/world/europe/iceland-icel...
It might take some work (and more media being produced in it, surely) but I don't think it's at risk
> because smartphones do not support their native language
Nowhere in the article says that. And most smartphones do even have support (including the Icelandic keyboard)
what is not supported is voice activated devices:
> "“Not being able to speak Icelandic to voice-activated fridges, interactive robots and similar devices would be yet another lost field,"
Regarding Icelandic, I know little about it except that it has a lot of non-ANSI if written properly. I already know many latin language dialect speakers that developed their behavior when the limits of SMS unicode were significantly smaller than ANSI, with long term repercussions. I'm not sure why facts like that would need to be in the article to discuss here?
> it's a bit of a mistake to say latin disappeared but I digress
Latin is a dead language. It's not extinct (because it's used for ceremonial reasons by the Catholic Church) but it has no native speakers. This is not a remotely controversial statement. Old Church Slavonic has a similar role in Slavic Orthodox Churches and is also a dead language for the same reason.
> Nowhere in the article says that. And most smartphones do even have support (including the Icelandic keyboard).
In my defense, I can't read the article -- I linked it because this Tom Scott video[1] uses that article as a reference for the Icelandic example he gave where he explicitly says that Icelandic is not supported by modern smartphones. My phone does have Icelandic support now so I guess the statement was only true at the time he said it?
You're of course right about "Latin is dead" (for practical purposes). But there's lots of nuances that get lost in this statement
Latin is dead in the same way as Middle English is dead. The Latin that died is the one around the late Roman Empire time that was "photographed" and frozen in time as Ecclesiastical Latin (oversimplification, of course)
And of course the modern romance languages derived from it, but there's no exact time where those "flipped the switch" and became modern French, Spanish, Catala, Portuguese, etc. So in a way it could be argued that they're Latin 3.0 w/ DLCs (which I'll totally give that it's a big stretch)
Would you feel the same way if that includes all languages you know, including all versions of English?
It's not just about becoming bilingual, a population becoming bilingual in a "prestige language" is the first stage of language death (though of course it doesn't /always/ lead to language death).
How would you feel if your kids only learned Chinese[1], and not a word of English?
[1] I’m assuming you’re not Chinese
It is true that social pressures kill off local languages, but it's usually not because parents don't want to teach their children their mother tongue, it's that people stop using the language to communicate because of the influence of the "prestige language". My parents (and all of the parents in the immigrant community I live in) went through great pains to teach their children their native language.
The burden is not in knowing another language, the burden is in making the "less useful" language your main one.
Your parents and all of the parents in the immigrant community you live in are very happy that English is now your main language which you acquired through school, friends, tv etc. Or maybe they put you in your-language-only schools, made sure you socialized with your-language-only friends and watched your-language-only media?