this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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There are around 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but that number is shrinking. Unesco estimates that half could disappear by the end of the century. So how are languages lost, and what does that mean for the people who speak them?

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[–] nyamlae@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

I don't get why people are up in arms over lost languages or lost cultures, unless of course if it's due to genocide.

Which it often is, as I'm sure you know. We are in an awful situation for Indigenous languages.

Regarding culture, people don't lose their culture in general, they adopt other cultures over time.

These are the same thing. People don't just lose their culture and become cultureless. They lose their culture as they adopt another culture, but this process is largely driven by colonialism.

Just like people have evolved biologically over time, so do we also evolve culturally, but the cultural evolution is much much faster.

"Evolve"? Do you think European culture is superior to Indigenous cultures? We are destroying the planet in record time, and you are talking about "cultural evolution"? This is the language of 19th century racists who were blind to the nuances of culture. Different cultures are different ways of being in the world, each with its own pros and cons.

And it's fucking great that cultures evolve, because that's the way to get rid of religion and other traits of our cultures that are detrimental to in general.

Unfortunately, the cultures that have replaced Indigenous cultures around the world have largely been bigoted Christian cultures. Language loss is not caused by cultures becoming healthier -- it is caused by unhealthy cultures killing other cultures.