🚀 go-pugleaf

On 5 Feb 1996, Jarmo Puntanen wrote:

> In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.960201135844.3978B-100000@rask>,
> Jens Stengaard Larsen  <jens@cphling.dk> wrote:
> >On 30 Jan 1996, Jarmo Puntanen wrote:

> >> So, I gather the _means_ of communicating about the EU seems=20
> >> to be of prime
> >> importance to a good share of the audience, rather that what is actual=
ly
> >> communicated?
> >
>  >Of course the means are more important than the ends. They always are.
>  >Any idiot can put up with something everybody would agree to fight for.
>  >Few idiots can suggest how to do it.
>=20
> Pardon me, but I somehow failed to see the your point. Can you=20
> elaborate on why the _mode_ of communication always overruns the contents=
,
> in your opinion?

If you have no mode of communication, then there is no communication
at all, no matter if there's any content to be communicated. OTOH,
even if you have a mode of communication, you are not forced to have
a content. So you can be happy with mode without content, but you
can't be happy with content without mode.

>  >> I do not regard the language essential.

>  >But it _is_ essential whether you like it or not. How would you do with=
out
>  >it?

> Poorly, must admit. But the can be no single 'holy' language that
> would somehow solve all communication problems within the EU.
> To think so is, I think, naive.=20

There is a single `holy' (as you phrase it) language in so different
countries as China, the USA and Russia.  In Switzerland there is no
single official language, but still French is overdog and Ladin is
underdog. In international relationships, English is overdog these
days, as you admit yourself by using it.  Holiness or not, an
agreement on which common language to use in which setting is
indispensable for anybody who want to work together.  To overlook
that is naive.

> If your end is to further the political
> unification of the EU=20

My end is to further the debate about the EU.  Any political debate
about a multilingual community will include the language question or
become non-sensical.

> by coining a synthetic Eurolang, please present
> the idea as such and do not camouflage it=20

I'm sorry, I haven't been clear. I'm not coining a new language, I'm
trying to promote Esperanto.

> under any quasilinguistic pretext.

Well, I didn't tell I'm a linguist either.

[rest snipped]

/Jens Stengaard Larsen ( =3D jens@cphling.dk )

"Dio benu vin!" - diris la ateisto.
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 Esperanto parolata * English spoken * Deutsch wird gesprochen * Dansk t=E5=
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