The Dnghu Association, with the collaboration of the University and some high schools within the region of Extremadura, has elaborated a project to promote the teaching of a more general subject in the high school, “Indo-European languages of Europe”, to substitute the current general subjects of “Latin”, “Greek” and/or “Classic Culture”, in 10th and/or 11th Spanish school years.
Such a subject should obviously still include Classic Languages and Culture, but also an approach to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language and its dialects, especially those of Europe, viz. Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Greek and Albanian, as well as an introduction to the features of Indo-Iranian and Armenian.
Our first pilot experience is planned for next semester, and for the moment two schools and some University professors have agreed to participate. We want to study especially the differences in knowledge as to European languages and culture, between the students who follow the course and those who don’t, to prepare a thorough research to be sent to the Spanish Ministry of Culture, to the European Union and to Switzerland if – as expected – students who have received the lessons on Indo-European show a greater linguistic comprehension and knowledge of European cultures.
The deadline for us to send the project is next week, just in case you have some changes you want us to make in the general idea – no details will be published for the moment, though.
If you want to participate with us in this experience, either for your school or other public or private institution, or maybe as a (paid or voluntary) professor, please send us your request to [email protected]. We will probably accept such changes made until September 2007.
Your Indo-European Language Team.
“The Dnghu Association […] has elaborated a project to promote the teaching of a more general subject in the high school, ‘Indo-European languages of Europe’, to substitute the current general subjects of ‘Latin’, ‘Greek’ and/or ‘Classic Culture’, in 10th and/or 11th Spanish school years.”
Since Indo-European is *not* and *never was* the only language family in Europe, the whole proposal is too narrow-minded by its very nature. If we are truly interested in European history, then we shall study not only IE, but also:
– the Basque and Vasconic-related languages (eg. Aquitanian)
– Finns, Estonians and the Uralic languages
– all ancient non-IE-speaking peoples
(eg. the Etruscans, Tartessians, Phoenicians, etc.)
Propose away. It won’t fly because dnghu.org is still living in its own bubble of reality, making up history as it goes along. Honestly, to think that Etruscans, for example, the very people that founded Rome, are not significant enough to be included in this! And are we to believe that Uralic languages have made no contribution throughout the history of Europe?! And clearly none of these busy people at dnghu have ever bothered to study the Semitic-speaking Phoenicians who created a trading network from Western Europe to Turkey and from North Africa to Europe three thousand years ago.
Yet dnghu continues to obsess singularly over Indo-European as if it were the only thing worth doting over in Europe. How offensively narrow to continue on with this irrational static noise.
Thank you for your contributions and interest again, Glen.
The current subjects in Spanish schools in the 11th and 12th years are (as second optatives) either French/Portuguese, Classic Culture (i.e. Graeco-Latin culture, mithology, literature, etc.) and/or regional languages.
It is our aim to broaden the general view that European history is about Graeco-Latin heritage (i.e., substitute “Classical Culture”), and to show others that Indo-European languages make up to 97% of European speakers, i.e., including the subject “Indo-European languages (and culture) of Europe”.
We are indeed not forgetting the rest of languages, just trying to be practical, broadening the scope of a current Spanish subject – which is also taught in many European countries.
I am sure you are doing more from Canada to support the teaching of those European cultures and languages you mention in our European schools. We just do what we can with our limited resources, and are always open to suggestions and help.
“I am sure you are doing more from Canada to support the teaching of those European cultures and languages you mention in our European schools.”
Seriously, is this some kind of undercover KKK site? Your ignorance of non-IE peoples and eurocentric jabs at the home countries of commenter’s is hard to mistake for anything other than the petty racism of the hopelessly uneducated.
Welcome back, Glen.
We try indeed not to be “eurocentric”, as we want to be an international association, but our priority is to help the EU overcome its present communication barriers – if you want us to change something to include your Canadian or North American IE culture, please tell us.
Our association is about Indo-European culture and languages – you can’t demand from it (indeed not from me personally) more interest in non-IE languages, as you can’t demand more actions from a Cancer Association (for example) in relation to, say, diabetes – well, of course, you can demand it from outside, but it sounds a little bit stupid to assert that a Cancer Association hates people with diabetes, only because they don’t take actions about diabetes from their corporation… We are not a “language association”, but an “Indo-European language association”. Anyway, don’t be afraid, our objective is not to make non-IE languages disappear, but to let people speak their regional and co-official languages while speaking a common language within Europe and also maybe outside – like, for example, English, French, Spanish, Gaelic, as well as Métis and the rest of First Nation’s languages in, say, Manitoba, Canada.
Thank you for your comments again; we will try not to get involved with your American “KKK”, and will try to be less uneducated with foreigners who insult us (however repetitive they are), even if they try to prevent us from carrying the best actions we can to improve our European (and the world’s) society and education, without giving us any alternatives at all to change for better, but to stay quiet at home and do nothing.
