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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2013 9:02:04 GMT -5
Mr. Daniel Andersson is keen to pass on to the membership a piece of practical advice: learn Czech! But he comes at the subject indirectly, starting off with Rudolph the Second (1552 to 1612), ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, who "Would stalk the corridors of the Castle in Prague like a thing possessed, and had a soft spot for Jesuits. With imperial approval, the Jesuits founded a number of colleges and gymnasia (the dividing line between what we would call school and university being somewhat fluid for these purposes) on the eastern rim of the Habsburg territories and beyond: in Cluj, Český Krumlov, and Prague. And it was in the relatively closed environment of the Jesuit college at Prague that Edmund Campion spent the years from 1573 to 1579, eating, sleeping, and teaching rhetoric and philosophy."
Mr. Andersson goes on to complain about "a perennial tendency to parochialism in English studies. It seems obvious," he assures us, "that any biographer of Campion must be able to read the secondary literature on him in Czech. Czech is hard, but a basic reading knowledge is within any one's grasp," claims Mr. Andersson, although he admits that "I needed the assistance of my colleague Miss Murphy to write some emails to Prague." Nevertheless learning Czech is a wise move is it not.
"Campion," continues Mr. Andersson, "had a distaste for arguments drawn exclusively from metaphysics. Of course, the dividing line between what is a metaphysical argument and what is a natural philosophical one was, and is, slippery, since many concepts - time, space, heat - carried on a double life, half from the Physics of Aristotle, half from his Metaphysics. Why did Campion feel this?" asks Mr. Andersson. And he answers his own query as follows: "Perhaps, where taught at all in the arts course, metaphysics was usually a 'fourth-year option,' as we would say to-day. It is, in some ways [he does not say which ways] intrinsically hard or, at least, exists at a further level of abstraction than natural science." Perhaps aware that he is getting out of his depth, Mr. Andersson here back-tracks a little: "Such explanations are perhaps too general. Although Campion almost certainly knew logic backwards (it being the endlessly recycled common currency from the first year onwards of the Oxford course), and though he would have had a good grounding in natural science, the same is unlikely to have been the case with metaphysics. The discipline was, after all, at its lowest ebb in the universities of the country that Campion left behind in 1573. It would take such figures as Thomas Jackson and Richard Crakanthorpe to invigorate that tradition in England."
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2013 9:22:29 GMT -5
Good afternoon to you all! If I may address your opening question directly, Sydney Grew: Do metaphysical arguments exist? Yes, although I am not always sure how useful they are, or if I fully understand them. As you know, Sydney Grew, I am, by academic training, a scientist, and will therefore always tend to look for empirical evidence in an argument! The debate concerning the existence of God, for example, is one of the oldest and most discussed debates in human history. Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists and others for thousands of years. In philosophical terms, such arguments involve primarily the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being, existence, or reality) and also the theory of value, since concepts of perfection are connected to notions of God. A wide variety of arguments exist which can be categorised as metaphysical, logical, empirical or subjective. Wikipedia - Existence of GodThe existence or otherwise of God does not really lend itself to empirical evidence. Whether or not God created man in his own image, Sydney Grew, the evidence is overwhelming that man has created God in his own image. Of course, (s)he may actually be a woman, too. As for humanity, ' Homo sapiens' evolved in Africa almost two hundred thousand years ago. My own ancestors probably crossed the Red Sea into Western Asia over a hundred thousand years ago. Recent research shows that they had sexual intercourse with Neanderthals, probably in Israel, and ten thousand years ago, headed into Europe, at the end of the last Ice Age. So I have about 2.5% Neanderthal DNA, Sydney Grew, and red hair! Some of my ancestors migrated northwards into Scandinavia, whereas others probably crossed the land bridge which then existed to what is now the British Isles. So my direct ancestors can claim to be amongst the original inhabitants of north-western Europe, although some of them probably came to Britain as Anglo-Saxons and Vikings more than a thousand years ago. You, Sydney Grew, I suspect, share a similar genetic history. We are cousins, however distant! Our species, the human family, has been around, in evolutionary terms, for a remarkably short period of time, and how we have changed the world. As for the future, who knows?
