Links for 2008-01-25
- Canon's launched the new Digital Rebel - XSi or 450D - and it looks pretty nice I was a bit disappointed to see no upgrade to the 5D. I don't know that I could afford the 5D, but I wanted to see what it was going to be like before I decided to upgrade.
- The last remaining speaker of one of Alaska's native languages has died... The most depressing thing about this story is that she has seven living children, none of whom learned how to speak it because it was considered wrong to speak anything but English.
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
I don't buy all this stuff about language death. Languages have always grown and died, just like everything else. And how is it "depressing" that her children did not learn the language? Only is it so in some absurd romantic worldview which dictates that "they" -- these *primitive natives* -- shouldn't decide for themselves what language they speak.
Here's a whacky idea: the woman's children learnt English because it was in their best interests socially, economically, and culturally. To suggest that "they" "should" be "preserving" "their" "cultural heritage" against individual wishes is highly patronising.
→ Posted by: newfred at January 25, 2008 1:31 AM