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So I read the fraction of the article above the paywall, and I got certain feelings from it. First, there are people and cultures who wish to colonize, not by
by NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
So I read the fraction of the article above the paywall, and I got certain feelings from it.
First, there are people and cultures who wish to colonize, not by physically migrating and setting up shop, but they colonize ideologically, by propagating ideas and culture into foreign countries, in the hope that these colonizing ideas will supplant the native ones, which are considered backward, oppressive, ignorant, etc.
Now the example is given -ová. Anyone who is Slavic or Russian will, of course, recognize the same patronymic suffix in their own languages, and there are plenty of women known as such, including Babylon 5's Susan Ivanova. Yes, it means "of" in a sort of grammatical possessive sense. So does -ov which is its male counterpart. So do variants such as -off and such. Polish suffixes such as -ski mean "son of". Celtic prefixes like Mc, Mac, and O' have the same function. In Iceland, -dottir and -son mean exactly what you think, along with -son and -sen analogs in the Germanic tongues.
Yes, it means "daughter of" or "wife of" or "son of", but for thousands of years, nobody took issue with this sort of possessive sense. Is it not a good thing for a person to belong to a family? A wife to belong to her husband, and vice versa? After all, they freely give themselves to each other at the wedding, so that right is given freely. It's not oppression; it's a supreme expression of love. It seems that this author wants to portray the Czech Republic as a Handmaid's Tale dystopia.
So I don't know how the 1945 law changed recently, but I fear that while the blog author's cultural outrage may subside, the West has won another round of ideological colonization against a perfectly usable system of patronymics. Shall they target Russia next?