Carlos.
Now pray tell, Mr Quiles, why would motivate the First Nations in Manitoba to speak your racially-motivated Indo-European language when _their_ languages are of Algonquian origin? _We_ have no problem in Manitoba speaking both English and Cree, but do you?
How does imposing clearly **non-neutral** conlangs onto a population promote peace? This is precisely why, between the choice of believing that you’re just a naive fool that honestly doesn’t understand how the world works and believing that you’re trying to subtlely _fuel_ ethnic tension in Europe like your antecedents, the Nazis, I must personally choose the latter conclusion because your naivety is too coincidentally “Aryan-like” in all things you blurt out (ie. your comments on Zionism, your MIE crusade, your unjustified snarky remarks to other commenters, your comments on my blog).
Glad to hear (or read) from you again, Glen.
If the point is being “non-neutral”, how does imposing clearly non-neutral languages like your English to a Canadian population that also speaks French, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu, Algonquinian, etc..?
The point was not to say that IE is ‘better’ than First Nation languages, but that IE (the mother of Germanic, Romance, Indo-Iranian, and the rest of IE languages) could be better than English – which is just another modern IE dialect with a somehow lucky recent history – at least for you lucky people who speak English as mother tongue 🙂
That’s clearly the point within the EU, where only the UK and Ireland speak English, while the rest of us learn it because of the US might in the world.
Whether or not MIE should be spoken in Canada is something that the English-speaking population should decide not alone, but looking for a stable agreement with Quebec and other French-speaking territories, as well as with First Nation speakers – I doubt they only speak Algonquinian, but you are supposedly the expert -, and also with the rest of the immigrants that have traditionally built Canada, mainly from Europe.
I think (whether you consider that Nazi or not) that everyone has the right to speak whatever language they choose, not the one being imposed. And we defend that right in Europe.
But, whether or not First Nation people agree with your point of view that English is better than MIE is not a question in our agenda right now. Maybe in some years, when we are done with our huge work in Europe, we will try to find a fairer linguistic policy in Canada. For the moment, though, don’t be afraid about we “fueling ethnic hatred” among Canadians…
Thank you for your comments.
Oh, ok. Sorry, mate, I was wrong.
Carlos: “If the point is being “non-neutralâ€, how does imposing clearly non-neutral languages like your English to a Canadian population [blah, blah]”
Word for today: “translator”.
Canadians have access to translators; I hear Europe does also.
[…] but looking for a stable agreement with Quebec and other French-speaking territories […]
Read: gov dot mb dot ca
Manitoba has the largest French-speaking community in western Canada living side-by-side with Anglophones. Whether Anglophone, Francophone, Québecois or non-Québecois, none of us in Canada have logical need for MIE because we have more than enough educated translators and no need to impose *any* language on anyone.
“[…] at least for you lucky people who speak English as mother tongue”
Unfounded assumption like the rest of your delusions.
“[…] as well as with First Nation speakers – I doubt they only speak Algonquinian, but you are supposedly the expert […]”
Algonquinian… You mean “Algonquian”. One can’t claim oneself an expert until one learns how to read.
FYI, here is a list of the most common aboriginal languages spoken in Winnipeg:
– Cree (Algonquian)
– Ojibway (Algonquian)
– Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut), more common in Northern Manitoba
– no Aboriginal language is from Indo-European (quite obviously)
Since Catholic missionaries had a nasty habit of beating Aboriginal peoples with sticks for speaking their native languages in the last century, I’m sure that when you fly in to a Northern Manitoba reservation and explain to them your wonderful plan for MIE domination, they will welcome you into their community just as they would anyone named Adolf Hitler.
Translation and cultural respect is key to diplomacy, not conlangs.
Maybe in some years, when we are done with our huge work in Europe, we will try to find a fairer linguistic policy in Canada.
Unavoidably, your “huge work” will span the rest of your empty life consisting of offending millions of Europeans, including but not exclusively:
– Finns
– Estonians
– Hungarians
– Basque
– European Jews (both Yiddish-speaking and Hebrew-speaking)
– European Arabs (including the nation of Malta)
– other educated Europeans
don’t be afraid about we “fueling ethnic hatred†among Canadians…
To the contrary.
We should fear Idiocy as we fear the Plague, since both are known to destroy life.
Hey, how you doin’ today, Glen?
Sorry to hear you fear Idiocy and Plague, since – as you consider many of us idiots – you must spend the whole day long fearing the destruction of mankind 🙁
We, on the contrary, don’t fear what has to come, as we have no control over it; we just work for what seems right and just to us, and are open to your suggestions.
