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Le 03/10/2010 14:52, Tobias Schoel a écrit :
<blockquote cite="mid:4CA87C75.4080303@googlemail.com" type="cite">I'm
no linguist. Sorry if I have uttered old and overcome thoughts.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Let's say they're controversial at best. But not false, mind you:
just very hard to assess.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4CA87C75.4080303@googlemail.com" type="cite">As
far as I know, languages do lack things indeed: some phonems,
interpunctuation, grammar, ...
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yes, of course. I was speaking about the lexicon, actually, and the
ability to express thought.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4CA87C75.4080303@googlemail.com" type="cite">
<br>
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.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Well that's a <i>reflexion</i> on phonetics, it's not phonetics
itself that is used. Such considerations are of course frequent. See
Rousseau's comparison of the Italian and German languages in his <i>Essai
sur l'origine des langues</i>. And see accents, of course: one
person's accent is laughable (or, less frequently, poetic) to
another. In France the accent from Québec is often felt as comical
-- until I was told (I can't remember by whom) of a French professor
who went to Québec and couldn't understand why the entire classroom
was laughing at him. His accent, of course!<br>
<br>
In that way, phonetics does indeed play a great role in politics: in
France at least, you'll never hear a politician with an accent that
is considered `popular'.<br>
<br>
Globally, indeed, languages are often barriers, generally because
they're ill-understood, sadly. People often think there is a `right'
way of saying things, which is absurd.<br>
<br>
Am I not somewhat off-topic? :)<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
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