On Lukashenka: some tangents

[Adassovsky]

Natalia Pylypiuk Wrote:

>Concerning comments made by other contributors to the discussion, I would
>like to state the following:
>(1)
>As a native speaker of both Spanish and Ukrainian, when I began studying
>Italian and Russian, I found that the distance separating Italian from
>Spanish was shorter than the distance between Russian and Ukrainian.
>Nonetheless, my colleagues in the field of Romance languages and
>literatures would never suggest that  Spanish is a dialect of Italian (or
>vice versa).  By the same token, although Portuguese, Castilian Spanish and
>Catalan  (to give an analog of geographic proximity) are related languages,
>no one formulates the relationship in terms of  "coming" "from a common
>root."

I do. Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Valencian, Languedocian,
French, Italian, and many others come from a common root : Latin.

>  Conceptualizing the relationship of Russian to Belarusian and
>Ukrainian in such terms is predicated by the political vision that sought
>to uphold the idea of a triune Rus' as the legitimization of one and
>indivisible Russia.

Not at all. As I told, I believe linguistics are not politics. YOU have a
politic view, not me.

> Whatever the case, the relationship among the three East
>Slavic languages should not give anyone an excuse to persecute speakers of
>Belarusian in their native country.

Of course. I think nobody has denied it in the discussion.

>Georges Adassovsky <gadassov at csi.com> wrote:
>>Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian languages come from a common root, but the
>>fact is that Russian has the richest literature.
>
>The second part of this statement is an opinion, not a fact.  Assuming that
>you have a good command of all three languages and have read everything
>within each of the three literary systems, you have a right to your
>opinion.  For my part, I would not make such a generalization.  Firstly,
>because I have not read nineteenth- and twentieth-century Belarusian
>literature.

I am French, so I've read only books translated in my language. I found
many pieces translated from Russian (Dostoievsky, Tolstoi, Lermontov,
Poushkine, Tourgeniev, and many others) but nothing translated from
Ukrainian or Belarussian. You are certainly very lucky to be able to read
master pieces in Belarussian and Ukrainian.

> As a specialist of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I can state
>that I find Belarusian and Ukrainian literatures -- or, if you prefer, the
>Ruthenian system -- fascinating, even exhilarating. This, despite the fact,
>that it differs greatly from Spanish literature of the Golden Age.

As I am a Beotian, I prefer nothing, and I don't even know what is the
Ruthenian system. I even can't see what it have in common with Spanish
literature.

> In some respects, I find contemporary Ukrainian literature more
>rewarding simply because it places greater emphasis on style and story
>rather than endless philosophizing.  But, once again, this is a matter of
>personal taste.

In effect.

Georges.