Re: Question about Spanish

Felix Rawlings wrote:

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:42:20 -0500, Harlan Messinger wrote:

Felix Rawlings wrote:
On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 09:53:23 +0000, Felix Rawlings wrote:


On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:41:58 +0000, Peter T. Daniels wrote:


foggytown wrote:

Dear Group,

I am doing some research for a short story and perhaps I can find some
assistance in here. Question: are there countries once colonized by
Spain where the daily spoken language is now a form of Spanish which
has so degraded that it would not be understood by Spaniards or other
(former) colonies?

Please don't say "degraded." It suggests that the language is somehow
inferior or inadequate. Whatever the social circumstances of its
speakers, the language is fully as expressive as that spoken by any
Castilian.

Two things: One, must you be so thoroughly politically correct all
the time? And two, where is the data to support your assertion in the
last sentence? Or is this a case of PC dogma first, scientific evidence
afterwards?

It's interesting to notice that replies so far have just focused on
chastising me, for daring to wonder if the original poster was motivated
by political correctness,

Well, gee, now I dare to wonder if you're being motivated by the Forces of
Darkness conspiring to wreak havoc on a defenseless universe. Does that
make sense?

Peter's motivation, as he stated explicitly, is that your characterization
of other languages as "degraded" is misguided.

Where in this thread did I use the word "degraded"?

It's not clear whether "foggytown" and "Felix Rawlings" are the same or
different persons. Would you care to clarify? They appear to be; see how
in the string of attributions above, "Felix Rawlings" springs to the
defense of "foggytown."

People aren't motivated by political correctness.

What's this? Another assertion that we are supposed to take in faith?

"Political correctness" is a canard invented by rightwingnutcases to
attempt to sully those with whom they disagree -- those who prefer not
to use degrading vocabulary of fellow humans.

I find it risible, to say the least, for evidence on the contrary is
abundant: e.g. why would anyone talk about dark colored, African natives
as "African-American"?

I haven't seen that referred to as "political correctness" before; the
reasons for it would appear to be threefold: analogy; false
generalization; or ignorance.

Which of those is "PC," o rightwing speechmonitor?

> and have confirmed that his opinion is correct,
again without producing any solid, scientific data to support it.

Solid evidence to support what? That languages don't "degrade"? You're
the one using the term "degraded". If you're going to use such a term,
you must have an idea what metric you're using to assess the degree of
degradedness of any given language. So why don't you tell us what that
metric is and try to convince us that it's of interest?

All this paragraph is irrelevant because, probably in the heat of the
moment, you couldn't be bothered to tell who said what. Let me insert here
the assertion that I want to discuss:

Whatever the social circumstances of its speakers, the language is fully
as expressive as that spoken by any Castilian.

OK, let's see the scientific support for that. That's all I am asking.
Where is it?

No, sir. When you assert something, er, ridiculous, it's up to you to
provide evidence for your assertion. What is the evidence that some
human language is unable to express something that some other human
language is able to express?

You may consult Wittgenstein if you wish.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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