Linguistic genocide has frequently been used throughout history to systematically eradicate languages, for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s to assert the authority of a ruling power, sometimes it’s an attempt to assimilate an ethnic minority, and sometimes it’s to provide “linguistic unity.” In modern times (the past 200 years, for this list) it has been a major cause for the decline of a number of languages. This list does not focus on the decline or death or a language through actual genocide or death, but rather points in history in which a population’s language has suffered from attempts to eradicate or replace it.
The government of Singapore launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979 to promote, as the name implies, the speaking of Mandarin amongst Chinese Singaporeans. This policy has come under heavy criticism, especially since the majority of Chinese Singaporeans are from southern China, where mostly non-Mandarin Chinese languages are spoken. As part of the campaign, the government banned non-Mandarin Chinese languages in local broadcast media, and foreign media in those languages is limited. The campaign has met with some success, and has resulted in the increased usage of Mandarin and a decreased usage of the other Chinese languages, which has frequently caused problems in communication between the younger and older generations.
The decline of the Hawaiian language started around the 1820′s, due to the influence of missionaries on the islands. The missionaries’ presence resulted in an increasing number of Hawaiians learning English, but at the expense of Hawaiian. Deliberate attacks on the language didn’t come until 1893, when the Provisional Government, put in place after the fall of the monarchy, attempted to assert the English language’s dominance over Hawaiian. This included the banning of Hawaiian in public schools in 1896 (although Hawaiian was not prohibited in other contexts), which continued well into the 20th century. Hawaiian’s secondary status can still be felt there today: there are only 2,000 native speakers, although efforts to promote the learning and teaching of Hawaiian are proving somewhat successful.
The decline of the Ryukyuan languages started when the Ryūkyū Kingdom lost its independence to Japan, in the late 19th century. The languages were severely suppressed in education by the Japanese government. In Okinawa and other regions of Japan, students were punished for speaking anything other than Standard Japanese, by wearing a “dialect card” around their neck. From World War II up to the present day, Japan has considered the Ryukyuan languages to have the degraded status of a “dialect” of Japanese, rather than a separate language. Today, efforts are made to preserve the languages, but the outlook is less than positive as the vast majority of Okinawan children are now monolingual Japanese speakers.
Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945, and during that time suffered from a cultural genocide, which included the repression of the Korean language. In schools, Japanese was the language of instruction while Korean was offered merely as an elective, but, later on, this changed to an outright ban on Korean during school hours. Korean was also banned in the workplace. As part of their cultural assimilation policy, Japan introduced a system in which Koreans could “voluntarily” give up their Korean names, and in their stead take a Japanese one, but many were frequently compelled or harassed into adopting a Japanese name against their will. The colonization ended with Japan’s surrender in World War II, but it continues to cast a shadow over the relationship between the countries.
“Russification” refers to the policies of both Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union to enforce the adoption of the Russian language. It was frequently used by Russian governments to impose their authority on the minorities they governed, often in order to quell separatism and the threat of rebellion. Particularly in the Ukraine and Finland, Russification was used as a means of asserting political domination.
One of the most prominent instances of Russification was in the 19th century when Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Belarusian were suppressed. Use of the local languages in public places or schools was banned, and these policies intensified after several uprisings occurred.
Under the Soviet Union, the Arabic alphabet was eradicated and many languages were ultimately made to adopt variations of the Cyrillic alphabet. In the early years of the USSR, minority languages were actually promoted, but this soon changed to a policy of Russian dominance over local languages. The result was that many people came to prefer Russian over their native language, and today Russian is still widely used in former Soviet states.
England’s domination over Wales, Scotland and Ireland introduced the English language to these regions, but with the devastating consequence of the downfall of the local languages. Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish (among others) were all prohibited in education at one time or another, which possibly contributed the most to the plummeting usage of the languages. In Wales, the Welsh Not (a piece of wood with the carved letters “WN” that was hung around the children’s necks) was used in the 1800′s to punish students for speaking Welsh, and beating students for using non-English languages was common throughout all of the countries. Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish had inferior status to English, whereas Scots wasn’t even recognized as a separate language, and all suffered as a result. It wasn’t until the 20th century that the British government started taking steps to protect these languages, which has been met with mixed success. In all of the countries the local languages are now spoken by a minority, and are still very much secondary to English.
“La vergonha” (Occitan for “the shame”) refers to the policies of the French government regarding the treatment of minority languages in France. The speakers were frequently made to feel excluded or humiliated in school, society, or the media simply for speaking their language. In the late 18th century, all non-French languages were banned in the administration and education, with the goal of “linguistically uniting” France. In the late 19th century, there was the widespread implementation of punishment in schools for speaking the regional languages. Students caught speaking a “patois,” as the French government referred to them to convey a sense of backwardness, were made to wear an object around their neck called a symbole. Discrimination against non-French languages continues to the present day, and remains a taboo topic. Current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has, in recent years, refused to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority languages, a treaty that aims to protect and promote regional languages.
Indonesia’s ethnically Chinese population faced severe discrimination under President Suharto, who ruled Indonesia from 1967 until his resignation in 1998. Included in this was the harsh suppression of the Chinese languages, which were banned in nearly all aspects of life. All Chinese-language papers were forced to close, except one, and all Chinese-language schools were shut. Chinese script was banned in public, and the police could openly abuse anyone found using the language. Even their names weren’t safe from this cultural genocide, as they were forced to change them to more Indonesian-sounding ones. The severity of Suharto’s policies, combined with the social stigma associated with being Chinese, was unfortunately effective, as many people of the younger generations lost the language of their parents. Following Suharto’s resignation, these bans on the Chinese languages were revoked by President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Under Franco’s rule from 1939 to 1975, regional and minority languages in Spain were discriminated against, to assert the dominance of the Spanish language. Franco’s use of language politics was mainly to promote nationalism, and so Spanish was made the sole official language of the country. The public use of any other language was either banned or frowned upon, depending on the region and time period, and anything other than Spanish names were forbidden. The harshest policies emerged at the beginning of Franco’s rule, in the 1940s and ‘50s, while they became comparatively tolerant in the last years of his regime. To further establish the lower status of the languages, they were often considered to be mere dialects of Spanish, implying that they weren’t real languages (this didn’t apply to Basque, which is far too different from Spanish).
