On Wednesday 14 May 2008 8:23:54 am J. Andrew Rogers wrote: > English reach. I can easily imagine that some kinds of prattle in > some languages easily exceed English by volume, but that is only > slightly related to the total value of the content in the language.
With respect (sir) your idea of prattle may differ from mine. That is a problem that as not going to go away. I am aware of many things that have been described as prattle in the past that are now coming back as not having been prattle in the first place. > We may not be able to quantify how much knowledge is locked up in a > language, but we can pretty easily quantify how much knowledge is > published in a language which is a fine proxy. The oral information that is not passed down as published information - some of which might be what some people might call prattle, which you might not consider as important, is important in my view. One might argue that it is not important. But if one does not know whether it is important or not, one is willy nilly rejecting something whose value one does not recognize. > How much knowledge has really been translated into English in the last > few decades? I would make the observation that for many types of We are entering the realms of philosophy here. Is Shakespeare knowledge? It certainly is by my definition, and therefore the music and drama and fiction that are published (or not published) in non-English languages are knowledge too. Folk medicine and information passed down orally are knowledge that has not yet made it into English. In most places of the world it has been rejected as prattle without the rigorous examination that it warrants. In theory if an English speaking author lifts freely from some obscure language or culture and publishes work as his own, he will own it until someone recognizes source of his inspiration. Frank Herbert's "Dune" is an example. > publication in most countries manuscripts are required to be submitted > in English, even if the author's native language will be a translation This is a statement that holds true in an era when English happens to be important. The basis of my original post was that this situation might not continue forever. shiv
