I'm no linguist. Sorry if I have uttered old and overcome thoughts.
As far as I know, languages do lack things indeed: some phonems,
interpunctuation, grammar, ...
Political use of phonetics: the German language is lacking the
difference between the chinese phonems q,zh,ch,x,sh, ... The consequence
is that Chinese was interpreted as kauderwelsch (english translation?)
and thus the Chinese as "dumb". This was used for propaganda against
China during imperialism.
bye Toscho
Am 03.10.2010 14:26, schrieb Paul Isambert:
Le 03/10/2010 14:16, Tobias Schoel a écrit :
That's not phonetics, that's politics. Nothing to do with Persian/Farsi.
Language has always been an important weapon in politics. People think
in the languages they speak. If a language lacks something, then the
thinking of the speakers of this language will probably lack it as
well. And politics is always based on lacks in the thinking of the
people the politics are aimed at.
On the relation of language and politics, you're right... except not in
the sense you mean it. The relation between thought and language is far
from obvious. Your position is extreme Sapir-Whorf, which as far as I
know, has been corroborated only in some very simple areas (colors,
prepositions...). Now the _use_ of a language is another matter, as is
the influence of culture. But a ``language lacking something'' is not an
entity you can spot easily.
Anyway I was speaking about phonetics, and I've never seen any political
use of phonetics (barring puns).
Paul
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