Talk:Killer language

Loaded term

This seems to be a pretty loaded term. Is there any way to NPOV this? --Tabor 21:08, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• It is a loaded term. Certainly languages do not injure, kill or otherwise affect other languages. This is simply anthropomorphizing; it’s just a way of looking at the situation. In reality, it’s the laws, policies and attitudes of the dominant culture in regard to the weaker culture and its language. I suppose that anthropomorphizing makes it easier (or more interesting) for some people whose minds work in a certain way.
• In answer to your question, I don’t see any way to NPOV this (except, perhaps, by adding appropriate explanations). —Stephen 06:34, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• i've done a cleanup on the article - cut out the ranting/repetitiveness, cut the strong NPOV section in the original toward the bottom, etc. Kasyapa 22:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)Kasyapa

I edited your revision Kasyapa because of a number of grammatical errors, and an added line in your introduction which raised a NPOV flag. I reverted some sections that worked better as they were and removed also, a number of repititions of "proponent" which I felt was unnecessary. -- Kerowren (talk • contribs • count) 22:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Kasyapa

Kerowren - the problem with your edits is that they themselves come close to non-NPOV-making. They appear to endorse this theoretical (and by no means universally accepted) concept as objective fact. My use of "proponents" accomplished an outline of the concept of killer languages without an appearance of endorsement. Kasyapa 06:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)Kasyapa

Also, the "Social implications of language death" section is non-NPOV. It more resembles propaganda than something for wikipedia. I'm not going to get into a revert war on this, but the entry as you have edited is NPOV, and I'll tag it as such. There's nothing wrong with stating things in terms of what a theory's proponents believe. Thus I could say "string theory proponents claim that quantum phenomena can be explained on the basis of multidimensional vibrating etc. etc." without implying anything negative or positive about the theory. I do not know if you're a believer in the "killer language" concept (or some associated network of concepts), but your edits suggest it.Kasyapa 06:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)Kasyapa.

Merge suggestion

I added a merge suggestion tag for several reasons:

• The term in not in popular use among academics. See these google results: linguistics "killer language" (about 600 hits)
  • Compare that to: linguistics "language death" (about 57,000 hits)
• The essence of this definition of a killer language is 'a majority language that causes language death for a minority language'. The material in the article adds little to language death and possibly the sources can be merged and a mention of the term
• (Some academic speak ahead) The definition of a 'killer language' is unclear. It is defined as a language that 'kills' a mother tongue--which is a person's first language. In fact, language death is most common on the societal and not individual level: the process is typically that an immigrant or person in a colonized country speaks a native tongue and later generations choose to learn the new language instead. Converting mothertongue to something like 'the historical language of a group of people' and clarifying what is meant by 'at a cost' would fix this...though I think this would be best explained in the language death article rather than repeating it here.

To vote on this, click on the link on the article page template. Antonrojo 15:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Dubious

Critics of the killer language concept generally object on naturalistic grounds - that languages evolve naturally over time and that all are not equal, both intrinsically and situationally. They also disagree on philosophical grounds, criticizing the so-called killer language concept as a post-modern, Marxist, or feminist construct.

The part I have bolded is ridiculous. How could this concept be post-modern, feminist, or Marxist? What on Earth does feminism have to do with language extinction? Sounds like the editor meant "a leftie construct" and combined in one sentence the three things he hates most. For him post-modernism, Marxism and feminism are apparently pretty much the same thing (any form of obscuring the simple, honest truth of the Bible and/or Reaganite economics); I've noticed this weird idea in other right-wing Anglo-Saxons. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The first part is also problematic. Which linguist said that languages are not equal "intrinsically"? Is this supposed to mean that, say, Cherokee is inherently worse than English?--91.148.159.4 (talk) 15:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this has to be reworked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.61.72.172 (talk) 18:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)