I grew up with street Spanish (arroyo?) as a second language. 2/3 of my peers were descendants of Spanish (by then Mexico) settlers from the Socorro area who moved to the upper Gila watershed (San Francisco/Tularosa river confluence) whose grandparents may well have spoken no English, in spite of living 300 miles from the border of MX. The Anglos in the area who were multi-generational also spoke their own unique version of Spanglish with those grandparents in response. I later (age 12) moved to the border of MX where once again, 2/3 of my peers had Spanish surnames and grandparents that were likely *born* when that area was still part of MX (Gadsden Purchase). I found myself in a Spanish class halfway through the 6th grade with absolutely NO formal language training, but a broad (if hacky) vocabulary and a practical sense of the grammar, gender and conjugation but no clue what a language class was supposed to be about... it was fascinating but confounding!
My sister, two years older than me, growing up in the same context, managed to be almost entirely without Spanish when at 24 she moved to Spain (and later Chile). The difference, I have judged, is that she was a better student than I and whatever failures she encountered in formal Spanish Class dominated her experience of the language while I simply muddled my B-student way through Spanish class while speaking street/arroyo Spanish comfortably the whole time. What is being described here is really he subject-object ambiguity/conflation which I find really cool/inspiring. Similarly, the Germanic habit of not giving one a sense of the *sense* of a statement until the end of the the sentence. Two sentences can be structured (almost) identically excepting that one is ended with the sense "nicht!" so that the listener has to wait for the whole sentence to complete to make a judgement. I am not very proficient in German, but while reading it, it seems so easy to scan (with peripheral vision) forward to notice the (lack of) "nicht!" at the end. To those (Jochen?) who are much more familiar with German, I may be bastardizing the whole concept, but that has been my working experience with the little bit of German I've tried to read/listen-to. The subject-object ambiguity is a *feature* in Bohm's Rheomode... with the idea (IMO) of trying to lower the level of intentionality/willfulness/precedence. What is being referred to as "avoiding responsibility" (possibly a judgement applied by northern/cold cultures applied against southern/warm cultures?) may also be about holding a larger perspective? I remember a step-son figure who disappeared during a home-tour who said when we finally found him in the backyard "the dog made me play with him!" which on the surface seemed to be "avoiding responsibility" but in fact was pretty close to the fact. Similarly, I recently introduced Mary to archery (for many reasons) and I chose to give her carbon-fiber arrows, to avoid the circumstance of having "the arrow break itself in the bow" which always turns out badly for the archer. Since the theme of this bent-thread has been "how does language effect our thinking/expression", first in the context of programming languages, but now in the context of natural languages. I was trained in the idea of Universal Computation, as well as Chomsky's Universal Grammar, but I think this audience is sophisticated enough to recognize that the simple fact that one *can* (in principle) translate any (natural language) statement or (computer) program into any other is not the same as to consider how easy/facile these are for the purpose. When I worked as Private Investigator I was fascinated to realize that law libraries, by their intrinsic nature grew unboundedly with legal precedent. I also noted that (almost?) without exception a multilingual user or assembly manual is *shortest* in the language it was written in, and all translations are less parsimonious. ramble, - Steve > Despite living in a Spanish speaking country for 12 years, I still > struggle mightily with Spanish grammar. This is mainly due to laziness > on my part, as well as lack of necessity to immerse myself in the > language (there are a lot of English speakers here, not to mention > expat groups on Facebook in English). Still, Spanish is *so* much more > consistent in all respects than English - pronunciation especially. > But the reflexive verbs are still somewhat of a mystery to me. I've > wondered exactly the same thing that Frank mentioned: does "the cup > fell itself on me" and "the pencil broke itself on mf" represent > desire to avoid responsibility? Maybe even blame the victim? Ouch! > Your nose nearly broke my fist! > > On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 2:06 PM Tom Johnson <t...@jtjohnson.com > <mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com>> wrote: > > Or the equally famous Spanish phrase, "The pencil broke itself." > A phrase which you think I would remember. > TJ > > ============================================ > Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com <mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > *NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org> > *Check out It's The People's Data > <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>* > > ============================================ > > > > <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon> > Virus-free. www.avast.com > > <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link> > > > > On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 12:55 PM Frank Wimberly > <wimber...@gmail.com <mailto:wimber...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > In Spanish if you drop your cup you say, "See me cayó la > taza". A literal word--for-word translation is "The cup fell > itself on me". Some people say this is an effort to avoid > responsibility. > > Frank > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Fri, Aug 7, 2020, 9:01 AM Barry MacKichan > <barry.mackic...@mackichan.com > <mailto:barry.mackic...@mackichan.com>> wrote: > > Very much so. We hired a grad student a long time ago (he > stayed with us until he retired). He wrote great Pascal > programs. He wrote great Pascal programs in C++, and in > JavaScript. The effect of your first programming language > on style, idioms, and your feelings about recursion and > encapsulation. > > —Barry > > On 6 Aug 2020, at 23:24, thompnicks...@gmail.com > <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Nah. He means more than that. Even ordinary > languages predispose users to one kind of discourse or > another. I assume that programming languages do the > same. > > > > N > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> > un/subscribe > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
