XPost: alt.usage.english, uk.media.tv.sf.drwho   
   From: daniel47@nomail.afraid.org   
      
   On 3/01/2026 7:53 am, Your Name wrote:   
   > On 2026-01-02 17:57:07 +0000, Hibou said:   
   >> Le 02/01/2026 à 15:37, The Doctor a écrit :   
   >>> Hibou wrote:   
   >>>>   
   >>>> [...] We native English speakers are lucky people.   
   >>>   
   >>> Exactly!   
   >>>   
   >>> Still how are the Scots doing to preserve Scottish Gaelic?   
   >>   
   >> Badly:   
   >>   
   >>    
   >>   
   >> There's no percentage scale there, but Gaelic speakers are currently   
   >> about 1% of the population - and there's a question about how well   
   >> they speak it. No-one in Scotland speaks Gaelic but not English.   
   >>   
   >> It is essentially impossible to preserve a language like Gaelic. If   
   >> it's to handle all aspects of modern life, then it must acquire a mass   
   >> of new words, and its nature changes. If one rejects that course and   
   >> seeks to preserve it as is, then it becomes limited and obsolete.   
   >>   
   >> IMHO, it's no use being able to say, "Put some more peat on the fire,   
   >> Donald" in Gaelic, and then having to resort to English to discuss   
   >> Morag's doomscrolling on Facebook.   
   >   
   > The Maroi language here in New Zealand adds words, but often they're   
   > simply "pigeon-English"-like reworking of the English word. For example,   
   > the Maori word for a car is simply "motoka" (i.e. a corruption of   
   > "motorcar").  :-\   
   >   
   > As usual these days, there is all sorts of politicall correctness   
   > stupidity about trying to "save" the Maori language by having street   
   > signs in both languages, ranaming government departments (twice - first   
   > time to put the Maori version first, and again to put it second),   
   > forcing kids to learn Maori in school, etc. The reality is that it's a   
   > dying language for a reason, and even most Maori cannot and have no   
   > interest in speaking it.   
   >   
   Here, in Australia, there are something like 500 Aboriginal Nations, so   
   I'm guessing there are at least that many languages. And as the original   
   tribes were nomadic, there has probably been a lot of intermingling ....   
   of people AND languages.   
   --   
   Daniel70   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)