Monday, July 26, 2010

more on language death, ctd.

Razib continues his exploration of the interplay of linguistic diversity/homogeneity and socio-economic disparity/prosperity. In a response to a comment, he posted his "bullet points" on


1) a common language across large spaces fosters economies of scale. in other words, it fosters coordination and cooperative by reducing the friction in flow of information.


2) a common language also removes some of the raw material for intergroup conflict. conflict is zero sum, #1 is ideally non-zero sum.

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TV Linguistics - Pronouncify.com and the fictional Princeton Linguistics department

 [reposted from 11/20/10] I spent Thursday night on a plane so I missed 30 Rock and the most linguistics oriented sit-com episode since ...