Whether or not you or any other consider our work dangerous, or Nazi/KKK/Antisemitic-hidden propaganda, or otherwise a conspiration to dominate the world, is not really as important as you seemingly believe, when you try to convince us again and again to abandon our projects and the whole association for the sake of _ your security? _your well-being?
Whether or not our proposal is fair for those peoples you mention cannot be ascertained or decided a priori by me, the Dnghu Association, the European Union or the UN (indeed not by you alone), but just by those very peoples, after giving them all possible time, enough information (and alternatives) to decide and – of course – the right to decide.
Thank you for your comments. Sorry for my bad English and for mistaking you for an English-speaking Canadian, I didn’t mean to bother you with that, I guess we should all learn more English and stop working on these stupid things 😉
Carlos.
Btw., I don’t know if it’s about posting too many links, but somehow you managed to make the software block your comments. However, with your first tiny comment, I don’t know exactly what happened – did you do something new or strange? I’m not kidding.
Well, if your software is as biggoted as dnghu’s goals, then it probably gags on the millions of your fellow non-IE-speaking European citizens which you devalue simply by insisting on your IE-based Klingon:
– Finns
– Estonians
– Hungarians
– Basque
– European Jews (both Yiddish-speaking and Hebrew-speaking)
– European Arabs (including the nation of Malta)
– other educated Europeans
You can yodel from here to the hills that you’re not an “Aryan organization” but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck…
exactly, if his comments look like flames, and he likes being a troll, …
just have fun with him 🙂
No, really, I hope you are made the world’s dictator and take all possible decisions for us – we are just so stupid we can’t manage ourselves the right way without your help 🙁
btw., I doubt Maltese want to be called “European Arabs”, and that European Jews speak only Yiddish and Hebrew, but, hey, you are the expert here in sociology, politics, history, ethnics, linguistics, and all possible sciences, and we just stupid ignorant Nazis who can’t even speak English well enough to have the right to express our opinions…
You can learn what “Arab” means at answers dot com
2. A member of an Arabic-speaking people.
and we just stupid ignorant Nazis who can’t even speak English well enough to have the right to express our opinions…
Oh good. You may be finally overcoming your denial. It’s the first step back to sanity.
You can learn what to be ‘politically correct’ means in your spammed answer dot com , your greatest source of information.
I repeat it: “I doubt Maltese want to be called ‘European Arabs’ “. I didn’t say I don’t know what the term “Arab” means, but thank you again for unnecessarily enlightening us with your web-based knowledge.
But, thinking about it, you are perfect, so it’s probably we uneducated Europeans (in this case the Maltese population) who don’t understand the term ‘Arab’ as you (or your dictionaries) recommend they should… hmm, I guess we should begin a campaign telling them how they should be “classified”, instead of working for these nazi things.
Thank you for bringing us back to sanity.
Sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to say two things. First, Yiddish is classified as an Indo-European language. The truth is a Hebrew-speaking person as alot more dificulty in understanding spoken yidish than a German-speaking one. Second, although maltese is from arabic origin, it as received so many influences from other languages (specially Italian and English) that is not considered an arabic dialect, but still in the arabic branch of the semitic family. In fact, I didn’t know that one could call maltese people arabs. This is the first time I heard that.
About the subject, I agree that in todays world it makes more sense to studie Indo-European languages as a whole than classical greek or latin. As for “Classical Culture”… well, those cultures are the foundation of our modern civilization. I’m not so supportive about this one.
Now, please continue. I won’t bother you any more.
And by the way, I don’t wish to impose any language on anyone. I just don’t understand why English is the best language in the world and why romance-based ones are the best auxilliary languages.
There is no interruption at all, Guilherme.
Thank you for your comments and for bringing us back to the subject.
Btw., we hope at Dnghu to be able to teach the new subject, “European languages” – indeed with lectures based especially on Indo-European dialects of modern Europe (and with enough reference to Latin and Greek languages and literature) also in Elvas or Evora next semester – not to have only data from Spanish schools, i.e. to reduce the bias in the final conclusions.
Due to the Basque-speaking population in Spain – near 2% of the population (after the Basque Government’s figures) we deem it a good environment to represent the situation in the European Union, where around 3% speak non-IE languages – also, cities and towns where cooficial languages and regional dialects are spoken will be selected, to represent the linguistic diversity of Europe – it won’t be a perfect environment, but we hope Statistics helps us extrapolate the data a little bit 😉
Carlos.
Clearly you didn’t understand the usage of “Arab” in English and since Maltese is a Semitic language very closely related to Arabic, regardless of what planet you or any of your suspect supporters want to live on, I clarified my meaning of “European Arab” and corrected you. The initial point, if you can pay attention at all, was that Maltese speakers are non-IE speakers and would have no perceivable interest in your IE-based conlang.
Gravity still occurs no matter how much a fool from Dnghu jumps up and down that it’s just an Esperantist conspiracy.
