www.alphadictionary.com

This morning I saw the Portuguese word (it's not in my dictionary, though, it must be a recent neologism) glotocídio to refer to the "killing" of a language. I looked up glottocide on google and found only 7 hits, and none of them took me to a dictionary, which probably means that it's a pretty recent invention. Now I'm wondering about the propriety of the term glottocide vis-à-vis glossocide. Which do you think should be preferred? Besides, glotto/glossocide is a patent hybrid, shouldn't something like linguaecide be used instead? (I know, television, etc.)

Brazilian dude

I prefer Glottocide for some reason, but what would the grrek root for "kill" be? Do we have that active Greek root in English?

Apo

On this site, I've found θανατώνω (thanatono), φονεύω (foneuo), σκοτώνω (skotono), but in Modern Greek.

Brazilian dude

I prefer the Portuguese over the English you suggest... How exactly would you go about "killing" a language, anyway? I can imagine a passive death of a language, but the active killing...?

I didn't suggest it

I looked up glottocide on google and found only 7 hits, and none of them took me to a dictionary, which probably means that it's a pretty recent invention.

Besides, what's to like about Portuguese glotocídio and not to like about English glottocide? Are you suggesting the Portuguese (or the Brazilians for that matter) are the only ones able to kill a language? Anybody can do that by imposing a colonizer's language to a given native community. French, English and Portuguese qualify for that role in Africa, for example.

Brazilian dude

Sorry, I didn't mean to ascribe the English words to you, I meant "suggest" in the sense "the ones you mentioned as potential translations".

Okay, but the question remains:

Besides, what's to like about Portuguese glotocídio and not to like about English glottocide?

Brazilian dude

Somehow I missed everything past the quote the first time I read it.

I think the Portuguese appeals to me simply for the phonlogy... I have a lazy American accent, so it might be different elsewhere, but I'd expect the "tt" to be voiced (/d/) in English, which sounds ugly. But perhaps that's fitting of the word...

I understand now how you might destroy a language...

There's also the possibility of of using "dialektos" over "glossia"...

I have a lazy American accent, so it might be different elsewhere, but I'd expect the "tt" to be voiced (/d/) in English, which sounds ugly. But perhaps that's fitting of the word...

Oh, okay, makes sense.

Brazilian dude

. . . I can imagine a passive death of a language, but the active killing...?

Ask the Scots and the Irish about the English, and the Native Americans about the U. S. Cavalry and the missionaries . . .

I should clarify, I'm not completely ignorant When I said "active killing" I was thinking more of "total annihilation". I understand plenty of situations where cultures have been repressed and populations massacred, but it seems like there's always traces... Perhaps I was misunderstanding the definition?

I think that "glottocide" refers to both the killing and the attitude of repression of languages, just as "genicide" refers to both the killing and the attitude of elimination, even when the elimination of a race is not complete!

Apo

That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for humoring my ignorance

Hey, some of us are wise, and some of us are just plain wise-ass.

But few of us are as much of both as Larry!

Apo