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Post by neilmcgowan on Mar 22, 2013 12:48:26 GMT -5
a piece of practical advice: learn Czech! I can only agree with this sage advice. Learning a Slavonic language is not necessarily simple, but the rigorous grammar involved is an engaging intellectual pastime Although the differences between the different Slavonic languages are considerable - and Czech is probably the language with the greatest number of pronunciation differences to the others of the group - a knowledge of one Slavonic language can largely help you stumble through the others. I can't speak Serbian - but I can largely understand simple material in Serbian even so.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2013 2:58:04 GMT -5
As is almost to be expected, I disagree with Neil McGowan! Czech is one of the more difficult of the European languages to learn! By all means, learn it if you want, but if you are going to choose one Slavonic language, Russian would be the obvious candidate.
It is a bit like suggesting that a foreigner learns Welsh rather than English when they visit Britain! It may be my mother's tongue, but even I struggle in Welsh, Sydney Grew!
In terms of what language(s) to learn, well, I reckon that if you have a personal connection with a language, you should at least give it a go, although as a lingua franca, I would naturally be tempted by English. American English, too, is fine by kleines c, Neil McGowan. After all, more people arguably speak American than British English!
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Post by neilmcgowan on Mar 23, 2013 5:25:12 GMT -5
It is a bit like suggesting that a foreigner learns Welsh rather than English when they visit Britain! Not really Russian and Czech are directly related to each other. A native speaker of one can - with a bit of thought - understand the other. Whereas Welsh has only the most tenuous links to English. Czech is spoken by an entire nation of people as their first language - whereas Welsh is spoken by almost no-one at all as their mother tongue. The few Welsh-speakers who claim not to speak English have clearly lied for reasons of nationalist politics - which is their democratic right, of course. Czech has an extensive literature of its own, dating back to the medieval era, and with an especial flowering after independence from Austria, and in the C20th. I'm not convinced that the 'difficulty' of Czech makes it a non-starter for learners. Nor is it more difficult than Russian - the grammatic structure is identical, in fact - like all Slavonic languages, you have to learn modal verbs (the so-called 'glagoli') whose only equivalence outside the Slavic world is in Greek. You also have to deal with nouns that have nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative and prepositional cases - and adjectives which must match those cases. At least Czech is written in a Latin alphabet, with no need to learn Cyrillic Not that Cyrillic's 33 letters are especially hard to learn After all, surely the entire point in learning any language is the ability to read and communicate? And there are plenty of Czechs to talk to But try ordering a sandwich in Welsh, in Cardiff? Probably you might eventually meet someone who speaks enough Welsh to understand you?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2013 6:40:15 GMT -5
These are all good points, Neil McGowan. I would only add that whether in Cardiff, or Moscow, or Prague, you would probably get by in English, even if you could, potentially, try Welsh, Russian or Czech with the locals respectively!
Welsh in Cardiff, of course, used to be something of a non-starter, but things may finally be changing! If all else fails, head north by northwest! Out of interest, when is Easter in Russia? Three weeks?
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Post by neilmcgowan on Mar 23, 2013 8:50:59 GMT -5
5-6 years ago now I was working on a Russian project in Serbia. Although Serbian is an entirely discrete language, its similarity to Russian is strong, and it is one of the few other Slavic languages to be written in cyrillic - so there is instant eye-recognition. One of our favourite billboard adverts was for a credit-card offered by a major bank. There were numerous ads, all with the same slogan "krasny jivot", and all showing happy families doing things together (going skiing, going on a foreign beach holiday, celebrating gran's birthday, buying home furnishings etc). "Krasny Jivot" (Serbian) - "Beautiful Life" "Krasny Jivot" (Russian) - "Red Tummy" [The word 'krasny' in Russian meant both 'red' and 'beautiful' until the C18th, when a separate related word 'krasivy' - literally 'redlike', but meaning 'beautiful' emerged. Red Square was originally Beautiful Square.* "Jivot" is an example of synecdoche, 'a part for the whole' - if the tummy has been well-fed, then life must, we suppose, be beautiful.I think we found it amusing mainly because everything else around us was so readily understandable otherwise? * There is a beautiful book, whose title I forget, which illustrates the significance of the colour red in Russian society from the earliest recorded times through to its prominence in soviet iconography... which finally weaned Russians off their addiction to red
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2013 3:03:39 GMT -5
I should perhaps confess that I am no expert on Slavonic languages, Neil McGowan! One thing which I do find strange about the English language, however, is how few Celtic words it has incorporated, either from Brythonic (Welsh) or Goidelic (Gaelic). Old English and Old Frisian are virtually identical, so we can assume that many of the inhabitants of sixth century south-eastern England, for example, spoke the same language as their Continental cousins living in Frisia (the coastal regions of Holland and northern Germany).
