Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!dgp.toronto.edu!elf
From: elf@dgp.toronto.edu (Eugene Fiume)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Canada: one or two cultures?
Message-ID: <1989Jul25.083603.11622@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: 25 Jul 89 12:36:03 GMT
References: <615662921.9256@myrias.uucp> <568@UALTAVM.BITNET> <604@philmtl.philips.ca> <89Jul19.104948edt.18727@me.utoronto.ca> <609@philmtl.philips.ca> <1989Jul24.085326.28706@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <27944@watmath.waterloo.edu>
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Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
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In article <27944@watmath.waterloo.edu> rwwetmore@grand.waterloo.edu (Ross Wetmore) writes:
>In article <1989Jul24.085326.28706@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> elf@dgp.toronto.edu (Eugene Fiume) writes:

>
>>Language is an over-rated cultural factor.
>  Obviously you have little understanding of la Francophonie, or countries
>which have a government department to oversee the purity of their language.
>
What's there to understand?  In some countries, some bureaucrats have set
up laboratories to fossilise artificially something that would otherwise
mutate and thereby evolve into (gads!) something relevant to real people
(that it will do this anyway is proof of the power of evolution).

If language ain't moving, it's dead.  French certainly isn't dead, but it
is most certainly is not due to the pompous postures of committees and
politicians (or the lobby groups pressuring them).

The same "poke at stick at it" metaphor probably applies to "culture",
though I've seen many "cultures" in Europe that are quaintly and happily
frozen in amber.
-- 
Eugene Fiume
Dynamic Graphics Project
University of Toronto
elf@dgp.toronto.edu