[Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T.

[Duncan]

Petr Kovar posted on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:10:52 +0200 as excerpted:

> One might ask whether the new system was respectful to values of
> (traditional) family institution.
> 
> Surely, a driving force behind these changes was completely different in
> the Eastern bloc when compared to the U.S. In the East, the people in a
> collectivist system including women were expected to self-sacrifice for
> the well-being of the whole socialist society, whether in the West, the
> personal success in an individualist system was what mattered, I assume.

Very interesting/educational.

Among social commentators and in general society, is the society now 
becoming more individually "selfish" to the same degree as in most of the 
west, fully rejecting the old Communist social system along with the 
politics, or is some sort of middle ground being chosen?  How is that 
viewed?  (In reality, I understand there's still Communist parties and etc 
as part of the political system, and I suppose they'd reject the whole new 
system, but I'm talking in general, much as the reference to the West must 
be in general when discussing the emphasis on individualism.)

>> Incidentally, and even further off-topic, I wish I could speak or just
>> read and write *any* foreign (to me) language as well as you do with
>> English.  I would never know from your posting that you were not a
>> native English speaker, and a well educated one at that.
> 
> Thank you for your kind words! I still think, though, that my English
> skills are quite limited in terms of phraseology & idioms. But I'm
> working on it! :-)

You are quite fluent, even eloquent.  But phraseology and idioms are 
certainly a challenge when translating even across dialects.

I grew up (ages 4.5 to 11, 6+ years) in Kenya, East Africa, a former 
British colony.  That was in the 70s; we were there for the 10th 
anniversary of independence, in 1973, so they hadn't been independent 
long, and the English spoken there was far closer to "The Queen's English" 
than in the US.  I /still/ think of "the boot" instead of "the trunk", and 
understand "bonnet" tho I think "hood".  And spelling... metre/centre vs 
meter/center, coloUr, etc.

But the event that really brought home the "issues with idioms" to my mom, 
and thru her retelling, to the whole family (tho this is English/other 
misunderstanding, not a an en_US/en_UK thing), was a discussion she had 
with one Kenyan young man (this was a secondary school and teacher 
training college, so... teens).  They were joking, and my mom remarked 
"You must be pulling my leg, now."  (The idiom indicates a deliberate 
exaggeration beyond credulity or tale as a joke, basically seeing how 
credulous the hearer is.[1])  Given the context of the thread, it's 
interesting this comes up now, as he thought he was being accused of 
improper contact!

Obviously I was young at the time, and this was well before the 
victimizations I mentioned earlier, but the event left an impression of 
the dangers of misinterpreted across cultures idioms that has (obviously, 
given my recounting of the story) remained with me to this day.

One of the other effects I've personally noted over the years, from my 
time there, where I was exposed to other cultures (including Indian) as 
well, and from later cross-cultural experiences (Navajo Indian, Central 
American Spanish) is that while I only picked up a smattering of words 
from all the various languages (my younger sister did far better, and 
actually took medicine in Mexico, she's a doctor), I'm /far/ more 
tolerant/understanding of "foreign" word order than most native
English-only speakers.  "Yoda-speak" comes off as slightly stilted but it 
isn't at all as difficult to understand for me as it seems to be for 
others, and I appreciate listening to and reading non-native English 
speakers who haven't quite mastered it to the degree you have (I really 
had no idea until you mentioned it, that you weren't a native English 
speaker, you're that fluent, only the name giving a hint, and I don't pay 
as much attention to that as many do), as it often gives me fresh insights 
into word or phrase meaning that I'd not get, otherwise.  (I love reading 
direct order-preserved word-for-word Ancient Greek to English, for 
instance, tho order-preserved ancient Hebrew to English is rather harder 
as the order is FAR different, to the point I have to work hard enough at 
just basic parsing, that I miss the nuances available to me when reading 
from the Greek.)

---
[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22pulling%20my%20leg%22

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman