Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On Friday 05 September 2008 19:34:05 geni wrote:
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Without knowing Fayu, the Fayu would no longer be Fayu, and so the value of knowledge to the Fayu would be exactly zero.
But the value of knowledge to the individuals in question would still be quite high.
In any case, this is mostly comparing incomparables: there is no objectively correct answer as to the relative merits of focusing on language preservation versus focusing on allowing people to acquire more information through learning second languages.
-Mark