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This doesn’t make sense. If the word/phrase expresses a relative relationship to it’s user, then that works on a per user basis. Eg- Non-Americans can say “this
by elefanten 5y ago
This doesn’t make sense. If the word/phrase expresses a relative relationship to it’s user, then that works on a per user basis.
Eg- Non-Americans can say “this country” about their own countries. If the word/phrase is a generic term in a given language, it often ends up having fixed context —- eg “la Raza” as used by Latin American communities.
Besides, the original commenter denied it’s used at all. Gp implies otherwise.
Broadly speaking, this whole business of trying to “own” words on an identity basis is poisonous, corrosive and an abuse of the tool of language.
- Sharlin 5y agoIf a word is widely understood to have the meaning "our language", it's precisely its context-sensitivity that makes it wrong for a non-speaker to use that word to refer to the language, because he/she is not part of the "us". Thinking otherwise is basically telling the native speakers that you, as an ignorant ousider, know better than them how their language and its nuances work.
- elefanten 5y agoI agree that a possessive concept shouldn’t be used as a generic. I’m sure mistakes of that nature are made all the time by non-speakers of various languages. Neither person in the discussion above claimed bahasa means “our language”. The positions were “bahasa=language(generic)” vs “bahasa=also colloquially used to mean Indonesian”. It was your assertion/conjecture that it actually means “our language”. The (seemingly) native speaker posting the original comment did not make a similar claim.