Re: True western view of new Baltic masters

On Sep 17, 11:44 am, "Pēteris Cedriņš (Peteris Cedrins)"
<cedr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Re the words -- what do you guys use for wolf? Latvian uses all sorts
of euphemisms, like "pelçcis" (the gray one), "dieva suns" (God's
dog), and even "vilks" itself...

Curious. I'm not aware of anything similar in Lithuanian. Maybe some
of our Lithuania-residents will correct me if I am wrong.

Re what you write above -- even I, with little experience of Québec,
know people there, in situ, who are genuinely concerned about the poor
English skills of their kids. Anglophones in Québec don't live in
"North America" -- they live, like speakers of any language anywhere,
in an immediate linguistic environment that is influenced, sometimes
heavily, by a broader one.

Due to market realities (producting for the biggest audience pays
best) French TV is more limited than English TV. So kids in Québec
watch a lot of anglo TV. The pretence of Canada being bilingual is
quickly stripped away when you watch something like Canadian Idol.
It's 100% percent English only, and if you don't speak English
fluently don't even think about competing because you won't get any
votes outside Québec. And don't even dream of singing in French!

One of the major complaints of Russophones here with regard to the
education reform is a simple one -- their kids will grow up with bad
Latvian, bad Russian, and no real linguistic home ground. This
complaint is not so easily dismissed. Language isn't national. The
lists of the best schools in Latvia include at least a couple of
Daugavpils schools -- Russian ones.

What do you mean "language isn't national" ?

Most Europeans focus upon the individual, not upon the imaginary,
legendary, or even imaginal nation-state. Tant pis.

You've lost me there too. And what's your aunt's piss got to do with
it? :-)

I was taken aback the first time I met people from Québec who spoke no
English -- hey, it's North America? No problem, but weird and rather
debilitating. I was taken aback the first time I met Lithuanians (in
Lithuania) who spoke no Russian... when English didn't help, I was
taken aback yet again.

As you know, I'm all in favour of everybody trying to learn as many
languages as they can. What I am against is the assumption that
tere's nothing to be ashamed of about being monolingual in English
(like 99% of non-ethnic Americans, etc) but there is something to be
ashamed about if you are monolingual in your own native language with
only a million or two or three million speakers. Sure, sure, the
monolinguals miss out. But what the average monolingual anglophone
will never admit is that they are missing out on somtething too. As
far as they are concerned they already have all they will ever need
linguistically and any talk about cultural enrichment falls on deaf
ears. (Because they may have dabbled in it a tiny bit once, only to
find that, like dieting and exercise, it's not easy and – in their
view – not as much fun as sitting on the sofa watching Simpsons while
eating popcorn and drinking beer.)

Those I know who have brilliant Latvian tend to be those who also have brilliant Russian.

Of course. As per paragraph above. But russophones in Latvia have
even less excuse for being monolingual than do anglos in Québec.
Anglos here can point out (and they do ad nauseam) that what they
speak is the language of the majority of the whole Confederation (as
if that is supposed to make it OK to ignore the local language)
whereas Latvia is no longer in any confederation or soyuz that
relegates its langauge to minority status.

I spent part of this day performing a most absurd task: translating
letters by Latvian historians into English -- letters to Russian
historians. Now, I know perfectly well that these historians are
fluent in Russian -- in fact, they probably wrote their dissertations
in Russian. Can one really be so rude, then, or such an idiot? If this
is to prove a point -- what point does it prove?

It proves a very valid point: if you want to be taken seriously and
treated as equal, insist on your own language. I applaud those Heads
of State who refuse to give interviews in any language other than the
official national language of their country. I'll always despise that
commo bitch Prunskiene (Seimas member) who ran around giving
interviews in Russian just at a time (1990-1) when Lithuania was
trying to convince the West that no we are not Russians and the
Russians have no divne right to rule us.

In the end, what Balts will prove is that they can bash their heads against a wall better than anybody, and Makarenko and maybe even MTRP will be vindicated. Sad, but true.

Sorry, PC, not sad and not true. I disagree. Besides – you got an
assignment out of it, didn't you? And look wider – if those documents
are to go into the archives to be perused by future students, most of
them students will speak no Russian.

.

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