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From: ddg@cci.com (D. Dale Gulledge)
Subject: Re: Great Esperanto literature (was: Re: Esperanto? The EU?)
In-Reply-To: hinsenk@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA's message of Tue, 21 Feb 1995 22:20:12 GMT
Message-ID: <DDG.95Feb27171131@sun86.cci.com>
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References: <3i8ej9$bhi@masala.cc.uh.edu> <D4Bz24.2z2G@pen.k12.va.us>
	<HINSENK.95Feb21172012@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 22:11:30 GMT
Lines: 63

In article <HINSENK.95Feb21172012@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA> hinsenk@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA (Hinsen Konrad) writes:

   In article <D4Bz24.2z2G@pen.k12.va.us> kreed@pen.k12.va.us (Kenneth W. Reed) writes:

      No profound thoughts here.  Language is the product and vehicle
      of culture.  A culture is best interpreted through its own
      language.  Esperanto is a "language" without a cultural basis.
      It would seem, therefore, that great Esperanto literature is a
      contradiction in terms.

   The conclusion is wrong because it is based on wrong assumptions:

   1) Language is the product and vehicle of culture.

   Why?

Actually, language is a product of a need or desire to communicate.  I most
certainly can be a vehicle for culture.  Esperanto has the advantage of not
being tied to any specific native culture so strongly as to make other
cultures foreign.  It is a neutral meeting ground.

   2) A culture is best interpreted through its own language.

   Why?

I would say that a culture is most easily and naturally interpreted through
its own language.  That language contains a shared colloquial vocabulary that
is likely to be unique and not directly translatable into another language.
With good translation however, something can be *gained* in the process.
Ideas that have not been fully considered because they are commonplace in one
language may be more fully understood when examined through another.

   3) Esperanto is a "language" without a cultural basis.

   Wrong (unless you define "cultural basis" with the explicit
   intention to make it true).

Esperanto has absorbed the cultures of its users.  For each, it stands in the
middle ground between one's own experience and that of the larger world.  The
only difference between this and any other language is that the cultures its
speakers draw from are more diverse.  It has taken time for this process and
it is never complete.

My high school Spanish class was a subculture unto itself.  We shared a number
of jokes based on our own errors and repetitions of particular bits of
practice dialogue.  I suspect that most people's experiences in learning
another language in a classroom setting are similar in kind but very different
in detail.  But it is upon such shared experiences that cultures are built.

A culture cannot be rightly termed either natural or artificial, for it is
both and neither.  Rarely is culture intensionally created, and when it is,
rarely does it happen as intended.  Yet a culture does not appear
unconsciously.  People repeat the stories they loved to their children, they
retell the jokes that have made them laugh.  We learn from each other and we
grow.  Esperanto embodies the beginning and the potential for the richest
culture humanity has ever produced.  I would hate to miss it.

- Dale
--
My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
--
ddg@cci.com, D. Dale Gulledge, Software Engineer, Northern Telecom,
Directory & Operator Services, 97 Humboldt St., Rochester, NY 14609
