Re: tlug: kanji or romaji for Japanese? (was: parallel-port IDE)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Frank" == Frank Bennett <bennett@example.com> writes:

    Frank> It's late and, oh what the heck, I might as well dive into
    Frank> this as well.  Territorial languages may be on the wane,
    Frank> but what about the dialects of academic territories?

Shikataganai.  But that's no different from "you hadda be there."  For
academic jargon, of course, the "there" is diffuse in space (any good
University will have a department for learning it) and you hadda be
there for _years_, but the principle is the same.  It is the very
richness of human experience that creates this, not some artificial
diversity in language.

This is different from territorial language, in that _given a common
language_ I feel a sense of familiarity with the marital spats of my
American friends, my Japanese friends, and the mixed marriages.
Territorial language differentials can be overcome by information
technology precisely because of this unity of experience.

    Frank> A linguistic sub-group might be limited ... by time
    Frank> (gendai-ko graduating from high school in 1998/99 Japan).

This is the crucial example for your thesis, because it is created not
by richness of experience or lack of communication, but by poverty of
experience attempting to enhance its sense of self-importance.

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