The mystery is why so few Celtic words were incorporated into the English language, when presumably, there would have been increasing contact with the Romano-British tribes living in the former Roman colony of Britannia. My own suspicion is that the early Anglo-Saxon rulers of eastern England introduced a form of linguistic apartheid, whereby Celtic words could not be incorporated into Old English. This helps explain why Welsh is totally incomprehensible to the English today. There are virtually no common words at all!
Of course, it should be added that although the Welsh speaker can understand Cornish and Breton (all Brythonic languages), Goidelic languages (Irish and Scottish Gaelic and Manx) are also totally incomprehensible. So there is also a form of linguistic apartheid between the Irish and the Welsh, too. It is interesting that Apartheid was introduced in South Africa by the descendants of the Dutch settlers during the latter half of the twentieth century. Afrikaans is often called the world's youngest language. Will it survive in post-Apartheid South Africa?
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Post by neilmcgowan on Mar 24, 2013 13:11:50 GMT -5
My own suspicion is that the early Anglo-Saxon rulers of eastern England introduced a form of linguistic apartheid, Perhaps they didn't see it as 'apartheid' as such - but a 'closed shop' mentality could certainly have existed? In the Roman Empire, for example, you didn't exist at all if you didn't buckle down and learn Latin. Many empires have thrived on the belief that they were 'bringing culture' to the subjugated. The fact we are communicating in English is a testament to that belief, whether it is right or wrong. But not all empires have done this. The Vikings were charmingly tolerant of local languages wherever they went. Thus the origins of the Russian State (which was, effectively, a Viking outpost) began with Viking rulers who cheerfully learned Russian and adopted Russian versions of their Scandic names: Rorekr - Rurik (acclaimed as the first ruler of Rus) Helga - Olga Ingvar - Igor Modern Russian nationalists have tried to unpick this unpopular historical truism to no avail. No matter which way you slice it, Rurik was a Viking who came from abroad to rule Rus - on the invitation of the Rus-sians At this time the Viking Empire's internal politics led to better relations between Russia and the British Isles than they probably enjoy even today. Their royal families intermarried. Harold Godwinson's daughter married Prince Vladimir the Great (allegedly converting him to Christianity too). Edward the Exile spent time at the Royal Court of Kiev after the death of Harold Godwinson too.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2013 1:52:49 GMT -5
Good morning, Neil McGowan! I certainly think that language and culture are intimately linked. If I switched from English to Welsh, for example, or German, or even Czech, the cultural context of this very discussion would immediately change. As I am in Wales for the Easter holidays, here goes.
Yma o hyd!
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Post by neilmcgowan on Mar 25, 2013 5:36:02 GMT -5
I wish you a very jolly Oestre! A holiday whose naming as "Easter" highlights the duplicity of its hijacking by Christian proselytisers! Not that the weather here in Moscow looks remotely like Spring- I spent a miserable half-hour digging the car out of a snow-drift this morning. The cassocked beardies of the Russian Orthodox Church believe their 'Paschal' festival isn't due for several weeks yet. I'm afraid I don't know the exact date, because I take no interest in their nonsense!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2013 6:30:21 GMT -5
Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, Neil McGowan, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? Bible Gateway - 1 Corinthians 15:12-14 (King James Version) But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
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Post by neilmcgowan on Mar 25, 2013 7:00:09 GMT -5
and your faith is also vain. I am very egalitarian in these matters. People can believe in whatever deities they wish. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. However, when I am compelled to 'account for myself' by some bearded halfwit, I must admit that I respond very poorly. When I was at school, we were offered the chance to go on a school holiday - coincidentally, it was in Wales. However, when we got there, it turned out to be a Christian brainwashing centre. We were kept up until 3am with 'prayer meetings', and meals were contingent upon having kept a 'prayer diary'. The owners were eventually arrested by the Police. I have had a poor relationship with the cross-wielders since then.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2013 8:09:50 GMT -5
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Post by neilmcgowan on Mar 25, 2013 8:36:12 GMT -5
I'm sure Dostoyevsky is welcome to his religious views. He underwent a religious conversion - having previously been an atheist, and he is his own role-model for the character of Stavrogin - after his time in the Omsk Prison, where he was held on penal remand (ie a hard labour sentence). Probably the desperation of a Siberian sentence and daily beatings (which triggered his epileptic fits) may have caused him to seek religion? There's almost a tradition of Russian thinkers proposing blind belief in the Church as an alternative to the chaos or tyranny of the times in which they lived. Dostoyevsky did so, then Tolstoy, and more recently Solzhenitsyn.
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