On Lukashenka: some tangents

[Yoshimasa Tsuji]

Hello everyone,
as is already mentioned, the matter started purely as a political
issue (a government forbidding a certain method of expression) and
there seems to be little to be gained by extending the discussion
into whether Belarusan is a "language" or not, which is also a
political discussion.

Political matters are always emotional matters as well. The distance of
two speaks/Sprache or "linguistic family units" may be measured by
so many ways (typically by the assumed date when they were separated), but
there are also "emotional distance" as well. Look at Chinese. Their dialects
were already noticeable thousands of years ago, yet they are considered to
be part of a language. And English. People in Devonshire are heard to
speak "hart" for "hot" which reminds us of a rival foreign language, and
people with a broad dialect still say "be" for "am". But West countries are
inseparable from England and the English language, no doubt about that.

As  to the question why Japanese adopted Chinese civilization, the answer is
easy: the Japanese language was be a primitive language (eighth century) and
could not cope with civilization on its own. Switching to Chinese was the
only choice. Anomalies began when the official written language ceased to
be Chinese but English did not take its place (at about 1870). A minister
of education proposed a reform to that effect, but no one else in the cabinet
took it seriously. Incidentally, he also encouraged intermarriage -- sorry,
to have sounded too old-fashioned -- with British women, which will remain
as a utopia. The last attempt took place when the British
Empire was dissolved and a new Commonwealth of Nations was to be formed:
the then prime minister of Japan, an Etonian, sent a letter (to the Queen,
I think) asking to let Japan in it. Too bizzar an idea, that was. Never mind,
Japan is going to be an unwelcome 51st State of America soon.

  Lukashenko should not be blamed for using Russian or heading towards
integration with Russia, but for depriving people of basic human rights.
If Lukashenko's policy were supported by the majority and the right of the
minority were well respected, there shouldn't be a problem at all whatever
the language policy may be. The problem has nothing to do with linguistics.
Is that clear?

Cheers,
Tsuji