so i've been absent from sorabji for a week or two. anyone want to give me the low down on the happenings. an abstract will be just fine.

thats just not an option. the low down is right in front of you.

swine owns your mom.

bastards.

the lowdown: we all hate each other. we hate mean nurses and twisted women more. the world will end in a week. And Antigone just can't keep up with my sparkling wit. think that about covers it.

i dunno. i just read that post about giving birth to baby shrimp after he woman diddled herself with a lobster.....

right. sorry. we all hate each other, plus mean nurses and twisted women. Some of us like lobster, and others have Kahlua coated cooches. (say that 5 times fast.) right. did I miss anything else?

Yeah, email me if you wanna participate in the bloody effing makeout tape exchange!

Kahlua coated cooches. Kahlua coaky coochiz. KahloooHA cootie coochies. Aluhak koooted kookoo. Coo COoo coo.

I figured out why Swine doesnt own my mum. the woman would drive him to murder. She told an entire roomful of people I would never be xx kilos. I felt like punching her but instead I did the run away and cry girly thing. fuckit. that was way more awful than the time she 'jokingly' - in her opinion not mine - told a group of my friends I have had more hands up me than a muppet. anyone want to adopt a lovely kiwi girl?

Moonit - thats awful. I would just die if my mum behaved like that. Right now I just want to know she wasn't on that ferry in Greece. I checked all the stories online, and listened to the radio news all day at work, but I still can't be sure. They say that there were only 2 kiwis on the passenger list, and they are both ok, but then they say the list is incomplete! Bastards! Someone tell me my mum is ok, sunning herself on a greek beach miles away from that damn ferry. Even tried ringing the embassy, but they weren't much help either.

added to things to not like: Moonit's mum. added to things to like: people who say "mum." but really, who's counting?

I'll adopt you, Moonit. I'm all over it. Greek ferries are notorious, even among the Greeks, for never having passenger lists. Let along life boats that don't leak or something like that. So I'm amazed they've been able to release anything at all. I don't know if you've ever _seen_ a Greek ferry?

NZA, your mom hasn't contacted you? ummmm Surely she would contact you after such an accident, right? My thoughts are for the best

Yes, I hope she's ok.

Moonit,your mom sounds like a real piece of work,welcome to my world.I'd love to adopt you,we could get tanked and pick on cowboys.Hope your mom is alright NZ,she's probably just having such a good time she forgot to call.Do you know where she's staying?

NZA...I'm a journalist, so I have access to heaps of information on the Greek ferry. I've just checked all the latest from our correspondent and while they are still searching for 11 people, he says there are no Australians or Kiwis among them. If you're still worried, email me and I will try to call him and ask him to check it out.

hehe Isolde you just want to adopt me for cheap asthma medicine. But thats okay I'm up for that. As long as you bring snowballs over with you I'll hold your hand at the doctors. J - Pick on real cowboys? cool.

your mum reminded me of that woman's mom in "the unbearable lightness of being," just being cruel and crude for the hell of it. I'm sure not being able to remember anyone's name hurts my literary references, but oh well.

Well, that too. Yes, I will include genuine snow balls in the adoption package. As soon as it snows. Which would be a welcome relief.

darnit. I wanted to adopt Moonit. can I have visitation?

Maybe...if you're very, very good.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone - I heard from Mum on Friday - she was in Florence already, safe and sound. What a relief!

Yay! I'm so glad...

I got my leather jacket in Florence. Tell her to eat some ice cream - they have the best ice cream in the world there. Glad she's fine, too. Florence was my favorite city in Italy to visit. It seemed so relaxed (in my memory, at least).

I loved Florence too. I want to go back there someday with someone I love and eat icecream in bed. I stayed at this very cheap pensione...it was late when we got there so my girlfriend and I just collapsed into bed. When I woke up in the morning (bloody bells), I noticed there were tiles all up the walls of our room. I looked under the sagging old mattress and sure enough there was the drain hole (can't recall any drain hair though). We were sleeping in a freaking bathroom. Incidentally, does anyone know why we English mumblers don't use the proper names for European cities? Like Florence instead of Fiorenze, and Rome instead of Roma etc etc. Is it just our lazy tongues? And how the hell did we get Germany out of Deutchland?

Not just us English mumblers, Cat. French call Australia Australie, Germany Allemagne, England Angleterre, USA Etats-Unis etc. And I'm sure all other languages do similarly.

Yep. Someday we'll all learn to call a nation by whatever the natives call it. One global language: good or bad?

stupid.

annoying - we'll still say things differently because of our accents. stupid - a lot of languages are so freakin beautiful - would you want to lose that?