Since you say we should distrust online web information like Answers.com, then by your “logic”, we must likewise distrust Dnghu which strives to be in the same category. Well done, sir.
Derailing the topic with more racist tactics (ie. political correctness and deliberately distorting your opponents points) shows that you lack the maturity to address the numerous criticisms against your organization, as above.
You mistake lawyering for logical debate.
However, it’s all constructive in the end because the more you dismiss, attack and insult, the more it urges the public to decide between one or both of only two remnant possibilities:
1) Dnghu is a naive organization
(because it ignorantly fails to reach out to non-IE speakers)
2) Dnghu is a sinister organization
(because it purposely fails to reach out to non-IE speakers)
Your continually distractive responses fail to show us a third possibility and that is your failure not mine.
So, by your logic, Dnghu must likewise be trusted by those like you who trust the holy Internet because dnghu.org falls in the “same category” as Answers dot com? Wow, you are not following your logic, the Universe must implode! :-p
So, political correctness (in how to name Maltese people) is about racism? I didn’t get that point, although clearly you must be right again…
It must be so easy to talk about anything with you, when everyone knows that you are always right and the rest always wrong…
Guilherme Branco: First, Yiddish is classified as an Indo-European language.
Yes Yiddish is an Indo-European language… and heavily enriched with Hebrew, a Semitic language. It’s common sense that, after WW2 and the Nazi propoganda partly based on their reworking of the Indo-European Theory to promote “German unity” to the exclusion of other Germans, Yiddish speakers will naturally tend to be disturbed by yet another language, based on Indo-European of all things (insult upon insult), that is used to promote “European unity” to the exclusion of other Europeans.
If Dnghu wanted to avoid politics, they would have based their language on no existing language group at all and learn from the political mistakes of Esperanto. The fact that they specifically chose Indo-European is suspect considering Nazi history.
Guilherme Branco: In fact, I didn’t know that one could call maltese people arabs.
If Arab means “Arabic-speaking” as confirmed by dictionaries, and if Maltese is known to be derived from Arabic, it’s really inane in the end to tremble in fear over a completely innocuous term like “European Arab”. Yes folks, “European Arabs” exist and it’s *not* a swear word to anyone who has travelled. These terminological minutiae only serve to derail the point being made: Maltese is one of several European non-IE languages which are carelessly ignored by projects like MIE, fundamentally so by design. You may call Maltese what you wish, but the point remains.
Uff, Glen was right, of course. the Universe will not implode… at least today.
If HIS dictionaries tell all those things about Europeans, Maltese, Arabs and the Dnghu Group, Nazis, KKK, etc., It MUST be true.
btw., if you are really interested (I doub it), we use here in Europe the term “European Arab” to refer to immigrant Arabs (i.e., people from Arab countries, who form the biggest non-IE minorities in some European countries), and who are considered by us part of our population –
do your web dictionaries say something about it, or, apart from Algonquians, only English- and French-speaking immigrants are considered “Canadians”?
we uneducated Europeans – we shouldn’t even have the right to breath near his majesty Glen… 🙂
btw., if you are really interested (I doub it), we use here in Europe the term “European Arab†to refer to immigrant Arabs
It’s not what I meant. I was clear what I meant. Insisting on your bizarre language while trying ever so desperately to butcher the language of others is a great irony.
“But the special function of certain Newspeak words, of which oldthink was one, was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them.” (George Orwell, 1984)
We European uneducated foreign-language butchers, don’t even learnt by heart Mr. Orwell’s writings at school…
So, even George Orwell foresaw our desperate attempts at Dnghu to destroy languages and dominate the world! Wow, of course, you convinced us: we will promote from now on more English literature, instead of these stupid Indo-European things – we will change “Classical Culture” for “MORE English Language and Literature” – is that OK for you?
If it wasn’t for Glen’s impeccable interpretations of literature, philosophy, lingusitics, sociology, … and LIFE in general – people wouldn’t ever manage to live in peace in this corrupted-Nazi-racist-catholic-KKK-world of lies, idiocy and general conspiracy we uneducated Europeans want to create.
Thank you again, Glen, we will watch now those boring American series of continuated conspiracies with another perspective, understanding why they are able to remain on TV for so long 🙂
btw., is “Gordon” a French or a Cree name? – I don’t want to be under more “delusions” as to what your mother tongue is… – I was maybe confused by other similar English names, namely “Glen” and “Gordon”, when I mistook you for an English speaker… I guess it should be pronounced as in French /Gleñ Goggdóñ/ ? :-p
I apologize if any maltese, arab or jewish people were insulted by my comment. There was no sarcasm neither personal opinion involved. I just tried stating two facts.
