--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:
>
> That was my whole point, Torsten. As long as you think something
> as "foreign", you won't be able to identify with it.
>
> Alex clearly, in the way he speaks of English, thinks that English
> is "foreign" to him. As a result, he gets really testy about the
> idea of English taking over the world.
I too suspected that this notion was behind Alex's thinking.
That's why I added in message #26924
"Keep in mind that people living in the time we're discussing,
didn't necessarily share your modern view of nationalism."
which he objected had no relevance to the issue, but I
think that it does. Alex, the people we're discussing,
living in those times, may not themselves have regarded
the adopted language as alien, or the use of it as a form
of national betrayal, or as the beginning of their national
extinction. These are modern concerns. Two tribes who
originally spoke different languages, but who shared a
long history of confederation, could well come to consider
themselves one people and the two languages both equally
proper to their common people. If at some point in time,
one language gained greater prestige for whatever reason,
it then became just a matter of time before the other died
out. At no point in the process did any individual have to
say "I'm going to throw away my people's language, and take
up a foreign one", only "I wanna talk purty like them fancy
folks do!". The "folks" in this case no longer being thought
of as aliens, but merely as another class or caste within
one's own nation.
David