Ancient Chinese

[tanithryudo]

This is pretty neat. I didn't know ancient chinese had so many rolling R's.

"What Ancient Chinese Sounds Like - Poetry (English Subtitles)" (Watch on YouTube)

Y'know...usually in time travel or crossover fics to settings in ancient eras never consider the dialect barrier. Of course it's so you don't want to bog down the plot. But still...

Other awesomeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdO3IP0Pro8

Comments

[cashew]

Interestingly, the one thing that came to mind was: But we can still use written language to communicate!! Because, y'know, Chinese writing hasn't changed that much. XD

[tanithryudo]

Except, y'know, Simplified. XD

[cashew]

There are still people who can write traditional! Most phones will let you decide what kind of input you want to use. Hell, just get a smartphone (plus solar charger of course) and you can totally communicate! XD

[cashew]

Also, thanks to this video, I just spent 3 hours watching Xidnaf's channel about languages, instead of being productive and working on game.

=.=

[tanithryudo]

Haha, yeah that happened to me too.

[cashew]

Is code language?

Answer: Yes!

Now I'm off to watch why she thinks BASIC is a bad thing to teach in CompSci...

[tanithryudo]

Code is a language sure, but whether it should replace traditional language classes in school is another matter, depending on what you think the goal of learning languages in school should be.

Computer code a language used primarily to communicate with computers and other other programmers working on the same programming project with you. So until we invent AIs, it's pretty limited in its scale as a tool of pure communication.

It may be more useful as a skill learned in school if you're planning to go into a technical profession... but on the other hand, learning Spanish, French or Mandarin can be just as useful if you're going into a profession that works with non-English speakers a lot. ...And I would guess that category is probably larger than the population of programmers.

Also, if you're looking at language as a introduction into different cultures, their histories, and ways of thought... I would rather have kids today learn (for instance) Spanish and be able to see the immigrants from south of the border as fellow human beings deserving of empathy rather than getting mired in the current wave of rampant xenophobia. [/ugh trying not to get political]

[cashew]

Yeah, no, this issue is definitely political.

Personally, I, too, would rather people focus on seeing the importance of a foreign language that has more than 60 years of culture. (Okay, I'm short changing CompSci a bit here, but really, real programing languages didn't come about 'till late 20th century, so whatever.) Although how much learning a foreign language can actually change the xenophobic attitudes is up for debate. But any exposure to other culture is only a good thing.

As for computer code itself classifying as a foreign language, I think we can probably make the argument that AI doesn't have a nationality, so it can't really be considered a "foreign" language with respect to national boundaries and stuff.