LL-L "Language attitudes" 2003.01.28 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Theo Homan <theohoman at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language attitudes" 2003.01.27 (04) [E]

Adding a small note to whom is interested:

Not very long ago -let's say up to the 50ies- many a
'linguist' and 'culturist' was struggling with the
origin of language, and mainly with the when-question:

OK, Indo-European [Indo-Germanic] was generally
accepted as a common language for many languages, but
the 'when-starting-question' had been 'solved' by
putting the beginning of language not very far before
the time of 1500 B.C.
And the standard of beginning [high] culture were the
presence of words denoting things like: religious
notions, court of justice, social activities, and so
on.
And the etymology explained the developing of new
words / notions out of a few 'primitive' notions.
Because Indo-Germanic had all these notions, the
spring-off [like German, Latin, and so on] had no
other choice than to be languages of a
highly-developed standard of culture.

The 'interpretatio christiana' had something to do
with this. If moral values are given to us in holy
writings, than people-not-belonging-to-us are of a
lesser kind.
And in our languages the denotations of higher
thinking  must have been developed in the centuries
after accepting the baptism. {I use all these words as
neutral words, no inferior denotation is intended.}

Well, moral values have to do with having safe
feelings in the group.
They are of all people, of all times.
So many a explanation about the origin of words /
language had to be put further back in time.
In fact it is easy: also people who died for many
milleniums are still our fellow-human-beings.

The social impact of the mentioned ideas and their
working out in society is off all times. Statements
about origin of culture / society were scholarly
statements, and needed to have a life inside the
universities, not very much outside. But the political
bourgeois ran away with it.
In the same way extremely much harm was done by the
bourgeous neo-Darwinism in the parlors of the captains
of industry in the 1860s. They ran away with scholarly
thinking.
A present example is the statement: there is racism in
The Netherlands. This ought to be a scholarly
statement [you always will find something / and: how
does it work, and how does it start]. But if
politicians are using 'living scholarly statements' as
general accepted facts, then much harm is done.

Back to the issue in a nutshell: expressing yourself
in a passive sentence of 50 words insteadof some
emphatic repetitions does not express a higher
culture; but this was known to you / us.

vr. gr. Theo Homan
-------------------
referring to:

> From: frank verhoft <frank_verhoft at yahoo.com>
> Subject: academics
>
> Dear list members,
>
> My apologies for cross-posting this mail.
>
> I've got a question about the History of "History of
> the English
> Language"-teaching in the UK. By sheer coincidence i
> found a copy of Harold
> Goad's booklet "Language in History" (Penguin 1958).
> While working my way
> through this book, I sometimes didn't believe my
> eyes. Just two (imho)
> symptomatic examples:
> "Primitive races chatter, saying little definitely,
> but expressing their
> emotional reation to the subject of discussion with
> constant repetitions,
> emphases, and appeals for attention" (p.12)
> "The Anglo-Saxons, like most barbarians, were
> naturally lazy [...]" (p. 189)
> (which, in short, is reflected in their language,
> dixit Goad).
>
> It seems that the crux of his exposé is the idea
> that the "higher" culture,
> the "higher" the 'race' (his wording) and the more
> "sophisticated" the
> language.   [deleted  ....]

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