The largest of these regional languages were Basque, Catalan and Galician, although all languages were subjected to Franco’s policies. Catalan provides a good example of these laws: it was banned in government-run institutions and public events, advertising, and the media, but it was still used in some contexts. Publishing in Catalan continued throughout Franco’s dictatorship, and there was no prohibition on speaking it in public or in commerce. From the 1950s it was allowed in theater, and near the end of the regime certain celebrations in Catalan were tolerated.
The Kurds have frequently been discriminated against, in multiple countries, and even when the Kurdish people are not the target of genocide, their language still is. Iraq is notable for being perhaps the most accepting of its Kurdish population; it is an official language there, and has been allowed in education, administration and the media. This is, unfortunately, not always true in other countries.
Turkey attempted to assimilate non-Turkish speakers, starting in the 1930s, when Kurdish language and culture was banned. The Kurds were seen as uncivilized and ignorant, and any expression of a separate identity was seen as a crime. This finally changed in 1991, when Turkey legalized the private use of spoken Kurdish. Since then, the restrictions have been becoming more and more relaxed: Kurdish in education is no longer illegal, and there are fewer limitations on television broadcasts. Discrimination against the language still very much exists in the country, despite the recent improvements.
Something similar happened in Iran, where the government had a policy of “Persianization” in the first half of the 20th century. Speaking Kurdish was banned in schools and state institutions, and later, a total ban on the language was imposed. In other countries, this is still true: in Syria, Kurdish is banned in most contexts.
The Maori language was supressed in New Zealand. My wife is Maori and told me stories that her mother told of being slapped and beaten for speaking Maori in school.
@nicoleredz3 (104): @Moonbeam (106): @Askalon (115): Those horrible residential schools ran until the early 1970′s. Rip a child from his home and subject him to systemic abuse, both *****ual and physical, and just guess what happens. Truly one of the most shameful undertakings of our past. We’re still paying for it too; how many of those damaged children became damaged adults? and their children? Many of those schools were run by protestant clergy btw – systemic abuse is not the sole purvey of the Catholic Church.
yuhuuu..nice one
i’m just read entry no.3 though lol :p
keep up the good work
I can definitely see the reasoning behind banning these languages; it’s much easier to communicate and it eases relations between the ‘victims’ and the ‘oppressors’.
Personally, I consider learning a language you will never likely use widely is a waste of time. Learning French in Canada, a dialect of Chinese in Vancouver (a large proportion of the population speak it) and Filipino (along with English) in the Philippines are all justified.
However, I just don’t see the benefit in learning Welsh or the like, as hardly anyone speaks it outside of their originating region. Resources and the time put into teaching and learning minor languages could be better used with a major language, or with a more useful subject.
Hey Thanks guys for confirming all that stuff about the Maori language, I remembered parts of it from some doco i had seen. Maori is deffinately well looked after these days, I was taught maori weekly in primiary school and the ooption was there in college to continue on as well.
It is goos to seee it get support because as much as we complain about Maoris in this country sometimes, we just wouldnt be New Zealand without them.
Good list but the Irish thing is somewhat misleading. the use of the Irish language in Northern Ireland remains a somewhat contentious issue. While in the Republic all street signage is in both English and Irish, this is not the case up North, because of opposition from Unionists. Of course the history presented fails to mention laws that outlawed the use of the language and the violence inflicted upon locals who did not use anglicized names.
And in another twist there was a move afoot to include Irish as an official UN language, which means that UN would translate documents and speeches into Irish. I believe the Irish government did not support the initiative and I believe it is still not an ‘official’ UN language.
…tks, 119/lifeskoal, i went mad with letra again. it’s
a mantra for me, like prayer, but is not computer lang.
altho it could be, these are letra morphs or even moths
which go from one idiom to another based on nauatl pie,
the sounds get chewed up as they move around, the micro-biology of the carriage of sound. i’ve been teaching it to myself and am practicing speaking it. i don’t mean to
be misunderstood, just want to get behind the word to its
origin and root connexions. a different mind than ours invented language, or catalogued it, a mind that was
episodic and melodic. when you think about it, how did
language start if not by song, e.g., the mod equivalent would be to construct a language from all the old rockn’
roll songs and then hand it to people who use it for
a less heroic and melodic culture, say, traders who counted cowries and beans as currency. neander prometheus never developed a larger social unit than the extended family, he didn’t live a long span, 35yrs average, hunted
like a rodeo cowboy, but somebody, probably neandra started naming things in a most observant and profound
way, charted the stars, never in the best of health except when they could find iodine for healthy babys,
but their brains were larger than ours and that capacity
was as always the result of stimulus. they are not called
the fallen angels for nothing, they gave us the gods thru
their burials and belief in an after-life(ochre=resusitate
from ocelix/celia=blossom)at 100k bc. so i’m just working
all these pieces. there is also evidence, neandra started
the deer calendar, the tonalamatl=tonalli=soul papers,
the first book, carried around by memory like the language. since they got banged up frequently, one of them
became the shaman=xamani(N)=destroy/chamaua(N)=praise,
elogum(Lat)elogy(E), notice the 2 roots, one positive and
one negative, and the memory bank for the others. our memorys are mighty but ciuia(N)=prosecute, stimulate,
activate,=civilization by its very nature grinds memory
and therefore language down. you can see it happening
around you, on the internet, any media. what i am trying
to do is stop this process of erosion and lost language,
right now and on this list i am training for it, keeping
a record of my progress. this is why i love internet.