And... thought of this one on the busride home.. we'd have to rename stuff. Because Kaikoura (I love hearing tourists attempt to pronounce that word) is made up of two Maori words kai (meaning place) and koura (meaning crayfish). Kaikoura - the place where crayfish were plentiful and eaten. And this completes our first lesson of Te Reo Maori.

is maori pronounced mow-ree?

Esperanto, anyone? BAD IDEA.

I think it is May-OR-ee. Moonit, NZA, Cat? It's your hemisphere. Angleterre is pretty close to England, both mean "Land of the Angles".

I thought Angleterre was a shortened version of Anglais Terre (English land or ground)

i thought it was may-or-ee, too, but someone corrected me recently and made me doubt myself. so, which is it?

one language. points to ponder: (1) if we use an existing language, which one will it be? (2) if we make a new language, would we use words from various existing languages to fabricate it? (3) what would the grammar structure be like? (4) would people grow up to be poly-lingual? would they still keep their native tongues? (5) what would happen to people who don't learn this new language?

1. Regrettably, probably English, since a lot of countries already have a large English/ESL population, and it would be easiest to adopt. Which is a pity, since English is ugly and horrid to learn for those who don't know it. 2. We woul dhave to use words from existing languages, because otherwise it would be just impossible to learn. People need some basis in their reality. 3. I'm guessing a Germanic or Romantic grammar structure, since a lot of people speak those languages and the structures are similar. 4. I should hope so, but I guess it would defeat the idealistic, stupid, romantic, impossible idea of a "global language." Fuck global language. Fuck anything with "global" in the title, actually. 5. They'd be worked.

Oh man. i guess people would say maori different because of their accents anyway. Sound file anyone? heh

Yup. We probably would. Now I'm curious, though, and I've been wandering around saying "maori. maori. no, non, maori!"

It's officially MOW-ree, but BLOOD-ee Kee-wee is also acceptable.

*wanders off, muttering "BLOOD-ee Kee-wee"* *wanders back* Wait, anywhere I go, BLOOD-ee Kee-wee is acceptable, or only in certain districts?

Actually, if we went by sheer numbers, we should all speak Mandarin. I believe that language has the most numbers, although it's not as widespread. It's a good language for getting a bunch of information across quickly, but it would be a fright to learn, as inflection changes meaning. I'm just full of random information, about 50% accurate, and none of it useful when test time comes.

Nah, nobody'd be able to get quick, easy credits in school for Spanish/French/Italian I if there was only a global language.

Good point. Why are people so opposed to globalization? I love asking this question. Most of my friends are so stuck on the idea of being radical activists, smashing the state and stopping "globalization," and corporate control of the world. But I don't get why they're linked. What makes a global economy a bad idea? So far, the arguments against a global language are: accents would make it difficult to understand people, and other languages are beautiful, why lose 'em? oh, and a few ever-so-useful comments like "stupid." What am I missing? it seems to me that most of the problems, like that of accent, would disappear after a few generations, and people could still learn other languages; but if EVERYONE new at least one of the same languages, I think it would be a great thing. So what am I missing? What makes it such a bad idea to all have the same currency, and the same language? seems to me, life could only be better and easier that way.

I wouldn't say it's stupid, probably makes sense, but for the same reason people cheer for their countries at soccer matches, or for their local college football teams, people want to identify themselves with a sect, a community, a nation, so I don't see it happening anytime soon. And to pop a cliche, variety is the spice of life, and it'd be a really boring world if everyone only spoke English, and spent dollars, and lived in the United States of the World.

word.

*coughing* "What am I missing? it seems to me that most of the problems, like that of accent, would disappear after a few generations " That would explain why Australians and English people sound so alike. You know its only been a few generations since England sent all its convicts that way. NOT. You'll never lose accents. My Aunt is Australian, has lived in New Zealand for over 25 years - still says fesh (fish) sex (six) tin (ten)... etc. Cat you just watch it mate or international trouble will start-a-stirrin. Heres the blurb off the '100 maori words a New Zealander should know' about pronunciation The five vowels a e i o u are pronounced as in Italian or Latin. The following English equivalents are a rough guide: a as in far e as in the Fe of Santa Fe, or as in gay and pay save that there is no dipthong i.e. not gayee or payee i as in fee, me, see o as in awe (not 'oh!') u as in Umaga (!), put, foot There are fewer consonants, and only a few are different from English (or Scots): r should not be rolled t is pronounced more like d than t, with the tip of the tongue slightly further back from the teeth wh counts as a consonant; the standard modern pronunciation is close to the f sound; in some districts it is more like an h; in others more like a w without the h; in others again more like the old aspirated English pronunciation of wh (huence for whence) ng counts as one consonant and is pronounced like the ng in the word 'singer'. It is not pronounced like the ng in 'finger'. i.e. Whängärei is pronounced Far-n(g)ah-ray (not Fong-gah-ray); Tauranga is pronounced Tow- (to rhyme with sow) rah-n(g)ah (not Tow-rang-gah)! The macron - a little line above some vowels - is used to indicate vowel length; some words which look the same have different meanings according to their vowel length; for example anä means 'here is' or 'behold': Anä te tangata! Here is the man! But ana, with no macron, means a cave. Some writers of modern Mäori double the vowel instead of using macrons when indicating a long vowel, so the first example would be Anaa te tangata! confused yet?

