Re: More Guardian Racism


"Logician" <sales@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:43a575b2-0e43-4837-85fc-f8075b4da8d5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jan 31, 8:29 am, "Lee" <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Logician" <sa...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:517f1049-3224-4d83-81f3-3fd2329f44b8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jan 30, 6:18 pm, "Lee" <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



> "Logician" <sa...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

>news:b79a1b4c-ba5a-4e74-88e9-bb2141c09bbc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> On Jan 30, 4:42 pm, "Phil Saunders" <philip.saund...@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:

> > "Logician" <sa...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

> >news:8162b02c-0f88-4eb1-b34e-bc4a7af9b4db@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> > >http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/30/lindsey-brown-british-...

> > > The article had the stench of racism from start to finish. It talks > > > of
> > > jobs for Britons and not Italians. It is funny how people like
> > > designer racism.

> > > You may recall when the Guardian headlined that white people were
> > > "white trash" when they commited offences. I wonder if the Guardian
> > > would consider the phrase "Black Trash" or "Brown Trash" to be > > > racist.

> > You could call it xenophobic (but it isnt) but it isnt racist.
> > Protectionist
> > though.

> > Phil

> No, actually the PC crowd call national identity a form a race and
> that is now adopted as standard. To talk of a national identity is
> equivalent as talking about a race.

> The article highlights how the race argument is one of convenience to
> be played for political gain. You will find journals such as the
> Guardian will deploy racism and then avidly practice it.

> The entire article is loaded with a message of discrimination against
> foreign workers which is in essence race discrimination.

> -----------------------------------

> Britain has strong historic ties with Italy both genetically and
> linguistically, many modern English words have Latin roots. So playing > the
> racialism card in this case seems a bit far fetched to say the very > least.

> Far more disturbing from a PC perspective is the decision of several
> councils to further pursue the dumbing down the English language by
> actually
> prohibiting Latin words and phrases which nomatter what your background > as
> an English speaker is an insult and affront to the intellect.

>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082427/The-councils-ban-Lati...

> Removing such words and phrases smacks of Labour uniculturism to me.

Factually you are wrong. Almost all historic British influence was
Anglo-Saxon in nature and not Romanic or French.

Much of the English language is a simplification of a north German
dialect called Plat Deutsch.

For example, in English you can say "I ate" or "I have eaten" which
come from the different German forms, ich aß and ich habe gegessen. It
was not until I learned German, that I understood the basis of
English. I see everyday people who cannot speak English correctly,
especially on British TV/Radio, and in the House of Commons. What is
ironic is they self-declare themselves as authorities on English.

I recall once when the Speaker agreed with Galloway as he "apologised"
for an MP's English. In that discourse, both the Speaker and Galloway
who self-declared themselves as authorities on the English language,
tripped and stumbled with the language making egregious mistakes. It
was truly laughable to hear the exchange.

I think you misread the article athttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082427/The-councils-ban-Lati...

Latin has always been considered to be a elite language practiced and
accepted by the rich and powerful. That is how Plat Deutsch became so
widely used after the Normans conquered as peasants did not understand
Latin and they simplified German into what is now called English by
removing cases, genders, reducing the article structure to two and
taking out the declinations. That made English then and today the
simplest language to speak. It was literally a peasants language. It
is the simplicity of English that caused it to spread. Today, someone
can learn English in just two weeks.

-----------------------------

I think you underestimate the importance of Latin in the English language
and just how many words have roots in either Greek or Latin imported either
directly or through French and other languages as an intermediary.
The wordsmiths at Dictionary dot com estimate a median of around 84% of
English words have Latin ROOTS, this may rise to around 90% when discussing
scientific topics.

http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/faq/language/t16.html

That is the whole point. The link talks of the English Language (about
600,000 words). But the average person uses a small percentage of
that. The point is that Latin was the language of scholars and not
ordinary people. Average people used cut down versions of north
Germanic languages. Scholars used Latin. Hence the percentage of words
refers to many unused words or seldomly used words. Many parts of the
English language are in effect redundant and would not even be
understood by most English people.

For example one English word taken from Latin: eleemosynary. I was
surprised when I talked to a man years ago who did not know that word
and he (like many) considered himself an expert on English.

I have linked to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_language

"English is a West Germanic language which originated from the Anglo-
Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers and Roman
auxiliary troops from various parts of what is now northwest Germany
and the northern Netherlands. "

See references to northwest Germany and northern Holland.

"Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant
grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian
core of English"

---------------------------------

I think people today would have had great difficulty understanding my Grandmother born in Lancashire (1898-1964) when she went into the vernacular and to me she was an early demonstration of how many different ways English may be spoken around the country, some dialects being almost incomprehensible from 'Kernewek' a derivitive of Celtic which is about as far back as language goes in the UK spoken around the Cornwall area to the North Eastern and Yorkshire Dialects sprinkled with Viking words and place names.

As for the Latin Element it is only necassary to sit in an airport lounge or Chinese resteraunt and listen to people speaking in their own pan Asiatic languages and note that the vocabulary generously sprinkled with latin rooted words such as tele, video, visa, ect and many more to realise that Latin words form the bedrock of modern English vocabulary and have spread due to this language being the most widely spoken language on Earth.

As for Learning English in a week or two, while this may indeed be possible however speaking the language at it's best may take a lot longer to perfect as can be seen by comparing the synthesised modern creoles and pidgin versions heard on MTV to Shakespear or even the epic saga of Beowulf an early example more Germanic sounding version of the language.



.

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