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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: (lang/Cantonese) Cantonese spelling scheme?
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References: <4frdrv$ebm@voyager.iii.org.tw> <4gsnj3$ocq@news.ccit.arizona.edu> <4gt9qa$n4a@reznor.larc.nasa.gov> <Pine.SOL.3.91.960228161024.28305E-100000@rask>
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 21:50:09 GMT
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In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.960228161024.28305E-100000@rask>,
Jens S. Larsen <jens@cphling.dk> wrote:
>On 26 Feb 1996, Fei Li wrote:

>>   Thanks. This is exactly the point. Mandarin is not the spoken
>>   language OF Beijing. It is BASED on the language spoken in and around
>>   Beijing and is rather artificial. Beijingers have to learn to speak=20
>>   "standard Mandarin" just as everyone else does although it is a much=20
>>   easier task for them-Beijingers like myself, and the learning process
>>   may be subconscious.
>
>In that case, standard Mandarin _is_ biased, even if it is
>artificial. Just as Latin, if it had survived, would have been
>biased to the benefit of middle Italians. One just wonders why there
>seems to be a correlation between the linguistic splittering of
>Europe and the fact of European civilization, for good and for bad,
>conquering the world.

	What sort of correlation?  European civilisation "conquered 
the world" for reasons completely unrelated to the linguistic situation
there.  If this type of splintering was so helpful, why didn't the
South Asians go forth and conquer?  Instead, officially monolingual Ming 
China threatened to conquer them.  (Recall the capture of the Ceylonese 
king by Zheng He.)

[rest deleted]
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
