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Amaros -> RE: Racism, Classism, or Justified Preference? (It's a Long Post) (1/12/2007 8:44:35 PM)
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http://xkcd.com/c84.html
Anyway, yes, human psychology contains a significant streak of provincialism, and we become conditioned to accept certain things as "right" and other things as "wrong", part of what you might call our "cultural aquisition device", adn it's mot confined to any particular cuture - the French are even more notorious than we are about linguistic "purity".
It may be useful however, to remember that English is a borrowing language, half of it comes from "foreign" sources, and it adds new words all the time - words are just symbols to describe things, and different languages and dialects often describe things that are difficult or impossible to say in English, or to say without using a dozen words instead of one.
Schadenfreude is Germand word signifying the act of taking delight in the misery of others - takes Seven word in English to relate a very common psychological phenomona signified by a single compound word in German - try to track down the etymology and meaning of "traipse" - it conveys a very distinct sense or tone than "walk".
This to me, is fascinating, you can learn a lot about a culture by it's language - language describes thought processes themselves - is there a Chinese word for "slut" for example? Itf there is, and there probobly is, it will describe the entire cultural attitude towards the persom to whom the label is being implied, which might not be all that different from ours, but with some subtle differences.
Further, words themselves change meaning over time - "slut" doesn't mean the same thing it meant a hundred years ago, it doesn't really mean quite the same thing it did last year.
Anyway, the only way to overcome this sort of cultural agorophobia is to expose yourself to the alternative - think of it as anthropolgy. "Ebonics", as it's called disparagingly now, what used to be called "Jive", is an incredibly rich and expressive dialect tha is in a constant state of flux - you could devote and entire career just trying to keep up with it, and it's as American - more American than English, almost more English than English - try to decipher Cockney or Glaswegian - 'ow doya fancy yer skoosh?
You wanna blow somebodies mind, eavesdrop sometime and find out what they call you.
Language is like a direct route into a persons consciousness, the entire paradigm of how they view the world - why limit yourself?
There are worse things than personal growth - you could be getting shot at by Islamic fundamentalists or soemthing. It can always get worse, knowledge is the only protection. I get uncomfortable around "different" people too, I'll tell ya, White people flat freak me out sometimes, and I'm so White I glow in the dark.
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