by the way, life and love come from the same source,
tlauilli/tlauiz=torch, they are a pair, if one lives
and hates it’s no good. the farther back you go in
language the holier and more musical it gets. that’s
what tells me we didn’t begin language, it doesn’t
start in a tribe, it starts in a family where love is,
and time is not a clock beside us every minute, no,
it is a noma/nomatka/nomatzinco(N)=forever, always,
spontaneous, the same=nomad. nomatzinco(N)=my net/my
deer/mazatl(N). neander was the first deer hunter.
anyway, you’re right, it’s very compressed, but i want
to get it down, huge subject that it is. for the first
time in my life i’m in a hurry. don’t know why. think
it’s important to bring back the music, the holy, i guess,
in an age that could be apocalyptic anytime, hidden
forever under the folds of a nuclear ski(r)t.
…120/matt=mati(N)=to know=matlatl(N)=net=nomatzinco(N)=
nomad(wandering scholar?). we have one language, Nauatl,
the rest of them are branches, this is the trunk and roots(at 5k bpe it hadn’t branched out yet/quetzalcoatl expedition to amerindia, 3309bc). if we are headed for
one language we’ll go back to origin as i don’t think etymology can be denied. i’m working on a way to present
letra at an early level along with the first abc’s,
in nauatl’s case ace’s. check out tzopilotl wordpress and tletl blogspot. sorry to be crass=caxaua(N)=render,=cash=
crassus(Lat)=grasa(sp)=greasey and promote myself, but
what the hay=ay(N)=to do. i appreciate your good manners
on this subject. manner=mana(N)=manar(sp)=flow.
I’m suprised American Sign Language didn’t make the list. Some hearind people have been trying to get rid of it ever since Alexander Grahm Bell.
(And yes, ASL and other sign languages do meet all the requirements for languages.)
This is only offered in the vein of lost languages. Here on the North-West Pacific coast of America, there was a trade language known as Chinook; a bit English, French and Native, and some was simply onomatopoeic (the word for heart was ‘tum tum’). Until about the 1910′s there were newspapers still written in it. Natives, English adventurers, American gold-seekers, old Hudson’s Bay Co. Frenchmen and Chinese miners all learned to speak it.
Klahowya, Tillicum.
What’s the point of these countries having two signs? English is becoming and should be the world language. It’s total waste of education time to learn other languages.
@Englishfirst (131):
Well spoken *giggle*.
@M. Hunt (125): I agree dude. Don’t know why anyone would want to learn crappy languages.
English is the only true global language in the world on which people should devote more time in improving their skills.
@BravehisTickle (134):
Bravo *applause*.
good list and i think u have missed the state sanctioned genocide by srilankan government over minority tamil speaking people ,forcing them to seek sanctuary in western countries , and still thousands of tamils are kept in concetration camps . i think this is the most outrageous attemp by any govt to kill a language along with its people.
@Armodillotron (39): I think you’ll find the British Empire was spreading English around the world long before the United States rose to superpower status. At its height the British Empire counted some 500,000,000 people as subjects, many millions of which were taught English as a second language (even if it was only pidgin in some cases).
good list, although personally i reckon the term “linguistic genocide” for item 10 is a little harsh. the speak mandarin campaign is simply that, a campaign, and was implemented in singapore to try and break down language barriers between chinese who spoke different dialects. it wasn’t exactly like dialects were banned… but i guess i can kind of see your point. “genocide” just feels a little extreme.
It’s okay! ‘Internet’ is taking over the world – soon all other languages will be eradicated and replaced by net-lingo lol rofl lmao!
Don't it make you laugh?
“Iraq is notable for being perhaps the most accepting of its Kurdish population; it is an official language there, and has been allowed in education, administration, and the media.”
Excuse me? Have you not heard of the Iraqi Kurdish genocide (Al Anfal Campaign)? Iraq’s record is not as clean as you imply. You really need to reword your statement and brush up on your history.
Also, while you state that this list is not actual genocide, you still use the word that means “geno: race & cide: kill” So, if you don’t mean to talk about the destruction of a race of people, why not use a word more fitting?
The English did not realise their error and try and protect the Irish language. The Irish government promotes it. It wasnt just banned in education, it was banned in everyday life too.
@115: What you don’t realise is that Native American children would be beaten if they used their native language. There was also a mental hospital built in South Dakota(I think) that was entirely for Native Americans and if the adults were caught using their native language they would be put in solitary confinement. I heard of one story where a man spent like 12 years in solitary for refusing to quit speaking his language. Of course it’s quite likely that he didn’t understand english and was just trying to communicate the only way he knew.
Thanks for this list! I’m doing a course in linguistics this year and find it very interesting that language has become such a political and charged issue. In South Africa, we have a tremendous amount of indigenous languages (such as that of the San people) that have been persecuted by those who see it as of no importance yet it is vital to the survival of any culture.
…the new republic just reviewed louis menand’s
the marketplace of ideas, ww norton, in the politics section, cf., humanities and inhumanities, which makes
the point we are too over-balanced in the inhumanities,
science, et al, and have nothing for the humanities
except servitude in graduate school and low-paying jobs.
letra can go a long way to redressing the balance as it
takes the mask off words and reveals and preserves their
true moral and religious power from the assaults of
laboratory drones. i’m not declaring war on science,
any knowledge is useful, we need technolgy but technology
needs the language bishop=teachcuauhtli=teacher to
give them a deeper understanding of where the human church
is located=tloc(N)=beside(logic, of a moral character).
we lack that and, on these lists and elsewhere, the only
recourse we have to offer without it, is the politics of
disgust. so let me continue laying down letra from the
one language which miracle and the will=ilhuia(N) of
god-struck neandra promethea and deer culture tonalamatl has handed us from the sistine ceiling(=ocelotl(N)=cielo) of the stars. something looks out for our global family, and it’s not ourselves, must be theother=teotl(N), or,
as i suspect, since speech came into being to express
teotl theother theology, it is language itself, related
to fire=tletl(N)=t/let/l=letra=t/l/red/t/l=read=
t/ler/l/tl=leer(sp)=lernia(OFrisian)=le(o)rnian(OE)=
learning, note Old Frisian doesn’t have the (n)nauatl,
because the quetzalcoatl expedition was part of the
nauatlaca sea age of 4k bc. remember the oera linda.
