Wow

[benlehman]

Watch Jared Diamond embarass himself. Albeit, this is 12 years old. Nonetheless, wow.

To clue in those playing along at home: China has considerably more linguistic diversity than Europe. Or, indeed, most other places on earth.

Note also how he taps into the "OMG China is a monolith that will eat us" fears of modern Americans.

Nice. Nice.

Comments

[faerieloch.livejournal.com]

Arg.arg.arg. yes. *sighs* He spouts tons of information, but doesn't substantiate it in any way (what are his sources for how many languages are spoken? for when different countries were settled? for how languages evolve?). I couldn't even finish the article. Does he ever think that maybe China has less diversity because the languages have converged over time? They have a *much* longer history of strong cultural influences/government than the New World, or even Europe, I believe, so it's possible we're seeing the next step in language evolution. Arg.