Yes, dougie's right. And it's stupid because it was tried, and it FAILED, in case anyone didn't notice. Globalization is a silly idea for the very reasons dougie mentioned. I like the world's differances, even though some of them are brutal and cruel, they're what creates character. I don't like th eidea behind globalization. I don't like the inference that globalization will "civilize" nations. Who's to say the people doing the civilizing are civilized? Not me, that's for sure, because people are vindictive and jealous and rude and do idiotic things to make points in any society, "civilized" or not. Globalization in bullshit. And it's stupid.

maybe i should print this off and have my cultural anthropology teacher read it. this is beginning to sound like the lecture i heard today.

Indeed. It's a common argument, after all...so what does your cultural anthropology teacher think o this subject?

haven't covered language yet. today we were talking about "the history of anthropology" today. according to my notes, in 1877 the epitome of civilization was the written word. at least according to lewis henry morgan.

I think in a way it is. So many things couldn't be done without the written word. I mean, so many things _wouldn't_ have been done also, but it was definently a big step in becoming what we are today...

we. we. we. what about THEM??? *points at various civilizations around the world that have no paper, know only sand dunes and nature* writing isn't always required to survive. it usually isn't. but somehow we view writing as the epitome of civilization, due to our ethnocentric ways. no one being is better than the other, writing or no.

It's not required to survive. However, for our, and by our, I mean European, aborigional (yes, aborigines write, hello, they draw shit on rocks that means stuff), asian, native/latin american, and african civilizations (and by civilizations, I don't mean European, I mean an ethnic group with a strong identity), wouldn't be where we are today. Writing has changed the way in which we (see above) think and communicate with one another. Almost all civilizations have some form of communication that can be construed as a form of writing. Some, it's true, incorporate it with other symbols like bent branches and what not, but many do have some form of writing. I think that writing is the epitome of western civilization, since some damn good thoughts and creations have come out of writing, including records of the oral tradition and this website.

Okay. I don't want to start on the writing conversation right now, because I'd go off for years. Just one question, then. Why does globalization remove variety? Pez, Isolde, Antigone, Patrick and I all live in the same country, and speak in one language the majority of the time (least, far as I know.) We're not suddenly homogenized, or anything. and who inferred anything about being civilized? about soccer matches and such: national pride is a horrible thing, and is responsible for nearly as many wars as religion, if not more. Moonit: Are you claiming that accents are genetic? If everyone around you pronounces words in a certain way, from the time you're born, that's how you'll speak. I don't give a flying fig about your aunt. Move to America. Have kids. watch their accent. and THEIR children's accent.

Pez: what did lewis henry morgan mean when he wrote "the epitome of civilization"? Epitome: (from the Merriam-Webster Collegiate, Online) 1 a : a summary of a written work b : a brief presentation or statement of something 2 : a typical or ideal example : EMBODIMENT <the British monarchy itself is the epitome of tradition -- Richard Joseph> 3 : brief or miniature form -- usually used with in - ep·i·tom·ic /"e-p&-'tä-mik/ or ep·i·tom·i·cal /-mi-k&l/ adjective If the boy can't write sentences that make sense when he's WRITING about writing, I don't trust him. did he mean the crowning achievement? or what?

No i dont think accents are genetic. But you said that they'd disapear and thats bullshit. i speak English, you speak English, cat speaks English but we all have different accents. Explain to me how one language will give us the same accent. Dont your Southern US'ers speak differently to the Northern ones?

I speak differently than all the other US people here. Why? Because I was raised in Greece. I spoke Greek. I like my accent now, and don't bother hiding it anymore. Peopl ein different parts of the US pseak differently because the demographics represent different nations. HELLO!

yes.

hey

wow four years of silence!!!! then me HEY YOU FUCKERS THERE IS NOBODY HERE... I CAN HEAR ECHOES. i must have fallen down a mine shaft in cyber space!!!!!!

boo

Why couldn't you all have waited until October 4th to post on this thread?