Amerika

There are about 6,900 languages spoken in the world (blam!). Just four percent of these languages are spoken by 96 percent of the world’s population (boom!).

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The author of the chapter on endangered languages tells us that 90 percent of the languages currently spoken will probably disappear by the end of this century. Scholars who record native speakers and compile dictionaries should be supported in their efforts: we ought to have as full a record as possible of the wonderful diversity in human history.

But probably the best we can do for dying tongues (and cultures) is, hospice-style, to make the transition to a wider, more cosmopolitan world as painless and humane as possible.

NYT

Human growth is killing species. Accept it.

Human growth requires globalization, and is killing culture, language and heritage. Accept it.

We’re all being bred into one grey race with no organic culture, customs, values, language or heritage. Accept it.

The new mall has come to town and replaced the forest. Accept it.

Television has replaced values, politeness, and individuality with a pop culture of trying to be more hip than the other guy. Accept it.

Idiots win elections, jerks get ahead at the job, liars and salesmen take over culture, and the people who get all the attention are those who cannot take care of themselves. Accept it.

We’re trading a diverse world of natural species and human uniqueness for one of uniform mass culture, institutions, industry and sound bytes politics. …accept it?

At some point, enough is enough: either we gain control of ourselves as a species, or we’re going to become generic, and then even our technology and morality will not stop our devolution into apes.

Accept it.