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Welcome to Europe. 500 years ago it was mostly principalities and city states, tried empires for a while, then we had countries for a few 100 years - now we are
by kiuyhjk 16y ago
Welcome to Europe.
500 years ago it was mostly principalities and city states, tried empires for a while, then we had countries for a few 100 years - now we are trying to abolish them again. It's very much a British (actually English) idea that countries are eternal and inviolate.
IIRC Singapore and a bunch of other high tech SE Asian countries essentially did the same thing. Anybody with a high tech qualification, eg a CS degree, could live and work in any of the club no questions asked.
- davidw 16y ago> It's very much a British (actually English) idea that countries are eternal and inviolate. France is pretty nationalistic too, no? They're one of the harshest countries in Europe in terms of minority languages, if I recall correctly.
- kiuyhjk 16y agoBut only since about 1880. Before that 'France' was only about 20% of the country and only about 20% spoke French. There was a huge effort to create a single nation, similar to the unification of Germany and Italy around the same time. Their attitude to the language rather shows that - nobody in England thinks English needs 'protecting'.
- jacquesm 16y agoEnglish is 'open source', French is 'the cathedral'. It shows in their proliferation patterns too.
- kiuyhjk 16y agoWhats the quote? Other languages borrow foreign words - English lures them into dark alleys and goes through their pockets for any grammer they might have.
- waqf 16y agoThe original quote is: The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle [sic] their pockets for new vocabulary. ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nicoll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nicoll