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Linux of Linguistics
Posted by Paul Szynol on Monday, December 09 @ 10:35:49 EST OpenSource
Few languages dominate the world's linguistic repertoire; the vast majority accept subordinate political status, fade away altogether, or, as E. J. Hobsbawm wrote, "become a repository of nostalgia and other sentiments".

The Long Foundation is using modern technology to bottle those languages that are threatened with extinction. The name of the venture is the Rosetta Project, and those in charge of it hope to put together an archive -- available on CD-ROM -- of 4,000 of the planet's 7,000 languages (current count is 1,200).

The reasons behind the project are primarily academic rather than sentimental: it is hoped that the preservation of the archived languages will help with comparative linguistic research and education, and will provide "a functional linguistic tool that might help in the recovery or revitalization of lost languages in unknown futures".

The project's organizers have adopted an open source approach. The Rosetta Project, they say, is the "'Linux of Linguistics' - an effort of collaborative online scholarship drawing on the expertise and contributions of thousands of academic specialists and native speakers around the world."

Check out the web site here.

 
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Re: Linux of Linguistics (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, December 09 @ 18:11:42 EST
I think they should try and archive all 7000 languages, simply because in the long term of globalization only a few langauges can survive.

Having an archive of what these thousands of languages were like could help future generations in thier study of the past, and could help if any odd archeological discoveries were made with an unknown language in them. This unknown language could be compared to the languages in the archive and that could help the translation of it.

I am all for this project, not because I feel these languages are vital to use as a racer, but because I feel they are vital to us understanding the past. I just hope they include some of the so called ead languages, like Latin, as well.


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