Yiddish is a Germanic Indo-European language, pretty much like Ladino is Romance Indo-European, Krymchak is Turkic and Judeo-Malayalam is Dravindian. These were languages that evolved for several centuries, by jewish people living in countries were those language families were dominant.
Sorry for my ignorance, but the truth is I had never heard anyone saying the Maltese were Arab. I don’t know if it’s true or false or sow-sow and I personally don’t care. No sarcasm was intended in that statment. As for the maltese language, it’s a fact that most scholars think that it’s an arabic language and not an arab dialect. This is not consensual, but neither is the distinction between language and dialect. There is more agreement in other arabic languages though.
Only the second paragraph is about my personal views. And I’m yet to state my opinion on this project as a whole… which I will do in a more appropriate thread.
Have a nice day.
Hi again Guilherme.
As I said above, please, please don’t take trolls like Glen seriously. Just have fun with their comments, and try to learn something from the stupid discussions if possible.
If not, you are going to be desperate to gain acceptance, saying you didnt mind to insult anyone, or to say this or that, when in fact the trolls are the only ones who feel insulted and attacked by everything we say or do.
We thank you again for expressing your opinions here, you couldn’t do anything bad with your words, even if you had said the greatest stupidities (which you clearly haven’t).
Have a nice weekend, see you all on Monday
(I cannot wait to learn more from Glen, I’m so excited I wouldn’t have holiday if I could work here tomorrow, just to wait in front of my computer… I’ll try to make my best to enter from home, really, I promise…!)
Carlos Quiles: I was maybe confused by other similar English names, namely “Glen†and “Gordonâ€, when I mistook you for an English speaker…
You don’t say. So then, (Chinese text begins…)我知é“写ä¸æ–‡çš„è¯, ä½ å¯èƒ½ç›¸è¯†æˆ‘是个ä¸å›½äººå§. ä½ åœ¨è¯´ä¸ºä»€ä¹ˆ?(…Chinese text ends)
“I can write the Chinese language, you may know that I am a Chinese person. Why are you saying this?”
My rudimentary understanding of the Chinese language resulted in this translation. I’m not sure what you’re trying say.
To the discussion. I don’t see how making a conlang based on a certain language family automatically makes it racist. Is Esperanto evil and Nazi-like because it’s practically a romance language given some Germanic words?
I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
It doesn’t seem to me like DNGHU is either accidentally or purposefully excluding non-indo-european speakers with their language.
They are trying to make a a reconstructed, pronounceable modern Indo-European. I see no fault with that. Obviously it would be beautiful to reconstruct a proto-world language, but that’s far outside of the scope of becoming useful any time soon. Even Proto-Indo-Uralic is still in it’s very early stages.
Besides that, if you build a conlang from scratch, it’s still impossible to make a completely cultural influence free language. If we give it no cases, we’re basing it on Chinese, if we give it 14 cases it’s based on Finnish, if we give it a future tense, we’re basing it off the few languages that can properly express a future tense.
I don’t see how using the very interesting grammatical system of Indo-European makes it any more racist. Although you might possibly be stuck in the second world war when the Nazi’s horribly misused the findings of the Indo-Europeanists to use for their own quest for racial purging. But this was never the fault of Indo-European studies, it was the fault of the Nazi’s pulling it out of context and figuring out their own special interpretation to these things.
Keep up the good work, the grammar looks very good so far, can’t wait for the book on Syntax.
PhoeniX: “My rudimentary understanding of the Chinese language resulted in this translation. I’m not sure what you’re trying say.â€
* No. Mandarin “de hua” means “if”. If you’re not sure what someone is trying to say, _you_ need to make the effort to understand. Read again.
* Judging people by their names is an undeniable example of racism.
* Those infected by racism won’t see that.
* The world is far more complicated than this.
* _I_ am more complicated than this.
* Please, all of you, strive to be more complicated than this.
* Uralic and Basque are European and MIE ignores them both by design.
* The past _does_ matter. Learn it.
Besides that, if you build a conlang from scratch, it’s still impossible to make a completely cultural influence free language.
That’s exactly why all conlangs (mis/ab)used in a political setting can only fail.
Naive idealism is for children.
PhoeniX: But this was never the fault of Indo-European studies, it was the fault of the Nazi’s pulling it out of context and figuring out their own special interpretation to these things.
* Yes, IE studies continue on without Carlos.
* Dnghu likewise pulls the Kurgan Theory out of context on the website.
* Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 22, page 987:
“Some scholars believe that the Indo-Europeans were the bearers of the Kurgan (Barrow) culture of the Black Sea and the Caucasus and west of the Urals. The Kurgan culture, however, was only one of a number of related steppe cultures extending across the entire Black Sea-Caspian region, an area that was transformed about 4000 BC by the advent of the horsedrawn wheeled vehicles and related innovations. It is probably best therefore, to follow J.T. Mallory (In Search of Indo-Europeans [1989]) in locating the speakers of Proto-Indo-Euoprean among the populations of this region, but not to attempt a more precise indentification until further evidence is available.” People at Dnghu should read more.
