Udhay Shankar N wrote:
for rishab.
-udhay
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03wwln-guestsafire-t.html
On Language
Me, Myself and I
By CAROLINE WINTER
Published: August 3, 2008
hey, thanks for sending that. I didn't know where the capital "I" came
from. :) I'm not surprised by the answer, though. Seems reasonable given
the evolution and structure of English.
I'm less convinced by the writer suggesting that capitalizing the word
"I" leads to excessive ego, though, when she cites examples of other
languages that leave these bits out. She says Japanese makes it possible
to leave out pronouns. Well, sure, but you don't really need subjects in
Japanese, ether. And in Japanese the emphasis is on the "topic" not the
subject, and verbs are usually passive and/or nominalized and buried at
the end of the sentence well after all the context is explained in
painfully long detail. But in English, a subject performing an action is
the focus right up front. And while English can structurally handle a
"topic" it has no grammatical role and is generally left out.
I'm not sure about the other languages she cites, but Japanese and
English are polar opposites and I don't see how comparing them supports
her argument that using "i" instead of "I" will make "our
individualistic, workaholic society ... more rooted in community and
quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of
ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot." Japanese has a lot of
what she's looking for, yet many Japanese people are workaholics, they
express a lot of individuality (though not as much as the US), they are
focused on money, and much of their famous humility/politeness is locked
inside exclusive groups with rigid rules that would greatly stress the
Western definition of community. Of course, many Japanese people are
lovely and kind and community-oriented and all that, just as many
English-speaking people are as well. It's extremely difficult to judge
languages/cultures out of their context.
Interesting article, but I think it goes a tad too far. I don't see why
the capital I can't just be a quirk of linguistic history rather than a
statement on individual ego -- and a pejorative one at that.
Jim
--
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
