While I sometimes see Dutch as an endangered language, reality is that with nearly 30 million speakers worldwide, we're actually doing pretty well. Sadly, this can't be said for the 3000 truly endangered languages of the world - nearly half of the world's total number of languages is on the verge of extinction, and with it, large amounts of human culture are in danger of disappearing forever. In collaboration with several universities and language institutions, Google has launched the Endangered Languages Project to document these languages - textually, visually, and
auditorially.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-10-02
I dislike the "modern" (RLC) version. The orthography is not particularly Celtic, it is basically Anglo-Cornish with English spelling, and differs greatly from Welsh and Breton. I prefer a certain level of linguistic purity for the sake of diversity (and to undo the effect of English imperialism), so Modern Cornish is a no-go.
The same is true for the Peurunvan and Skolveurieg orthographies (the latter being too french) for Breton. The right one to use is obviously Etrerannyezhel, with its dependency on proper Brythonic etymology. I also prefer formal Welsh over informal Welsh, the former being closer to Cornish and Breton.
Member since:2006-05-30
But, there's no such thing at Brythonic orthography, nor Celtic. None othe the natural (as opposed to revived) Celtic languages have commonality in their orthography. Gaelic and Irish seriously disagree, and really, they are closely related offshoots of the same language. Welsh is competely different (save the C over K preference and the agreement on CH being a friative). Indeed, Irish and Aelic don't even agree on how to aspirate/leinate (mutate in welsh).... The most Welsh looking Breton orthography is still miles away.
If you look at common phrases (the Pan Celtic phrase book by Y Lolfa,ISBN 0862434416, is a pretty good source) the commonality can be seen, but Welsh and Breton have diverged a lot. Oddly, sometimes Breton is the least Celtic word order, sometimes Welsh. The Gaelic/Gàidhlig/Gaeilge look similar, but with enough subtle grammatical differences so as to not be identical.
Cornish doesn't really exist anymore. All you have is 3 different opinions of what it might look like now. Modern is the closest to reality.
Manx, well, the orthography is exactly what it is.
I think you need to realise, one persons idea rules most written languages. From Ataturk to Kanji. Sometimes it's the orthography that really creates identity. E.g. Thai and Lao, Finnish and Estonian, Gaelic and Irish, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Member since:
2006-05-30
Hebrew yes. Cornish is more problematic. There are a number of competing versions. The only one I ever liked is the least popular, the "Modern" version by Richard Gendall. It's most like modern Welsh and Breton to me. The others are nice, but retain archaic and quirky features and spellings.