On Wed, 29 May 2002 07:51:45 +1000, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:



>One of the principle tensions within the EEC is the fear within
>individual nations and regions of losing their linguistic and
>cultural autonomy and identity in the notion of a generalised
>"European". It accounts I think for some of the far-right stuff
>that's been happening lately, among other things.

No fear, really! The process is already there - certainly it is not
taking place now because of the Union, for God's sake - it as been there
for centuries....we all belong to the one Indo-European root.

When we say that Welsh, Scottish and Irish recriminate their autonomy from
standardizing English, we mean that they contest the historical and
political process that lead to Imperialism. They have spoken about
the ‘thin wash’ alluding to the variation of English around the planet,
forgetting that those variations convey not only a literal translation of
utterances, but entire world of differences and historical peculiarities,
vision of the world, of which one should not b t feel privileged to
acquire and welcome in one’s national idiom…those variations allowed
colonized countries the space to evade the stereotypes that come from
imposed system of the world. This hybridism is necessary and vital.
To be honest, when I hear Italian spoken by Nigerians that have been
living in my own town I noptice that they add something special to it,
which almost makes it better and more tolerable than when I hear Italian
spoken say by a man from Milan…
The point was: if England has imposed its national language with
colonialist policies upon a number of places and nations which possessed
their own idioms and cultures, and if they contributed to the risk or
death of those languages with their colonialist educational policies - and
if now English is a lingua franca for trade exchange, who possible with a
political consciousness, would take seriously the issue of having back or
keeping the 'purity' of its language, the language of England (as though
English was not part of the mingling of languages on the European root, as
though itself did not suffer and bear traces of at least three other
corrupting influences? When it comes to a compromised language which
English has became now, you can credit only the work of writers who do
stress those realities.

Many tears will have to be shed, by the Integra lists because English, as
much as Italian, French, Spanish, Welsh, German, WILL NOT keep its
supposed integrity/purity (thanks God!)All Indo-European languages are
translations of each other. The ethics of acknowledging this fact! The
need to welcome to the idea of literature as pedagogy and not as power.


>There are no "qualifications" for joining poetryetc, so there will be
>varying degrees of knowledge among its members. This seems to me
>fine; just as your very individual English is fine.

Yes, but those who have recently introduced the idea of standards to be
kept 'high', they should try themselves to do something about their own...

(The merit to acquire a foreign language and also with it the notion
of 'otherness'..
I think one of the most tragic cultural fact that the English speaking
world suffers from their language have became ‘lingua franca’ is that they
acquire this mental indolence and resistance to learn or acquire a foreign
idioms. And here you have a nation with a very limited proportion of the
young individual able to speak or understand another foreign idiom. Don’t
you think this is a major damage the English themselves suffer from ?)



Best, Erminia


>Best
>
>Alison
>
>At 7:37 PM +0100 28/5/02, Erminia Passannanti wrote:
>>If this list will keep suffering such an unbalance of information among
>>members - if most of the ongoing threads keep amounting to a vagueness of
>>ideas and a knowledge of poetics and literary theory, people might no
>>longer be interested in participating.
>>
>>I thought the present themes we are discussing of postcolonial policies
>>were by now an established notion, especially among the English writers
>>with a due awareness of the Irish, Welsh, Scottish quest for cultural,
>>linguistic and political autonomy.
>>
>>An European intellectual would not expect to still find this kind of
>>recrimination about language purity and integrity. All these questions
are
>>a worry.
>--
>
>"The only real revolt is the revolt against war."
> Albert Camus
>
>Alison Croggon
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>http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
>
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