Heard on the Web
משוט בארץ ומהתהלך בה
From flitting about the world and traversing it (Job 1:7). . . .
The following appeared in Scientific American's webzine the other day: Click here. Wow. Without any fuss, fanfare or publicity, Jews and Arabs cooperate. Peace grows from the ground up. A couple of Czechs were involved as well. No surprise to anybody involved in science; the profession is a United Nations that works. And an Israeli scholar not only studies evolution but founds an international institute at an Israeli university devoted to studying it. No surprise there either. Israel has more universities per capita than any nation on earth, and they are at the forefront of groundbreaking research in every field of knowledge.
Here is the comment I wrote on Scientific American's site:
Ali and Hassan -Ya Habibi, don’t you guys know English is the new Esperanto? Why not learn it if you’re working with Israeli scientists? Will your mullahs back home chop your heads off if you seem too Western? And do you actually eat mole rats? I thought they were “haram,” like pork.
If the researchers have a few mole rats to spare, perhaps they should fit them with explosives instead of radio collars and throw them into Arab buses at rush hour. Oh right, Israelis wouldn’t do that even if they had military orders.
Eviatar – studying evolution, huh? Naughty naughty. A big yasher koach (kudos) for standing up to the black-coated old (but not as spry or as sharp as you) greybeards who would march us back to the Dark Ages. Until 120 years as we say.
From flitting about the world and traversing it (Job 1:7). . . .
The following appeared in Scientific American's webzine the other day: Click here. Wow. Without any fuss, fanfare or publicity, Jews and Arabs cooperate. Peace grows from the ground up. A couple of Czechs were involved as well. No surprise to anybody involved in science; the profession is a United Nations that works. And an Israeli scholar not only studies evolution but founds an international institute at an Israeli university devoted to studying it. No surprise there either. Israel has more universities per capita than any nation on earth, and they are at the forefront of groundbreaking research in every field of knowledge.
Here is the comment I wrote on Scientific American's site:
Ali and Hassan -Ya Habibi, don’t you guys know English is the new Esperanto? Why not learn it if you’re working with Israeli scientists? Will your mullahs back home chop your heads off if you seem too Western? And do you actually eat mole rats? I thought they were “haram,” like pork.
If the researchers have a few mole rats to spare, perhaps they should fit them with explosives instead of radio collars and throw them into Arab buses at rush hour. Oh right, Israelis wouldn’t do that even if they had military orders.
Eviatar – studying evolution, huh? Naughty naughty. A big yasher koach (kudos) for standing up to the black-coated old (but not as spry or as sharp as you) greybeards who would march us back to the Dark Ages. Until 120 years as we say.
posted by Zev Stern at 2:46 PM
4 Comments:
I hope you don't mind if I comment on your question, "don’t you guys know English is the new Esperanto?"
Esperanto has successfully demonstrated its usefulness over many years.
I've used it for many years and in fifteen countries - most recently in Argentina.
Esperanto is celebrating its 125th anniversary next year. I’m sure we’ll hear more about that shortly.
Stuff like this happens all the time... quietly. Because if you point it out, the "purists" on both side scream and shut it down.
Of course, as they're studying evolution, which comes straight from the "other side", it doesn't count.
I live in London and if anyone says to me “everyone speaks English” my answer is “Listen and look around you”. If people in London do not speak English then the whole question of a global language is completely open.
The promulgation of English as the world’s “lingua franca” is impractical and linguistically undemocratic. I say this as a native English speaker!
Impractical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite. That is how English is used internationally at the moment.
Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well. The long-term solution must be found and a non-national language, which places all ethnic languages on an equal footing is essential.
As a native English speaker, my vote is for Esperanto :)
Your readers may be interested in seeing http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU Professor Piron was a former translator with the United Nations
The new online course http://www.lernu.net has 125 000 hits per day and Esperanto Wikipedia enjoys 400 000 hits per day. That can't be bad :)
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