[tied] Re: Celts & Cimmerians

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>
> Torsten:
> >When was the last time you identified with your foreign

counterpart?

>
> That was my whole point, Torsten. As long as you think something as
> "foreign", you won't be able to identify with it.

If the word 'foreign' can't be used of anything, what does it mean,
then?

>
> Alex clearly, in the way he speaks of English, thinks that English

is "foreign"

> to him.

And it isn't? That's not my impression.

>As a result, he gets really testy about the idea of English taking
> over the world.

No, he gets really testy over another Anglo chauvinist making general
sociological statements about countries he's never seen.


Replace 'English' with 'German' and I've had this discussion with
Germans when hitchhiking in Germany. Of course all Danes speak
German, they just don't want to admit it, etc, etc.

>However, while I'm not saying that we will all speak
> English one day (it could be another language altogether like

Mandarin),

> the effects of English are undeniable.

I don't think I denied that.

>Perhaps Alex' child could become
> a computer programmer, let's say. Ever noticed that all the major
> programming languages like Visual Basic, Java, C/C++/C#, etc are all
> in "English"? They always use English words as commands and so

English

> has become the language of the technological age.

Well, I majored in computer science, so I did notice. I still haven't
started telling my friends: "For i=1,10,1 buy me a beer".


Latin was the language of medieval period. French was the language of
the age of enlightenment. German was the language of the upper
classes most of the time in Denmark. Therefore there are now many
Latin, French and German words in Danish. And now a lot of English
words enter the Danish language. But it's still Danish and you
wouldn't be able to understand without learning it first.

>Since the internet
> seems to be here to stay... it seems that English is going to

continue to

> have a stronger and stronger influence on other languages unless a

bomb

> hits and we have to start from scratch.

Are you even aware of the fact that people use other languages than
English on the Internet, or is that fact censored away from you on
your continent?

Torsten