@tzopilotl (144):
Dear script, I think you should reboot…
seriously, I don’t understand most of your posts…
Any mention of pig latin!
One thing that I haven’t seen anyone take into account yet is the constant changes that languages go through. The natural evolution of language over time creates, and kills off tons of words and dialects to the point where the language a Frenchmen speaks today isn’t even close to the language that his recent ancestors spoke even though they are both use/used French.
Personally I’m in favor of moving to a one world language, and with the internet, and mass communication there is a good chance that it will happen on its own over time.And as sad as it would be to see some very beautiful languages go out of vogue, I believe that the sacrifice would be well worth it, because a common language among all men would be one of the biggest steps we could make toward achieving world peace.
An addition to the list could’ve been what the norwegians did to the sami, a minority in Norway.
Use of sami was banned at schools, all sami were forced to learn norwegian ( at the time). I believe the same happened to the gypsies. At the early 1900s it was even decreed that only norwegian citizens who could talk and read norwegian, and use norwegian on a daily basis could buy properties!
It wasn`t a genocide when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds. It was a rebellion, which had been encouraged by Iran. And when he used chemical weapons, people said that Iran did it. And if Saddam Hussein and Chemical Ali were war-criminals for killing the Kurds then why aren`t Turkey? And what happened in America to Native Americans also happened in Canada. For the life of me, I`ll never understand the people who do these things.
…145/chubby, get off your fat, complacent ass and apply
yourself to the material, cf., tzopilotl wordpress,
tletl blog spot, chess/goddesses, matilda’s gobekli blog,
or just put in, carlos lascoutx on google. it’s not my fault you are t/laza(N)=lazy. feed your head, as gracy slick said…and not your mouth=camatl=c/g(r)ammar/l/tl.
do something with yourself besides whinging, pick up a book, lick the cover, stuff a page into your mouth or
wherever.
…133, so he wouldn’t have to look at his tits or
chode all day long, huffin’ puffin.
@tzopilotl,
I think chubbmeister has a point. I’m interested in what you say as well, but the format in which your posts appear make it quite hard to read.
ummm
NATIVE INDIANS?
AFRICANS?
WEST INDIANS?
KAIXO.MY FAMILY IS BASQUE AND THE LANGUAGE IS UNFORTUNATELY NOT SPOKEN IN MY HOUSE DUE TO THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF BANNING IT BY FRANCO’S POLICIES AT THE TIME.IF YOU WERE CAUGHT SPEAKING BASQUE IT WAS AN AUTOMATIC 3 MONTH JAIL SENTENCE.NO QUESTIONS ASKED.THERE WERE UNDERGROUND CLASSES HELD IN PLACES EVEN TO THIS DAY CALLED “GURE TXOKOS”(SALOON BARS BUT ACTUALLY TRANSLATED AS “OUR CORNER”)SCHOOLS BANISHED THE LANGUAGE AND AND EVEN TO THIS DAY BUT IT HAS RELAXED ITS LAWS NOW AND BECOMING MORE EXCEPTED IN CERTAIN AREAS BUT DISCRIMINATION IS STILL BEING PRESENT.UNFORTUNATELY THERE ARE RADICAL GROUPS LIKE ETA WHICH BELIEVE IT OR NOT STARTED AS A CULTURAL ORGANIZATION TO CREATE DIALOGUE WITH THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT BUT HAD SPLINTERED OFF FROM WITHIN ITS RANKS TO BECOME MORE MILITARY.THIS IS A MINORITY BASQUE GROUP WHICH MOST BASQUE DISAGREE WITH AND UNFORTUNATELY THE MEDIA PORTRAYS IT AS IF IT IS A NATIONAL TERRORIST GROUP WHICH ALL BASQUE PEOPLE ARE APART OFF.THIS IS NOT TRUE. IT IS STILL CONSIDERED “AGAINST SPANISH POLICY” TO THIS DAY FOR CERTAIN COUNCIL DECISIONS IN THE BASQUE REGION AND CAN BE OVER RULE PUBLIC VOTES IF IT IS CONSIDERED TO PATRIOTIC IN NATURE OR AGAINST SPANISH POLICY(THATS DEMOCRACY FOR YOU ACCORDING TO SPANISH IDEAOLOGY!!!)MADE IN THE BASQUE REGION.NATIONALISM AND SOCIALISM ARE THE GROWING TRENDS AND SECULARISM ARE THE SIDE EFFECTS OF WHAT SPAIN HAS BECOME TODAY.IT IS MORE ATHEISTIC NOW IN ATTITUDE AND IS ACTUALLY BECOMING A VERY ANTI CATHOLIC SOCIETY.CHURCHES ARE MORE USED LIKE MUSEUMS NOW THAN PLACES OF WORSHIP.COMMUNISM IS BEING HEAVILY INFLUECED IN THE SPANISH FILM INDUSTRY AND ANTI CATHOLIC MOVIES CREATING FICTIONAL STORY LINES IN THERE FILMS CREATING MORE OF A HATE SOCIETY.SPAIN IS NOT SPAIN ANYMORE AND UNFORTUNATLEY WITH IT MORALS GOING BACKWARDS IN NATURE AND SECULARISM ON THE RISE SPAIN IS GOING TO END UP ISLAMIC AND PAGAN…I SAY ISLAMIC AND PAGAN BECAUSE IF YOU LOOK AT THE SURROUNDING COUNTRIES LIKE FRANCE AND GERMANY WE ARE SEEING A THIRST FOR THE SPIRITUAL LIFE DUE TO THE REJECTION OF CHRISTIANITY(CATHOLISM ESPECIALLY).AND IF WE REJECT CHRISTIANITY THROUGH A BIAS SOCIETY WE GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO