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I understand how this happened but I cannot help but notice that is literally the opposite of what I asked for (files.mastodon.social)

submitted 9 months ago by mcc@mastodon.social to c/tails@lemmon.website

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Image description: Google search for "extant languages"

Including results for [extinct languages]
Search only for [extant languages]

(Originally published on mastodon.social: 2024-02-17)

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[–] mcc@mastodon.social 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

@gila or they could have searched for "extant languages" when I searched for extant languages and searched for "live languages" when I searched for live languages

[–] gila@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

If it did, then you’d still not get any relevant results, because again, those aren’t things. A list of extant languages would simply be a list of all languages throughout history that aren’t delineated as some kind of proto-language developed by early humans. Such specificity is not at all conveyed by the term “extant languages”. The search engine can’t reply, “under what circumstances are they extant? Are Klingon, C++, Heiroglyphs desired results? They’re extant!”

I would agree insofar as “live languages” should autocorrect to “living languages”, but it is getting pretty into the weeds linguistically