341–350 of 478 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a few heavy-hitters, though. I'd expect China, for example, to have written some great literature over the years. (Epistemic status: I don't actually know anything about Chinese literature, and I welcome correction on this point.)
Most discussions regarding Chinese literature would start with the big four (novels): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels
I love the English language. It is expressive, it is the language of great literature, and it is in no way „bullying“, no, it brings people all over the world together. There would be no way to talk to a Chinese for me (German) if he had only learned Japanese because Japan is the neighbour and if I had only learned French or Polish because those are our big neighbours. No, English brings us all together, it makes me…
It’s also the lingua franca of tech. There isn’t any way to say “Linux Kernel Networking Subsystem” or “8-Way associative cache” in French or any other language without severe lingual contortions.
case in point, every single "fancy" word in english cames from the roman dominion over the channel. it was fancy to talk like the emperor. and that is only one of the subtle aspects that rome knew how to play on the colonies cultural subjugation.
In many European countries, you cannot get a good job (like one with an international company) unless you can communicate in English at CEFRL B1 proficiency [1]. China may very well become the largest economy in the world, and there is no way that Chinese, as a multi-toned, symbolic language, will ever become the Lingua franca, as it is near impossible for most adults to learn, in contrast to English [2]. It can be a…
> It can be argued that the European Union has failed/is failing, at least partially, because of a lack of a common language. In the peak periods of the Roman Empire, Latin was the Lingua franca that enabled business transactions, along with Roman law, the precursors of civil law as a framework. The interesting thing though is that the Roman Empire is a great example of a bilingual state. Greek was known to all Roman…
Latin was the language of the day-to-day humdrum masses, as you say it's what a patrician would use to order a soldier or guard or lawyer around before going back to discussing fine cheeses or what have you in Greek.
>Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror, and introduced her arts into rude Latium. Thus flowed off the rough Saturnian numbers, and delicacy expelled the rank venom: but for a long time there remained, and at this day remain traces of rusticity.
Book of the Epistles, Horace
The article laments the loss of oral languages as if this was a modern phenomenon. Oral languages were always being lost, for the simple reason that they drift. It's doubtful an oral language would be intelligible to its descendants after only a century or two. Writing slows this down a lot, but what really slowed it down was the advent of the printing press. It's still drifting. New words like "sexting" appear, and…
Just think, in the 1930's people wouldn't really know what people sounded like in the 1850's, unless they had a very long-lived relative. Here in the 2010's, we have those sound movies from the 1930's to refer to, even though most of those actors and actresses are long gone now. (And they're still perfectly intelligible, even if the slang is sometimes odd to our ears). And hopefully in the 2090's, they'll still have those 1930's movies around...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree of course that there are many languages in which great literature is produced. I just happen to find that books, be it fiction or non-fiction, written by English or American authors, have a very refined way of pleasing the reader.
I don't mean to be rude, but how many other languages do you speak? There's an almost ineffable depth to nearly every language on this earth, and there are hundreds of them with very large literature corpuses. Naturally, maybe speaking two languages, you are familiar only with literature in those languages. Also, remember that English, being spoken by so many people, its literature is naturally more divulged and wide…
The depth and diversity of modern english fiction has no parallel, at least for the genres I enjoy(sci-fi, fantasy, alternative history, thrillers).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use "fin de semaine" and people understands it perfectly.
Which is almost the literal translation to weekend or "Week End". Pretty much the same phrase used in Spanish (fin de semana) and I suspect in other romance languages. P.D. Funnily enough, I looked up the translation for weekend in Latin and google gave me "volutpat vestibulum" and yet for Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian I got a similar "Fin de Semana" phrase. I wonder why only the latin translation…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most discussions regarding Chinese literature would start with the big four (novels): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels
I'm queueing up one of these as the next book I'll read. Thanks for helping me out!
Another good option is Romance of the Three Kingdoms which will cover a good portion of Chinese history (in a mythological way). A lot of the characters like Zhu Geliang [2] are still highly influential in modern Chinese culture.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong#Influence [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuge_Liang
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't mean to be rude, but how many other languages do you speak? There's an almost ineffable depth to nearly every language on this earth, and there are hundreds of them with very large literature corpuses. Naturally, maybe speaking two languages, you are familiar only with literature in those languages. Also, remember that English, being spoken by so many people, its literature is naturally more divulged and wide…
I speak 4 languages and have read literature for 3. The depth and diversity of modern english fiction has no parallel, at least for the genres I enjoy(sci-fi, fantasy, alternative history, thrillers).
I love the English language. It is expressive, it is the language of great literature, and it is in no way „bullying“, no, it brings people all over the world together. There would be no way to talk to a Chinese for me (German) if he had only learned Japanese because Japan is the neighbour and if I had only learned French or Polish because those are our big neighbours. No, English brings us all together, it makes me…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many of the “cultural exports” are, however, essentially propaganda to glorify the power and righteousness of the American empire. History has proven that this “soft power” approach to be incredibly effective. After all, we still study and celebrate similar texts from the Greek and Roman empires, even though they’re 1000s of years dead. Much less so those who they conquered, exploited, and enslaved.
While Hollywood definitely takes into consideration foreign markets when making films, the idea that their agenda is to propagandize the rest of the world is laughable. They make what sells, because all they care about is making money.