FILL THE SPIRITUAL VOID.WE ARE SEEING A RISE OF EUROPEAN CONVERTS TO ISLAM AND PAGANISM THROUOUT EUROPE WHICH IS HIGHLY EXCEPTED BY GOVERNMENTS BECAUSE THEY DONT CONFLICT OR THREATEN WITH THERE POLICIES.CATHOLISM IS A HIGH THREAT IN EUROPE BECAUSE IT STANDS UP TO ALOT OF THE ISSUES LIKE ABORTION(IS ONE EXAMPLE) AND CERTAIN UN DECISIONS.ONCE WERE THE DAYS AND TIMES OF SAINTS FERDINAND AN ISABELLA.THE GLORY OF CHRISTENDOM.THATS WHAT SPAIN WAS.AND NOW SPAIN HAS REJECTED IT AND ARE CAPITALISING ON CHRISTIANS AND USING US AS MUSEUM PIECES FOR THE TOURIST INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT FUNDING.I LOVE SPAIN DONT GET ME WRONG.BUT THATS NOT THE SPAIN THAT WAS A LEADIND EXAMPLE OF THE DEFENCE OF CATHOLISM DURING THE REFORMATION. ST IGNATIO DE LOYOLA WAS BASQUE AND HIS FIRST PRAYER EVER TAUGHT WAS THE “OUR FATHER”IN BASQUE(EUSKAR) BY HIS MOTHER.”QUE VIVA ESPANA”BUENO, UNA VEZ EN HISTORIA AS PUEDIDO CANTAR ESTA CANZION.,…….agur(bye)
…152/d/tetl/t/th. chubbs is right, of course, but i
am in the same position as toyoda toyota, i have a manufacturing process called letra which is hurried
and the result has been a stuck accelerator, how i reached this process is hidden to you unless you have
simeon’s nauatl dictionary and george vaillant’s aztecs
of mexico(in penguin pb). i work out of assorted dictionarys, onions engl etym being one, and just used
francis passow’s(source of liddell and scott’s greek works), harper &bros, 1855, to source,
caucasian=cuauh/-tiquiza(N)=make a stop/squeeze=
quiza(N)=in the road-cax/s-itl(letra)=caxitl(N)=shield,
glass of water(refreshment)for matilda’s gobekli blog.
i crack words by the book, at the same time repeating
myself to lift it off the page and put it in my memory chip. the notation i have developed for this is based
on what i find useful on the keyboard, because of html’s
structure i can’t use the arrows(><)which i originally
used to denote coming to()root nauatl.
this flaws html(for me) as storage system, however the
notation system i am using now is not impossible,
it requires a visual effort similar to matching cyrillic script to its sound(takes a week or less). if the problem
is the punctual notation, we can discuss it, but so far
this is the best way for me to produce the working of letra. i am not intending to write pure script, these
are linguistic etymologic notations that, at best, follow
and contribute to the meaning, altho when i get going
i intoxicate on words and my feeling for them.
is that bad? i suppose it is as i am writing for my enjoy-
ment rather than coddling reader like a wine steward.
as i write i try to let one word generate the next
as i would like to rewrite winnegan’s fake in line with
nauatl root, and you can see me doing that as i veer
from one etymology to another. i’m not good at it yet,
as i am breaking surface logic for the meaning underneath, but i am going to persevere until i can
bring etymology to the top as a writing style,
and the information words unlock will be the plot,
which like winnegan’s is mythology. that’s the goal,
but a lot of interesting things are happening along
the way. for instance a sound program based on the
abc’s/ace’s(N)can be made into a game for preschoolers
at alphabet level to give them a headstart and interest
in language they will never lose, dispose them to foreign language early(the hearts and minds of others)so the
next generation can recuperate from the battering of
language that’s going on now on the internet and media, and to produce leaders like obama who can talk and think on their feet. the spoken word is the most important tool
to govern, e.g., tlatoani(N)=great tlalker. we are too
quiet as a nation, quiet breeds frustration, frustration
breeds vi(o)lence=ui(o)lana(N)=to drag=vi(o)la, and
violence is the ultimate misunderstanding called war.
my question to you is: why can’t i do this? put
the internet page to use other than feelgood chitchat,
or swearing signifying nothing. even a business has an
interest in presenting something other than a turnstyle
which hoovers personal details.
…154, laubide/crossroads. religion almost suffocated
spain, glad to hear the word, secular, puts me in mind of
the spanish word for dry/seco, while the church is wet?
actually saecularis is from, tzaqua(N)=to close in/encerrar(each man about his business? prisoner of himself? as opposed to catholic=universal=(e)cath/t/tl=
ecatl=wind(everywhere).
the basque problem is they had an ancient interchange,
evangel, and breeding from the kingdom of bithynia, so
the basques have turkish affinity. the problem is complicated by their not knowing this goes all the way
back to 4k bc, as they were the nauatlaca of quetzalcoatl,
e.g.,nehuatl/nehua/ne(N)=I/myself/me=nerau/neu/ni(basque).
