From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-02-10 14:49:14 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stueberl.de!proxad.net!usenet-fr.net!enst.fr!melchior!cuivre.fr.eu.org!melchior.frmug.org!not-for-mail From: "Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 01:03:24 +0300 (MSK) Organization: Cuivre, Argent, Or Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lovelace.ada-france.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org 1076453238 36661 80.67.180.195 (10 Feb 2004 22:47:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:47:18 +0000 (UTC) To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org Return-Path: In-Reply-To: ; from "Robert I. Eachus" at Tue, 10 Feb 2004 02:07:03 -0500 X-Mailer: Mail/@ [v2.44 MSDOS] X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p5 (Debian) at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.3 Precedence: list List-Id: Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5409 Date: 2004-02-11T01:03:24+03:00 Robert I. Eachus wrote: > > ... languages are nothing more than tools for > > composing computer programs. The good craftsperson selects the > > appropriate tool for the job at hand. > > Not really. Programming languages are also tools for thinking. And > different languages favor different ways of thinking. Yes. And they provide a multitude of convenient patterns for those favored ways. > This effect can > also be seen in spoken languages you can't understand the French and the > people of Quebec unless you can think in French. (I am the first to > admit I can't. I can try, but I find the exercise very strenuous. I > need to literally accept a foreign viewpoint to do it well and I am > unwilling to do so. Actually you need not *accept* that foreign viewpoint as a "proper" or "true" one for you, but you should become aware of its essense and its relationships with various facts, events, doctrines etc. And yes, you need to admit that that viewpoint is viable and somehow appropriate for its native environment and circumstances. No more than that. That should not be destructive for your own worldview... if you don't think that the latter is definitely better than all others and therefore should be propagated everywhere and dominate over all those inferior others. By the way, nowadays the English language is very interesting in this aspect - because there is a clear choice between two possible viewpoints for this language: American and British (in alphabetical order -:) . These are certainly different viewpoints, and a learner has to choose between them. > The cultural baggage with Arabic and Chinese is > larger that that which comes with French, but it isn't as imperialistic. This sentence seems quite strange... well, not exactly. I can't believe that you know so much about Arabic or Chinese culture that you can estimate whether or not it is imperialistic. After all, most of their cultural baggages (which are large, as you said) were created during their corresponding Imperial ages. Not knowing French (as you said) you certainly can't judge French cultural baggade in this aspect as well. But you did that, and there is a clear cause for that - you see French as the most important center of resistance against worldwide propagation of American viewpoint. Well, I think that this feeling is quite correct, and this is why recently I gradually become interested in learning French (there are, and always were other reasons of course, but this new additional one has a chance to be decisive). > Japanese on the other hand, is much more demanding than French, but in > another sense it is not as hard. Japanese requires you to act in > certain ways, but it doesn't try as hard to impose its worldview on you. >... > However, I have found > that there is a huge difference in world view between those Japanese who > speak English and those who don't, This passage about Japanese vividly reminds me the following anecdote: ---------- A Pan Am 727 flight engineer waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following: Lufthansa (in German): Ground, what is our start clearance time?" Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak English." Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?" Unknown voice (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!" ---------- > I haven't studied Russian in decades, but I remember it as being like the > Germanic langauges. They do fit your discription above. They are tools > and can be used in many different ways. I can't speak for Germanic languages, but for Russian I tend to agree. Yes, I don't think that Russian, as a language, is substantially associated with any specific viewpoint. (But its Soviet flavour certainly was... I hope it is obvious.) But just one external observation about Germanic languages: although it may be true that the whole family of Germanic languages isn't substantially associated with any particular viewpoint, this seems to be false for one particular area, and the corresponding language flavour: Austria. It seems that there, in Austria, some coherent viewpoint was present (I don't know whether it is still alive). Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia