<story><title>Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet</title><url>https://news.mn/en/791396/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lonesword</author><text>&amp;gt; Every time a language dies, like latin or summerian did, we gain uniformity&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s not necessarily a good thing. It is not just a language that dies, but a part of the culture also dies with the language. I do get the appeal of the world having one language, but attaining it at the cost of diversity would be a _big_ price to pay.&lt;p&gt;I speak a southern Indian language called Malayalam (34 million speakers). There are some things that are simply untranslatable to English - these words&amp;#x2F;concepts are closely tied to the way we live. Now if everyone in my town starts speaking only English suddenly, it would definitely affect the way they think[1], function, and would inevitable change the culture. I am not claiming that change is bad, simply arguing that preserving a language might help preserve a culture.&lt;p&gt;[1] IIRC there&amp;#x27;s been some scientific literature on this. I&amp;#x27;ll look it up and edit this post when I get time</text></item><item><author>sametmax</author><text>&amp;gt; Preserving their traditional alphabet and de-colonializing their culture is a good thing, no matter how I look at it&lt;p&gt;There are downsides to any situation. E.G:&lt;p&gt;- cost&lt;p&gt;- available resources for education and work&lt;p&gt;- adding one more obstacles for different cultures to be able to understand each other&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m french, and in my country, language protection is a big thing.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also why we have such a terrible ability to speak english, which create way more problems than it solves.&lt;p&gt;Language preservation is overrated. Sure, it&amp;#x27;s nice. But compared to one day, having the entire earth speak the same language, be able to communicate and understand each other better? Small price to pay.&lt;p&gt;It get why they do it. Mongolia is a very peculiar culture, and I don&amp;#x27;t think it benefits much from mondialisation. Quite the contrary. And it&amp;#x27;s a way for their society to break from a painful part of their history.&lt;p&gt;But to me, it seems, at least on the long run, a step backward. Every time a language dies, like latin or summerian did, we gain uniformity. There are enough source of diversity in humanity to not need to add it to the very structure we use to exchange information.&lt;p&gt;Granted, the cyrillic alphabet is not very universal, but it is certainly more common than the traditional mongolia alphabet.&lt;p&gt;Now since I don&amp;#x27;t live there, I may be missing some crucial informations. Maybe the population still massively use the old alphabet unofficially and it makes sense. Maybe the use of the cyrillic alphabet brough problems I can&amp;#x27;t see.&lt;p&gt;So of course, I&amp;#x27;m not the right peson to judge the situation.&lt;p&gt;But I wanted to bring a counter point to this the enthusiastic parent comment. We tend to react in a very emotional way when it&amp;#x27;s about culture, and I&amp;#x27;m not sure it benefits our specie.</text></item><item><author>WilTimSon</author><text>UI issues aside, I think this is quite fabulous. Preserving their traditional alphabet and de-colonializing their culture is a good thing, no matter how I look at it. Although I do wonder how easy it will be for the whole nation to switch from one alphabet to another when they&amp;#x27;re so drastically different. I don&amp;#x27;t suppose any Mongolians are here to give their input?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bmn__</author><text>&amp;gt; There are some things that are simply untranslatable to English&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve often seen this claim, for all kinds of languages, sometimes even between two standard varieties of a single language. For a particular reason, I like to dig deeper. Invariably, the people making this claim are not very educated in linguistics, so it&amp;#x27;s not wonder this statement comes out wrong. And it is wrong. I challenge them to disprove me with a single counter example, and they are eager to do so. Typically the conversation goes like this:&lt;p&gt;Them: &amp;quot;You see, in my language we have ⅏⁝⏏⌸.&amp;quot;
Me: &amp;quot;And what does it mean?&amp;quot;
Them: &amp;quot;The pain you feel when you stumble around in the dark in drowsy stupor and step onto a plastic construction toy brick with your bare foot.&amp;quot;
Me: &amp;quot;You just translated it perfectly, congratulations.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;What they mean is: &amp;quot;there often is not a single corresponding foreign word or phrase for a word or phrase in my language&amp;quot;, and that&amp;#x27;s fine; but very far removed from &amp;quot;untranslatable&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet</title><url>https://news.mn/en/791396/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lonesword</author><text>&amp;gt; Every time a language dies, like latin or summerian did, we gain uniformity&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s not necessarily a good thing. It is not just a language that dies, but a part of the culture also dies with the language. I do get the appeal of the world having one language, but attaining it at the cost of diversity would be a _big_ price to pay.&lt;p&gt;I speak a southern Indian language called Malayalam (34 million speakers). There are some things that are simply untranslatable to English - these words&amp;#x2F;concepts are closely tied to the way we live. Now if everyone in my town starts speaking only English suddenly, it would definitely affect the way they think[1], function, and would inevitable change the culture. I am not claiming that change is bad, simply arguing that preserving a language might help preserve a culture.&lt;p&gt;[1] IIRC there&amp;#x27;s been some scientific literature on this. I&amp;#x27;ll look it up and edit this post when I get time</text></item><item><author>sametmax</author><text>&amp;gt; Preserving their traditional alphabet and de-colonializing their culture is a good thing, no matter how I look at it&lt;p&gt;There are downsides to any situation. E.G:&lt;p&gt;- cost&lt;p&gt;- available resources for education and work&lt;p&gt;- adding one more obstacles for different cultures to be able to understand each other&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m french, and in my country, language protection is a big thing.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also why we have such a terrible ability to speak english, which create way more problems than it solves.&lt;p&gt;Language preservation is overrated. Sure, it&amp;#x27;s nice. But compared to one day, having the entire earth speak the same language, be able to communicate and understand each other better? Small price to pay.&lt;p&gt;It get why they do it. Mongolia is a very peculiar culture, and I don&amp;#x27;t think it benefits much from mondialisation. Quite the contrary. And it&amp;#x27;s a way for their society to break from a painful part of their history.&lt;p&gt;But to me, it seems, at least on the long run, a step backward. Every time a language dies, like latin or summerian did, we gain uniformity. There are enough source of diversity in humanity to not need to add it to the very structure we use to exchange information.&lt;p&gt;Granted, the cyrillic alphabet is not very universal, but it is certainly more common than the traditional mongolia alphabet.&lt;p&gt;Now since I don&amp;#x27;t live there, I may be missing some crucial informations. Maybe the population still massively use the old alphabet unofficially and it makes sense. Maybe the use of the cyrillic alphabet brough problems I can&amp;#x27;t see.&lt;p&gt;So of course, I&amp;#x27;m not the right peson to judge the situation.&lt;p&gt;But I wanted to bring a counter point to this the enthusiastic parent comment. We tend to react in a very emotional way when it&amp;#x27;s about culture, and I&amp;#x27;m not sure it benefits our specie.</text></item><item><author>WilTimSon</author><text>UI issues aside, I think this is quite fabulous. Preserving their traditional alphabet and de-colonializing their culture is a good thing, no matter how I look at it. Although I do wonder how easy it will be for the whole nation to switch from one alphabet to another when they&amp;#x27;re so drastically different. I don&amp;#x27;t suppose any Mongolians are here to give their input?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>billfruit</author><text>Yes, but this is about script. Some languages like Turkish and Vietnamese are doing fine adopting the foreign Latin script as Languages.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people want&amp;#x2F;demand change in the direction of modernity too. I think during 1911 revolution in China, the people were really fed up with the system in place for centuries that they wanted it totally rid off; there was very serious discussion about adopting Esperanto as the language of the new republic.</text></comment>