Re: World Lingos

Raymond Brown wrote:
> Easier if it's read rather than spoken, also, methinks.  The two parted
> company a few centuries and are distinctive enough to consitute different
> languages.
Certainly true that it's much easier read, but I've heard that most
Portuguese-speakers can understand Spanish if it's spoken slowly and
clearly.

> Indeed, why should it?  It is IMHO a very beautiful language;
Indeed, Spanish and Italian are among the prettiest languages I've
heard, IMO.

> My experience of French people over very, very many years convinces me that
> as long as there is a place called France and people who call themselves
> français or françaises the French language will remain.  One thing I find
> most French people are proud of is their language.
Indeed, I find it hard to imagine French dying out short of a plague
wiping out most of France.  If it ever does die out, I'm sure it would
be sometime in the very distant (say, 1000+ yrs) future.

> Languages die very hard.  Welsh not merely survives, but has now gained
> official recognition for the first time in centuries and there is no
> shortage of people who want to learn it.
But, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny languages (by tiny, I
mean communities of no more than a few hundred or thousand speakers)
dying out, hundreds wherein no children are learning them.

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