Re: Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America

----- Original Message -----

From: Oisin

To: cybalist@eGroups.com

Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2000 6:32 AM

Subject: [cybalist] Re: Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America

Hello all. My tupence-worth follows, so don't read it if you don't like it. And if you need to read it in order to decide whether you like it, then read it, but quit yer bitchin' cause it won't help you. That said, lemme speak my mind... I think the horrific concept of a 'world language' is gruesome, malodorous and vile by its very definition. But so in tune with these Titanic times. Tribalism is not only a cultural universal, it works! Back, you filthy hoards, with your world-religions, world-languages, world-people! Most of your ilk bemoan the loss of the Rain Forest, it's tribes, cultures. Yet on the other hand you enforce this rank, one-world filth. Keep your one-world-languages to yerselves! I'd fight and die for Catalonia, Basque, or Galician in the light of that horrific death-sentence which is wrought with the label 'Standardized Spanish'. And another thing: simplicity heralds restriction, rather than freedom. It's a 'freedom from' rather than a 'freedom to'. Read your 'Handmaids Tale'. Simple tongues for simple minds. Indo-European languages have been de-volving for some time. Gone is the articulation of a synthetic (as opposed to analytic) tongue. Simple tongues for simple minds. Habit and regularity herald stagnation for the mind. Worse, you people wish such stupidity upon the entire world! You keep your 'freedom from' languages and their barbarian-simple consistency. Obviously on the wrong list, Ken. Dear Ken,   You're bashing us so fiercely that it's probably no use trying to convince you that you're attributing to us opinions and intentions we've never had -- in fact, erecting men of straw in our place. It's never a bad idea to try and discuss things quietly before you fly into a rage. I, for one, am for regionalism but not for parochialism and xenofobia. My native language is Polish (a synthetic language with seven noun cases and lots of verb aspects, and certainly far from being endangered). I love it deeply; but I'm glad there are languages of wider communication. If I spoke no English I wouldn't be able to communicate with you; for I suppose you couldn't be bothered to learn MY language despite your professed preference for the type it represents. Polish and English don't compete in my brain. I haven't forgotten a single Polish word or stopped using a single grammatical construction. As for your linguistic views, you seem to subscribe to the theory that language was perfect once upon a time but has become corrupted (simpler, less beautiful, more barbarian). Such a view is usually part of the more general belief that long ago there was a Golden Age, but the world has been going to the dogs ever since. Your private mythology is your own business, but I can see it makes you hate the world in which you live.   You are probably still young, judging from the temperature of your uncontrollable outburst. You'll grow out of it, I hope.   Happy New Age,   Piotr