If the only remaining speaker is a bird and no one can understand the bird, I don't think this counts as saving a language from destruction. I don't see even a whole 2% chance we'll ever regain that knowledge. It's just noises now.
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
13 points (100.0% liked)
Today I Learned (TIL)
7675 readers
15 users here now
You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?
/c/til is a community for any true knowledge that you would like to share, regardless of topic or of source.
Share your knowledge and experience!
Rules
- Information must be true
- Follow site rules
- No, you don't have to have literally learned the fact today
- Posts must be about something you learned
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Lmao the other two comments in this thread are hilarious next to each other
Even if it's just an apocryphal story, it's at least a crazy-interesting concept that I hadn't even considered before.
Great TIL, however flawed:
Humboldt’s encounter with the parrot that saved a language from extinction is often dismissed as nothing more than linguistic legend—even the great linguist and professor David Crystal calls the story “probably apocryphal.”
They do continue on to make it seem more truthfull, failing, however, to diminuish the apocryphality. I mean they even link to an article that basically disproves what they claim ffs.