i have personally suffered by not knowing my own
lineage(and avoiding the bad parts). it leaves you open
to genetic twists of fate, gives you no reason for your
emotions except feeling(the basque rebels)and blocks the
future we all want. they are a great and good people in
history and now. in bithynia they lived in their forest
fastness, lived in orchard culture, e.g., sagardi(vasco)=
apple orchard=sagaria(main river, bithynia), were
highly sucessful in commerce, were one of the few countrys who resisted alexander=tleco andros=the rising
of men, who had to pass them by.
no i dont agree that religion suffocated spain.like i said above they
(the government)are capitalizing on the religious past and at the same time effectivly trying to denounce it as if what and is a problem.you just have to read spanish literature to see the the re-conquer of spain from the moors(islam)to bring civilization back into the country.Spain is going backwards to a time when christian views were considered second class.like modern iraq and most islamic run countries
…alex, you have a point. i admire the quiet church
of spain, the cloisters, the orders, the jesuits, any
true religious impulse. i didn’t admire torquemada and
the massacre of 9 million people in siglo quince,
mostly women herbalists and parteras. in mexico it’s
hard to admire the church, as we are a secular country
por ley, and have just reaffirmed that in the camera de
deputados, but in spain you can.
you talk of christianity as second class: in russia
a peasant is called, krestyan/christian. my etymology for
christian=ch(r)/qui(s)ttani(N)=who sees,=quittani(N)=
witness/whitney(name). christ=ch(r)/qui(s)toa(N)=who talks
=quitoa(N), but catholic comes from the witch and weaving
goddess, hecate=ehecatl(N/2soultones)=(e)catedrál, she
is the wind and why catholic =universal, as wind is
life, e.g, quattre(Fr)=(e)ca/quat/t/l/r(letra)=
ecatl/ehecatl(N/2), cuatro/4 meaning no center(which is 5). i got onto that etym. through the welsh word,
cadwent(W)=battle=ecat/l-uent/li(N)=wind offering,
both words have a 4 value as offerings are to the 4/nauh.
Some people here have serious problems with writing coherent posts…
Regarding Native American languages …
I’m hearing a lot of PC BS from people who probably never even met an actual American Indian. Yes, there were despicable attempts to suppress culture, but a HUGE reason for the decline is that precious few of these languages had any sort of a WRITING SYSTEM. Even today. Others have different and conflicting systems, as attempts to develop alphabets are started and dropped and started and dropped, etc.
And, sadly, many tribes are not too keen about accepting help from outsiders – linguists capable of rectifying the problem. I understand their concerns and hesitance (they’ve been screwed over so many other times). Nonetheless, the net result is still self-inflicted slow death for many NA languages.
…mati(N),and some people just want ear candy. the serious problem is not having the attention span and
therefore the curiosity to apply oneself to something
new, so don’t complain, ride on into the wordless desert
you inhabit and stare at the mirages the media has for you.
@askalon (92): It is silly – to say the least – to presume you know more about me than myself. 知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也。
@tzopilotl (144): The whole purpose of writing and language is to communicate. What you post is not clear to English speaking people. Whatever it is that you are trying to tell us is lost. When this is suggested to you – you accuse us of being lazy in not attempting to learn your unique way of expressing yourself. Doesn’t it make more sense to use the common language that is shared by those who frequent this site, rather than some new language that you seem to have created yourself?
I’m not sure how to say this without offending you…My brother writes long rambling essays that don’t make sense to anyone but himself. When pressed to explain he becomes extremely angry. Sadly he has been treated for metal illness for many many years. I honestly write this out of concern, not as some sort of insult such as when people say: “Are you crazy?”. In all seriousness, are you OK? There are some chemical imbalances of the brain that affect clear thinking. When my brother writes his papers they seem to make perfect sense to him. When he’s receiving medication and then looks back at his writing he cannot decipher what he’s previously spent so much time penning. Often once the pills kick in, the neurotransmitters in his brain return to “normal” and it’s easier for everyone to understand him.
My other thought is that you have some form of Autism and can’t accept that we won’t try to enter your world by deciphering your posts.
North American Indian languages are among the most suppressed in the world.
Someone has mentioned Esperanto, and another contributor suggested (foolishly in my view) that English should become a world language.I am convinced that Esperanto has a role to play in protecting minority languages.
The first ever text book in Welsh designed to teach the international language Esperanto has just been published. The Mini-Cwrs is a 36 page guide to Esperanto, consisting of ten lessons, some reading exercises and a vocabulary. The man behind the new booklet is Harry Barron of Machynlleth.
Esperanto is a language introduced in 1887 by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof after years of development. He proposed Esperanto as a second language that would allow people who speak different native languages to communicate, yet at the same time retain their own languages and cultural identities. Esperanto doesn’t replace anyone’s language but simply serves as a common language. The first tiny guide to the language was published in 1910, and a two-way dictionary in Esperanto and Welsh was published in 1985.
Mini-Cwrs Esperanto is available for £1.50 plus £0.50 postage from Esperanto Federation of Wales, 8 Vardre View, Deganwy, CONWY, LL31 9TE, Wales,U.K.
…mati(N), excuse me for being rude to you, but haven’t
you ever wondered how we got to 26 letters for the english alphabet and that nauatl, an unwritten language,
has only 13 sounds? how we got from 13 to 26 is what letra
is all about, you know, the part of my posts nobody seems to understand, the transition from 13-26 is what i am expressing here. what were the first letters, at least
from 5k bpe, altho language is a lot older than that.
i don’t mind your complaining, but the polite thing to
do in this case is to ask a question so that learning,
yours and mine, can be advanced. my notion of education
is that it’s an ensemble effort by all hands, a group
project only graded by the results of the cooperation,
not an individual effort, except for what contributes to
the knowledge pool of all concerned, this explains why
american education and others provide poor results.
it may be my united approach to education should only be used at the beginning levels as kids brains need help
from each other at first, but i contend group efforts
are the best at whatever age, e.g., the breaking of the
mayan code was done by a group of people using computers
over coffee clatches. it’s hard for a solitary person
to equal the power of a group, seems unfair one person
has to carry the whole load, when dictionarys are developed it takes an entire team working together,
gathering the slips of words, proof reader, and printer,
etc. the best fun is accomplishing something, it energizes, leads you forward to another place in your
mind so you can leave the old haunt idleness has created
for you. when i get bored, it’s time to create, when
you think about it, boredom is probably what created
the universe in the first place.
