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This tells you the limits of informal, extra-institutional translation possibilities. Traditionally published books that are reasonably successful will easily appear in 6-7 languages. Self-published ones like my book Tempo (~5k copies, so low end of “successful”) are unlikely to.
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A lot of the value of existence of institutionalized high culture layers in languages is: cultural globalization. When high culture dies, books stop being translated into other languages as the translation gap between self-published and traditionally published demonstrates.
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Can easily happen the other way round. 2nd or 3rd tier languages can survive and thrive because of cultural regionalization. When region becomes more important, there will be a growing demand for something that can positively define identity.
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I’d say for a language to thrive the effort pie chart is: 60% street use and texting/signage/ads 20% free market mass oral media (video/audio/music) 10% free market textual long form 9.9% scholarly work in universities free of state interference 0.1% direct state effort
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