* Dnghu would rather believe in a monolithic IE people and fantasy, not a disorganized band of cultures with no precise location or culture, as was the realistic state of affairs.
Hey Glen, glad to read you again.
hmm… So we “pull the Kurgan Theory out of context on the website”, something you infer from 5 simple free maps we drew without any explanation at all, only saying they were “highly hypothetical“, just for people to understand the possible evolution of IE dialects and the original position of their speakers (in relation to each other), following their dialectal features.
You ignore the fact that it is not important at all for Dnghu where IE speakers are located, and keep saying we say that because of some nazi/KKK beliefs.
Because of those maps the whole Association believes in a “monolithic IE people” and in “fantasy”.
NOW,
1) You, on the contrary, know the “realistic state of affairs” about everything, indeed about Proto-Indo-Europeans, so we are always wrong, you are always right:
2) The Kurgan hypothesis is today “generally disregarded” because the (English)man who wrote that article for your British Encyclopedia (obviously not that important in continental Europe) had read Mallory’s “In Search of Indo-Europeans” – curiously enough an English-speaking work, of an English-speaking scholar – and therefore believes that only “some” scholars believe today what Gimbutas said…
3) Mallory, in turn, followed Colin Renfrew’s Homeland theory, which states that PIE speakers are to be traced to Neolithic Anatolia: i.e., he followed the (manly archaelogical) theories of another English-speaking scholar, not that widely accepted in continental Europe, but, because that article of the Encyclopedia of Britain states that…
4) Such (mainly English) theories are from Britain and the US (indeed Canada) spread through the Net, thanks to English dominance, which in turn helps feedback of English channels by & to themselves (viz. Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, personal webpages, blogs, etc.)
You yourself stated somewhere above that you didn’t follow Renfrew’s view either. So, my conclusion is
You surf the Internet too much, and you just don’t believe in that said by your English encyclopedia, don’t believe in anything; you just like to say (and try to demonstrate) we are all wrong – because that’s the easy way of doing things, as you have nothing to lose…
And, as you are unable to demonstrate we are wrong (as we follow and discuss different scientific hypothesis), you insult us and/or want us to learn more English, Algonquian or even Chinese – or maybe pay a translator to speak with you 🙂
So basically Glen, you’re saying. Keep Conlangs away from any political context?
I guess that sort of makes sense. One of the problems I have with this though, and you’re far less affected by this by not living in the European Union, is that not having one official EU language makes conducting any conversation between the several countries a very expensive business. Which we as tax payers then have to pay.
The solution would be adopting a single language (be it Esperanto, MIE, or English, or Basque for that matter) for the whole of the EU. If you consider this a form of racism (I really think this term is way to strong, but okay) I can see where you are going. I also think you have a valid opinion for thinking it’s better to just have enormous costs of all the translations and avoid any cultural discrimination. But I’m not sure if I agree, a discussion about that is probably better not held in a impersonal environment as this.
PhoeniX: The solution would be adopting a single language (be it Esperanto, MIE, or English, or Basque for that matter) for the whole of the EU. If you consider this a form of racism (I really think this term is way to strong, but okay) I can see where you are going.
PhoeniX, I appreciate your intelligent, non-abrasive responses. Carlos doesn’t seem to be capable of doing anything but putting his foot where his dnghu should be.
Yes, I do think that enforcing artificial languages with built-in biases (ie. Indo-European bias, in this case) is just as negative as enforcing natural languages with built-in biases. The biases can be very hard to distinguish from overt racism. Conlangs are great in fantasy and don’t hurt anyone. However, outside of fantasy, successfully putting a conlang in a political context requires a deep appreciation for how the world actually works. We all know we can’t force simple ideologies onto the real world.
In regards to saving taxpayer’s money, yes, I realize that some may think this is a vital consideration. However, it’s a mirage. One way or another these materials from the EU will have to be translated back into the real languages that everyone speaks. Otherwise, the European peoples would be effectively shut out of the EU and we can’t have that, can we?
The only way around the translator pluralism is to _impose_ MIE on Europeans and replace the native languages with it and only it. This would be the only way to get rid of translators but would no doubt be the beginning of a new Reich. Carlos claims he doesn’t want to do this however. So then translators are inescapable and someone then has to pay for it.
So who’s gonna flip the bill, PhoeniX? Surely the government, not the individuals themselves. The latter idea would be a kind of “foreign language tax” so it’s best for the government to pay for it. Yes, I know, I know, “all of us getting along in peace” is just so expensive to taxpayers 😛 Maybe in a nutshell, the problem here with the taxpayer arguement is that money is mistaken as the only meaningful value in an ultimately human equation.
