ILAT Digest - 20 Oct 2010 to 21 Oct 2010 (#2010-218)

[MJ Hardman]

Ah, yes, I did hear you correctly.  Agreed.

On a purely linguistic level, there is also, as hinted at in your original
post, the issue of importing massive nouns into, e.g., a verb-based language
and thus doing just what you are saying below: things become the focus.  In
organic change, importations may be nouns in the original language but turn
into verbs if organically borrowed, not imposed by, say, a Ministry.

Thanks, as always.  I hope I recover; chancy but possible.  MJ


On 10/23/10 1:29 PM, "Richard Zane Smith" <rzs at WILDBLUE.NET> wrote:

> MJ, 
> so sorry to hear about your illness ...i hope you're recovering well?
> 
> Yes i think its a much different question (and problem) than simply
> about whether to freeze frame a language in a perceived "language purity
> phase"
> or to push forward a "backward" language to "get with the times."
> 
> It has to do with the survival of once sustainable culture/world views.
> These views are desperately needed for survival of our planet,
> NOT to put on museum shelves as artifacts of by-gone primitives.
> 
> I assume views of reality are always evolving/changing in any culture,
> but some paradigms like capitalism is based on competition and unlimited
> growth,
> an untested sustainable concept that's eventually irrational and destructive.
> To interpret/imprint/imbed this kind of "get with it" capitalism into/upon an
> ancient 
> culture is like building a McDonalds in Mecca or on Machu Picchu .
> 
> Ok...so lets use McDonalds as an example:
> 
> Because McDonalds seeks Omnipresence on earth  (capitalistic systems ideal)
> It will twist its way in to pretend to satisfy any culture to gain foothold.
> But with it comes a price. It will in effect distorts cultural norms.
> 
> Are we doing the same by interpreting/bringing in concepts like
>  "processed-cow-parts-ground-and-mixed-from-thousands-of-unknown-cattle-from-m
> assive-filthy-stockyards-where-once-grass-eaters-are-filled-with-processed-cor
> n-and-growth-hormones-and-shipped-thousands-of-miles-from-people-you-don't-kno
> w" 
> and yet hiding Its true description by giving it a nice friendly name like
>  "Hamburger?"
> 
> Wouldn't it be better to allow a culture access to the truth about
> these strange foreign customs and allow the people themselves to call it a
> more
> appropriate and culturally astute description :
> 
> foreign-spirit-dead-animal-shreds    'tween-airy-white-breads
> 
> Here see, the deeper more sustainable cultural perspective is preserved
> from people who KNOW what THEY have been eating and might have even had
> just butchered that morning.
> 
> sorry to ruin anyones lunch!
> bon appetite !
> 
> ske:noh
> Richard Zane Smith
> Wyandotte Oklahoma
> 
>> 
> 
> 

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