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How languages evolve - Alex Gendler

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TEDEd Animation

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Over the course of human history, thousands of languages have developed from what was once a much smaller number. How did we end up with so many? And how do we keep track of them all? Alex Gendler explains how linguists group languages into language families, demonstrating how these linguistic trees give us crucial insights into the past.

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Meet The Creators

  • Educator Alex Gendler
  • Director Igor Coric
  • Narrator Michelle Snow
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Lesson creator

What are the pros and cons of linguistic diversity? What are some ways that people can be enabled to communicate on a broader level in the modern world while also maintaining the unique cultural and historical content of surviving languages?

In recent years, the issue of ‘language death’ has received attention, as regional dialects are abandoned in favor of standardized forms, or local native languages with few speakers are replaced by more dominant ones.

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Avatar for Cadence Dauer
Lesson completed

Pros:
-Communicating with different people all over the world
-Creates diversity
-Learning a new language is good for your brain
Cons:
-You can't communicate with other communities
-It is hard to learn a new language and takes years


Avatar for Forrest Giard
Lesson in progress

The only pros I could think of would be varying cultures, with each different language there is a differing culture even if it's derived from a native language. Cons would be it is much harder to get need-to-know information across the country to everyone especially if not everyone can understand what is being said. Another con is there would be a huge decline in the diversity of people and cultures.


Avatar for Jones Huntimer
Lesson completed

Some pros are that multiple countries speak that language and it will be easier to trade with them. Some cons are that each one is a little different in their way and that they are harder to learn in that sense.


Avatar for Mariah Washington
Lesson in progress

A pro of linguistic diversity is that it allows their people to communicate with each other and a con is there isn't a exact number of languages .


Avatar for Braylon Grace
Lesson completed

the pros and cons of linguistic diversity is to desribe different languages.


Avatar for Carson Whitfield
Lesson completed

A pro is because it gives people there own language to communicate with. A con is that there is so many science can not determine which language is the overall one.


Avatar for Jase Bauer
Lesson completed

i think a pro that youmay know how many people you are related too but you dont actually know the exact number because there are so many people out there that speak different languages in your family but you just dont know it


Avatar for Marco Springman
Lesson completed

I think a pro of this is that you can know how many more people you may be related to. I think a con of this is that if you speak the nonmodern way of the language some or most people may not understand you.


Avatar for Brady Caraway
Lesson completed

You can learn more languages and be more knowledgeable. Cons are that it is a lot harder to communicate. We can balance it by having a few main languages instead of a lot of sub languages.


Avatar for Giulia Rei
Lesson completed

Linguistic diversity is a very important treasure we have that can differ the culture of each group of people with some cultural features in common. In my opinion it is important to mantain all the different variations we have in Linguistics. Unifying them would really be a consistent lose. However, a consequence to the linguistic diversity is the difficulty to be understood and to understand people speaking other variations of the language.
A way to communicate could, so, be the one to use a "lingua franca", as it has been done in the last century with the English language that started to be used in different Countries to allow people to communicate for economic, social and other types of reasons.

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