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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: Dialect or Language?difference=???
Message-ID: <donhD02J2L.561@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <3ak537$gds@grivel.une.edu.au> <3atgla$890@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU> <3bg0e1$ada@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 06:51:57 GMT
Lines: 32

serene@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Serene Taleb-Agha) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <3bg0e1$ada@agate.berkeley.edu>:
>In article <3atgla$890@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>,
>Hung J Lu <hlu@GAS.UUG.Arizona.EDU> wrote:
>
>>Mandarin. Unless these "dialects" can short-cut the acquisition
>>of Western knowledge/vocabulary, they run the danger of the 
>>hothouse flower effect and being replace by Mandarin. All this
>>may not be bad, but would probably slow down the universal 
>>integration.
>
>This is the first time I've heard of people expecting the universal
>integration of languages into one global language. Is this a commonly held
>belief? I'd be interested on hearing more about it. I'm skeptical on first
>impression.
>
"...in the period of the _global_ victory of socialism ... the national 
languages will inevitably have to melt together into one common language, 
which will, of course, be neither Russian nor German but something new."

-- Stalin, "Concluding Speech on the Political Report of the Central 
Committee to the 16th Party Congress", Feb. 7, 1930; quoted in Lins, 
Ulrich, _La dang^era lingvo: studo pri la persekutoj kontrau^ Esperanto_, 
Moscow: Progreso, 1990, p. 355.

Whether Stalin was right or not, of course, remains to be seen. I'm not 
holding my breath.

-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/el/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/do/donh/donh.html 
