Peoples Geography — Reclaiming space

Creating people's geographies

You are what you speak

Since I am mostly tri-lingual — English, Arabic and gibberish ;) –I am very interested in the psycho- and socio-linguistics of the notion that we view the world differently according the language(s) we speak. Language certainly frames the way we see the world and this interesting article originally in New Scientist asks whether we in fact think differently in other languages. (6pp .pdf, opens in new window)

I still can’t explain why hearing church Latin gives me goose-bumps. It can’t be early millennium Latin with its pronunciation of ‘v’ as ‘w’, has to be later Latin – must be the Catholic upbringing (or past lives) ;) Things just sound so good in Latin, even if you’re saying something quite prosaic.

Well worth a read.

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This entry was posted on 28 October, 2006 by in Consciousness, Language, Languages, Personal reflections.

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“Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.”
Edward Said (1994)

Timely Reminders

"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley

"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination. All others are subsumed by it."
-- Diane DiPrima, "Rant", from Pieces of a Song.

"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"


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