Glottocide? Glossocide?
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- Grand Panjandrum
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Glottocide? Glossocide?
This morning I saw the Portuguese word (it's not in my dictionary, though, it must be a recent neologism) glotocídio to refer to the "killing" of a language. I looked up glottocide on google and found only 7 hits, and none of them took me to a dictionary, which probably means that it's a pretty recent invention. Now I'm wondering about the propriety of the term glottocide vis-à-vis glossocide. Which do you think should be preferred? Besides, glotto/glossocide is a patent hybrid, shouldn't something like linguaecide be used instead? (I know, television, etc.)
Brazilian dude
Brazilian dude
Languages rule!
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- Grand Panjandrum
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On this site, I've found θανατώνω (thanatono), φονεύω (foneuo), σκοτώνω (skotono), but in Modern Greek.
Brazilian dude
Brazilian dude
Languages rule!
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- Grand Panjandrum
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I didn't suggest it
Brazilian dude
Besides, what's to like about Portuguese glotocídio and not to like about English glottocide? Are you suggesting the Portuguese (or the Brazilians for that matter) are the only ones able to kill a language? Anybody can do that by imposing a colonizer's language to a given native community. French, English and Portuguese qualify for that role in Africa, for example.I looked up glottocide on google and found only 7 hits, and none of them took me to a dictionary, which probably means that it's a pretty recent invention.
Brazilian dude
Last edited by Brazilian dude on Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Languages rule!
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Somehow I missed everything past the quote the first time I read it.
I think the Portuguese appeals to me simply for the phonlogy... I have a lazy American accent, so it might be different elsewhere, but I'd expect the "tt" to be voiced (/d/) in English, which sounds ugly. But perhaps that's fitting of the word...
I understand now how you might destroy a language...
There's also the possibility of of using "dialektos" over "glossia"...
I think the Portuguese appeals to me simply for the phonlogy... I have a lazy American accent, so it might be different elsewhere, but I'd expect the "tt" to be voiced (/d/) in English, which sounds ugly. But perhaps that's fitting of the word...
I understand now how you might destroy a language...
There's also the possibility of of using "dialektos" over "glossia"...
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Ask the Scots and the Irish about the English, and the Native Americans about the U. S. Cavalry and the missionaries . . .. . . I can imagine a passive death of a language, but the active killing...?
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
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I should clarify, I'm not completely ignorant When I said "active killing" I was thinking more of "total annihilation". I understand plenty of situations where cultures have been repressed and populations massacred, but it seems like there's always traces... Perhaps I was misunderstanding the definition?
I think that "glottocide" refers to both the killing and the attitude of repression of languages, just as "genicide" refers to both the killing and the attitude of elimination, even when the elimination of a race is not complete!
Apo
Apo
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck
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