…165, esperanto doesn’t have any spark=chitoni(N)=
chthonic, it comes out of an individual forehead, as
athena came from zeus. real language has a mother and
a biology in the air we breath and talk.
the languages we have now are grown, have a past history
with a precious mythic past instructing and enchanting us
to this day, which we call culture. languages are the
souls of people who speak and listen to them. would
i want to give up my souls in english and spanish and
other languages for one of less value? no. a use
can be found for esperanto, but not at the expense of
the past and present glorys of old friends who have been
with us since the beginning of time.
my idea is to bind the languages together under their
mother language, put them back on the tit and by nursing
them with their original parent bring them into a second
being, refresh them from the corrupting process civilization has subjected them to, and channel
their meanings back to the riverbeds and the
headwater=Nauatl=4water which is their source.
letra can do this, as our alphabets and sounds come from the original ace of 4water. letters are more than just writing glyphs, they are the growing, changing life
of words. let’s stay with what we have: why trade
an orchard for one tree that won’t bear the weight
of what may or may not grow on it.
…moonbeam, thank you for your concern. no, i am not crazy. the only way i know this is that i can write perfectly clear posts when i want to, but here i am presenting a system, letra, for breaking words back
to their original context. it may be that you have never thought of language in this way, i.e., through the morphing of old and new letters from one language to the next and the next, hey, it works, e.g.,
ma(n)za(na)=apple in spanish,=mazaxocotl(N)=deer cherry,=mazzard(E)=prunus avium,=mazurka(polish dance)=
maza(r)d/t/l(letra)=mazatl(N)=deer,
so, concentrate on the ma(n)za(na) because letra is at
work, don’t you think it interesting that apple in
spanish can be reduced to deer/deer cherry? that now
we know the polish dance is a deer dance, with one slide
and hop to the side, that spanish, english, polish
share these words and meanings with a few variations
and that they all, through the mechanical process of
letra, claim their root with the nauatl, mazatl=deer.
you know craziness is subjective. cultures draw a
circle and what’s outside is, well, crazy. i have been
out of american culture for 35yrs, but am getting a good
look at you, and frankly you’re a crazy subject to gaze
upon, high and low tech, no morals, out of control
governance, drugs for the poor, money for the elite and endless privilege, complete collapse of the money system
thru insane greed of both poor and rich, you make a business of war, in hock up to your eyeballs, no manufacturing, outsourcing everything, no internet content, the only crazy i see is that i am crazy to try
to help a people that won’t help themselves, odd and
venal religions, fooled everytime by a rigged political
system, but let me not go on except for one last sum,
the answer to the problem is to educate yourself in
language so your spirits can grow eloquent, so you can face your rulers without shame or fear and confront
them with their low actions, so you can say no to the
chain of idiot wars power is addicted to, so your
brains grow into the future instead of burnout in
the now, get a head! all i am doing is offering you
a means to do that, and am called names for it.
anybody ever read confederacy of dunces? the book
is one of despair written by a wise, young/old man,
who realizes even if great men/women were to come back into the world, the world would pay no attention.
i don’t consider myself great, perhaps in odor, but
what i am offering you with letra is your own greatness,
to come out of your cultural stupor and make words
and language count, and train yourselves in something
besides babble=b/papalotl(N)=butterfly.
@tzopilotl (168):
But you’re NOT breaking words down to their original context, you are creating new contexts based on loose homophones in different unrelated languages.
@C (164):
Not any more so than South American native languages.
…scratch, all languages are related, to Nauatl pie,
the sounds are related also, e.g., maza(N) is the original
sound for the word meat, mazurka, mazeltov, mazyes(berber),*****ttae(alani), masa(sp), matso(originally
deer meatball).
tepetl=(s)tep=t/deep or johnny depp/depot/deborah/
tepee/tip/te(m)ple(first worshps were mts).
these don’t look like loose homophones to me, a bit
encyclopedic but i like to read dictionaries.
tleco=t/leg/c=t/l/regular=tl/trek/c=t/lecture/
t/lex=t/legal=t/legitimate, now, the letra morphs
are the basis of linguistics of a written language,
so note them down and put them to play in your head:
t/l/r…c/g/k…tl/tr…then you go about to the other
words, tepetl=tibet=thebes=heb(r)ew, so, putting them
down=p/b…e/i…tl/t/th/h…(r/inclusion)…now,
for the old context of, hebrew=h/th/tep/b(r)e ua/w=
tepeua(N)=tepe-/mountain/tepee(in deer culture)owner/ua.
logic=tloc(N)=tick t(l)oc (c)lockwork to me.
i guess the *****ogy would be i am trying to explain
the inner-working of word while you are looking at the dial for the time.
however, there are many ways words form and reform
going through tributary languages, e.g.,
tla-oppa-ilpilli(N)=twice/oppa tied=tla/da oppa/ffo
(a reversal, as language is 2)ilpilli/(d)il(the 2d
d repeats the lead letter)=daffodil/a(s)phodel.
the original tla-(N) may often be, tlatla=flame,
in this case, it identifies it as tlalli(N)=coming out of
tlan/land as flowers do, daffodil/asphodel are so named
because they have a floret within a floret/twice-tied.
