Panel on utopias and dystopias/Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Swiss-German

[Adrian Wanner]

On Wed, 11 Oct 1995, Carmine Colacino wrote:
>
> I just would like to ask what does it mean "smaller nation", and "minor
> language"? I do not think size and/or population numbers qualify any nation
> as "smaller" or "minor". This seems to me too much of a "consumistic" view:
> i.e.: bigger nations=bigger population=more readers. Even though this is of
> course true, in a way, I would not equate it with "provincialism." Sorry if
> I misunderstood, but I did not like the terms.
>
> Carmine Colacino
>
I think you did misunderstand me somewhat.  I put the term "minor
language" in quotation marks to imply that I don't approve of cultural
value judgements based on the number of speakers of a given language.  On
the other hand, it is a fact of life that some languages are understood
by a large number of people, and some aren't. For that reason, it makes
more sense to publish a scholarly book in English or German than, say, in
Albanian. Of course, this does not make the English or German language
inherently "better" than Albanian, it's simply a matter of pragmatics and
a question of the audience you want to reach.