----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "futurework" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 2:52 PM Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Indian Languages: Tending the Flame
Ed Weick wrote: > > Should we mourn? Perhaps we should look at language as a tool that suits > particular conditions and circumstances but not others. As conditions > change, new tools are required, and old ones are no longer useful. The > language that served the horseman on the plain or the hunter in the bush is > not very useful in an urban setting, in dealing with the bureaucracy, or in > finding a place in the labour market. It's sad, but that's how it is. > > Ed Language necessarily narrows our perception of reality So the problem with the disappearance of languages that have different perceptions of reality is that we lose access to ways of understanding reality that may be extremely useful; which may allow us to have insights into the human condition that are not in any other way possible. To the degree that we cannot get out of the box that our own language puts us in, we become less and less able to solve the problems that are generated because of the limitations on the perception of reality that are imposed by our language. Wittgenstein had a lot to say about being able to get out of such boxes. Selma