…now here’s an original that has a lot of moss to be
cleared away before it goes to other langs:
tlachichinoaxiuitl(N)=plant that grows among rocks,
good for burning mouth and stomach and llagas(e.g.,
herpes zoster)=t/lachi/chi)n(oaxiuitl)=lachin=lichen
in english and Latin=leikhen(gk)=lichen(Fr)=liquen(sp=
lichene(Ital), now here is a chance ot annotate more
letra shifts: a/i…in the greek=(e) ch/kh/qu(sp).
when you have gathered all the c/k/s/g/q/z it means
you can interchange them when rooting word, e.g.,
ce tetl(N)=one stone=c/ke-t(e)tle=kettle. it is
letter play, no doooubt about, perhaps i’d be better off
making a game from it than bothering people with it
on a technical level they can’t follow, but the data
that comes out of breaking words is like nuclear fission(pun)and it keeps me searching for its meaning.
@Maureen, Romanov & L’Economa,
Wow. Love all the geeking-out!
Thanks most of you for the glittering,
jewels!
@tzopilotl (171):
I agreed with everything you said up until “all languages are related,” and then I started strongly disagreeing.
I remember the historian in me being sad at the announcement that a number of aborigional languages were about to be lost. Then i realized that if the purpose of language is communication, the fewer languages we have the more we have in common. If we’re to have a common language, I will vote for English, although from my one visit to England, no one there seems to speak it anyway
@tzopilotl (150):
I’m actually not that often sitting down on my fat complacent ass, whining. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you help me (in general english, which isn’t my first language btw) explain what you are typing. Maybe with a short example, e.g. It’s just confusing to me…
@tzopilotl (171): @chubbmeister (175): If any one is interested in the history and proper usage of the English language try any of William Safire’s books. He was a political and social commentator who wrote an ongoing column for the New York Times. Every Sunday they would publish his column called, On Language He leaned towards the conservative side, but liberals and conservatives alike appreciated his writing on word origins and English grammar. He wrote about the actual origins of many words. I’m sure for many this sound like a crashing bore, but he made it fun to read. I’m not sure what tzopilotl is writing here, but I’m certain it is not actual historical information about the origins of English.
although those are only few examples, great list.
I think you might have forgotten to mention the Armenian Genocide, after the turkish deathrow prisoners who were given a second chance and jobs as soldiers murdered 1.5 million Armenians following direct orders from the turkish governement.
Not only they had taken control of a huge part of Armenia but whoever said an Armenian word would quickly be murdered.
Many young children were murdered and hundreds have been taken to lebanon, were they were given new names and forced to adopt to islam and taught turkish, with severe punishments or death to whoever spoke Armenian.
Can you please involve this issue in your list? or make another list of the greatest genocides in the modern times?
…my apologies, chubb.
…scratch, why strongly? what are you hiding?
…g/cop/b/v=c/guv/b/p=g/cup/b/v, why in common,
who wants to be common?
…to answer, scratch: the first connexion of language
was during cave time, fire time, promethean time=
neander time. nouns formed last, so we deal with particles, as seen today in omotic(ethiopia) and
the zuang=cave living area(china, by vietnam), both
languages use nauatl particles:
omotic and related idioms(ethiopia)on the exit corridor
from and into afrika, word sample:
1.nakus(dizi/maji)=man/first born/ son=nacatl(N)=flesh=
nachat(Yiddish)=snaka(OE)/snake(E).
2.ashuwa(wolamo)=flesh/meat/goat=asha(gofa)=caxaua(N)=
render,=cash(E)=c(r)assus(Lat)=c/g(r)asa(sp)=grease(E).
3.balli(galila)=horn,=palli(N)=p/ba(r)ley(E)=palo(sp)=
stick.
4.bakko/bakke(mocha)=cock/hen,=pachoa(N)=cover,=
tlapachoa in totolin(N)=hen incubates.
5.hank(omotic)=anka(ometo)=vulture,=h/th/t/tla(n)ka(N)=
body, as in raccoon=r/l/tlac/oon(letra)=tlaca(N).
find the entire article on tzopilotl wordpress for
july 2009.
ok, now proto-zuang-tai, found in the sept. 2009
section: p-z-tai likes omotic:
1.gizzard=tai(p-z-tai)=t/tlaini(N)=earth drinker/worker,
=tl/drain(E)/t/l/rain(E).
2.full/fill=tem(p-z-t)=tem(siamese)=temi(N)=fill,=
time(E)=t/th/he(r)m/i(letra/E prefix)=Hermes(gk/god/messenger)…source of omotic/zhuang is:
starling.rinet.ru/main database.
the world was connected early by crossings=panoa(N)=
spanish(gens)=panuco(old name for veracruz area), point
of entry for quetzalcoatl’s expedition(3309bc) and the
second coming of quetz., the mayan(c.2k/1.5bc), who arrived from the gulf of ormuz, not to mention the
solutrean crossing over the north atlantic, 22k bc,
in full gravettian mammoth hunting period, which gave
the amerindian on the east coast its 5th blood group,
the european, laid the foundation for all amerindian
languages, e.g., tlacotli(N)=slave,=tl/t/dakota=
t/la(s)co(u)t/li(letra), hey,=lascoutx(basque), that’s
my fountain name!
=(tla)c/g(r)od(tl)i(letra)=grodi(polish)=(slave unit
used to build first)towns/settlements in poland.
so that’s it, appears to work, it’s like beadwork/
chaquira(sp): word are the holed beads and common meaning
is the string, a good definition for tloc/logic.
@160: You saying the loss of Native American languages was brought on by themselves is like saying the Jews volunteered to go into concentration camps. Get a real history book (not the government approved *****) and learn something.
@tzopilotl (179):
I’m not hiding anything, I just disagree strongly that all languages are related because it’s flat out wrong. You keep pointing out non-existent connections between words that are in entirely different language families i.e. unrelated.
If it amuses you, have fun, but it’s just incoherent clutter to me.