Carlos: You yourself stated somewhere above that you didn’t follow Renfrew’s view either.
Yes, because both Renfrew and Gimbutas aren’t linguists and have proposed “homeland” suggestions far too extreme for qualified linguists to take seriously. This is the state of affairs as of 2007, as it exists off the internet and outside of Nature magazine. However on the internet that you surf, pixies and unicorns roam. Don’t shoot the messenger, Carlos.
I accept the standard view, the general environs of the Danube River basin, as is already explained ironically enough in the Encyclopedia Britannica that you refuse to read because of some “English conspiracy theory” you perceive. I’m sure the Brits are learning so much from your racist rants.
Oh well, at least some of us Europeans are intelligent after his majesty Glen, and don’t give him ‘non-abrasive responses’ – because He is always so polite, so moderate, so modest…
Thank you again for enlightening us with real-world thinking, we are so lost here without your unending knowledge about everything…
Btw., if you are interested (smth. I still doubt) if you read the Spanish Encyclopedia (Espasa, Salvat, etc.) you will see they usually accept theories from Spanish writers, and the same happens in Germany, France, etc. Encyclopedias are compendia of general knowledge, written by non-specialized authors, who must read and know about lots of things. I just wanted to show you that ‘curiously’ everybody talked about English-speaking works and scholars in your Brit. Encyclopedia, and that they took literal content from them, instead of comparing different works. Now, if your knowledge about PIE comes from there, it’s OK, then it MUST be true.
But yes, indeed you are right, this is all a conspiracy of racists against you, the Englishmen, and the free and intelligent world… No, really, I will vote you to be our next dictator – you will decide who is wrong, who is right, who deserves to live, to speak, to breath, how they should speak, think, answer you, use translators…
I’m so happy I met you. I don’t remember what I did before I had fun reading and answering your posts 🙂
Oh, yes, I remember now: I just worked on this stupid KKK/Catholic/Nazi MIE conspiracy to conquer Manitoba and subjugate Glen’s world! 😉
http://www.bottup.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=686&Itemid=67
“Muchas voces critican la creación de lenguas como el europaio basándose en que estas lenguas ‘globales’ acabarÃan con la actual diversidad lingüÃstica.”
What are you trying to prove or accomplish here other than that you masochistically delight in your own shame in as many languages as possible?
Glen Gordon, 10. May 2007, 10:59
“Oh, ok. Sorry, mate, I was wrong.”
I did not make this comment. Apparently Carlos thinks it’s funny to put words in other people’s mouths.
Bottup said: “Muchas voces critican la creación de lenguas como el europaio basándose en que estas lenguas ‘globales’ acabarÃan con la actual diversidad lingüÃstica.â€
Glen said: What are you trying to prove or accomplish here other than that you masochistically delight in your own shame
Apparently you think that when you are criticized it is a shame… Well, then you should feel ashamed when we all here (I mean here in our free world, not your imagination in front of your computer) think you are a crazy troll who has nothing better to do in your free time than insulting me, the Association as a whole, and even every European who think something different.
Btw., I’ve read that article now and it appears to be very respectful with both positions, those who support us and those who don’t, so you should maybe learn more Spanish before trying to use it, or maybe hire a translator as you said above 😉
Glen: “Oh, ok. Sorry, mate, I was wrong.â€
Me: “(…) However, with your first tiny comment, I don’t know exactly what happened – did you do something new or strange? I’m not kidding.”
Glen: “Well, if your software is as biggoted as dnghu’s goals, then it probably gags bla bla bla (…)”
Glen two weeks after that comment: “I did not make this comment. Apparently Carlos thinks it’s funny to put words in other people’s mouths.”
Yes, apparently you like conspiracies and don’t read the threads at all, not even to help us keep your insults apart from other trolls trolling you…
We lose too much time reading your stupidities, so as to investigate where do they all come from, to prove they all come from Canada’s IPs.
I’ve seen it now (you are welcome), it was posted from an IP in the Netherlands. I don’t think we should call the police, though…
Yes, you certainly need to pay for a good Spanish translation. You see, now you should understand why it’s not enough to use machine translation:
“Una lengua común… pero no por todas las personnas que no son
indo-europeas como los vascos. Y finlandés no es indo-europeo. Racismo
sutil.”
that should read:
“Una lengua común… pero no para todas las personas que no hablan indoeuropeo, como los que hablan vascuence. Y el finés no es indoeuropeo. Racismo sutil (?)”
Do you really wanted to say “sutil”? Are you really so “pedante”?
By the way, if you want to hide your critics under false names, you should:
1st: be more imaginative (‘Aingeru Euskara’??! c’mon…)
2nd: hide your IP, so that people can’t know you write from Canada.
