Afghanistan, where sword remains mightier than pen, can't even decide whether to use the Pashtu or the Dari word for 'university'

[Dennis Baron]

sorry -- the language on the seal was identified as Persian on the  
website from which I purloined the image. guess I'll have to revise.  
And I couldn't find examples of the Dari and Pashtu words in the  
English-language sites I looked at. Thanks for the update. I will try  
to add them, though I may only be able to add the transliterations,  
given the limitations of the software we use.

DB
____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage







On Aug 13, 2008, at 4:41 PM, Nicholas Ostler wrote:

>
>
> Dennis Baron wrote:
>> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>>
>> Afghanistan, where sword remains mightier than pen, can't even  
>> decide whether to use the Pashtu or the Dari word for 'university'
>>
>> This week, as Afghanistan continued to outpace Iraq in the two  
>> countries' olympic race toward self-destruction, the Loya Jirga, or  
>> Afghan parliament, debated whether to use the Pashtu or the Dari  
>> word for 'university' in the new higher education law. Delegates  
>> also argued over which of the nation's two official languages  
>> should be used in class.
>>
>> ... A reporter for a state-run newspaper was recently fined for  
>> using the Dari word for 'university' instead of the Pashtu one,  
>> even though that Persian word is on Kabul University’s official  
>> seal.
>>
> One of the frustrating things about this story, as retailed passim  
> in the English-language press, is that we are told neither the Dari  
> nor the Pashtu words at issue (You can almost see the editor's  
> knowing wink: "What sane person would care about two words in non- 
> European languages? This is just for fun!")
>
> This seems to have led Dennis Baron into an error. Looking at a  
> Persian-language report (e.g. http://tinyurl.com/5ww7bf) it is clear  
> that the Dari/Persian word is دانشگاه (dâneshgâh) while the  
> Pashtu is پوهنتون (pohantun).
>
> Dennis kindly exhibits the relevant seal from Kabul on his Web of  
> Language (http://tinyurl.com/6blufj). But it clearly bears the  
> Pashtu word for university.
>
> So the Kabul University authorities are only guilty of a foolish  
> consistency, not reduced ad absurdum.
>
> -- 
> Nicholas Ostler
> nostler at chibcha.demon.co.uk
>
>
>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20080813/1ee6653a/attachment.htm>