Are you ashamed now, or still not enough? Do you still want another try? What is next in this personal battle of you against us “uneducated racist Europeans”?
I don’t know what you’re talking about. You are evidently having problems and it was a little evident in the first flame that you sent to my personal blog, but now you’ve gone way out of hand.
Yyess, I ‘have problems’ with people who write about our project, dismissing it without knowing it, and still expecting to receive no answer from us at all:
– You could have talked about our project as “proto-politics” and the European Union and euroscepticism, and I wouldn’t have answered you – that’s your opinion, as the one from the news you posted above.
– You could have read the grammar (or at least some pages) and criticized it well. We take decisions based on normal research, so usually people disagree with our approaches, and in fact most of them do – sometimes we learn from them, sometimes not.
– OR, you could have done what you did (i.e., talk about proto-politics and post some non-sense about the linguistic project, because you had nothing better to fill your blog with), while at the same time advise your readers they shouldn’t comment on your blog, or you would begin a flame war against your commenters, insult them, etc. until they are wiped out from Earth…
I think those facts make you clearly the troll and the first to have posted a flame, but, it’s a matter of opinion; surely you think we are trolls just to begin our project, because that bothers you…
Hmm.
You see conspiracies in everyone; you make racist comments about your commenters’ perceived ethnicities based on their family names; you make slurs against English speakers, the Cree, the French, Arabs (a term you oddly misunderstand to only mean “immigrants from elsewhere”), Esperantists, and pretty much everyone else; you like to ignore the clear Nazi parallel, propping up Indo-European into something grander than it was to promote a demented sense of nationalistic unity at the expense of its own people; you forget that there are conlangs already created like Esperanto with a two-million-speaker headstart; and you insist that this ticking political timebomb of yours be adopted by the EU with the blessing of all the non-IE-speaking peoples that have been in Europe side-by-side with IE-speaking ones for centuries or millenia, including the very Basque people sitting **right in your own backyard** who were there in Europe millenia before IE even existed. Yet, you’re somehow still convinced that your “reinterpreted IE” (which you somehow believe is not another kind of Esperanto) will be the next Holy Saviour of European unity.
So it’s fair of me to say from this that you’re very abusive and even delusional. And should anyone finally state the painfully obvious (ie. “You and your cardboard, one-man organization are shamelessly racist.”), you diminish yourself further by hurling invectives at your commenters while pretending to be scarred by the negative reactions of others that you yourself provoked by way of your transparent self-contradictions and unerasable hate-filled rantings towards every group imaginable. Unbeknownst to you, it seems, your immature comments bereft of education are now tied tightly to your organization.
Regardless of the fact that you’ve erased some of the above comments by others that you couldn’t handle, while inventing others in mockery of me, all of your own words are spreading across the internet like wildfire right now thanks to Google and other search engines which keep long-lasting records of previous states of webpages through their caches. So I can easily predict that any future readers will come to associate your verbal vomit here with Dnghu and be forever sick to their stomach.
Should I feel ashamed by your behaviour and words, or be ashamed of my own here? No, I said exactly what I needed to while you wasted your opportunity to impress others with your responses. Do I care whether you will ever own up to your own words and actions towards others? No, karma will remedy that situation. Do I personally care whether you think I’m a “troll” because I spoke out and expressed myself on my own blog or even here on Dnghu? No, because I don’t strive to talk like a child. And do I lose sleep over the fact that some kid like yourself mistakes me for some narrow-minded stereotype like “crazy Englishmen” or “Esperantist neocommie” (your over-the-top wording)? Not in the slightest. The fact that you continue to fly off the deep end over every little comment anyone makes online related to your organization reveals you to be too immature to handle the direct consequences of your bad attitude.
Despite your feelings, the internet has a right to voice what they think of your organization, both good and bad. Frankly, I think poorly of it, even more so now than ever. Expecting that we all love you while you speak your self-absorbed nonsense is egomaniacal and reflects badly on your character and organization. However, it’s forever your choice – keep talking if you wish. It’s still a free world until another Adolf gets into power.
“Regardless of the fact that you’ve erased some of the above comments by others that you couldn’t handle, while inventing others in mockery of me”
That’s not true. If I wanted to delete comments, I would have certainly wiped out all of your comments. Also, inventions and ‘mockers’ are attracted here now mainly because of you. Because of our policy of not deleting and not inventing, instead of a site on Indo-European Revival News, this now seems to be a site on Glen Gordon’s ego.
“keep talking if you wish. It’s still a free world until another Adolf gets into power.”
I agree. it’s a free world, and this a free site, you can post everything you like and try to annoy everyone here – the Association works with or without your comments – I would even say your comments are more welcome than your silence.
It’s obviously not up to one person (me) to judge them, I don’t feel I have the right to delete them only because I dislike them.