Actually it would be more accurate to say that geographic expressions
involving cardinal points without an _explicit_ point of reference are
biased, because they traditionally assume that Europe is the _implicit_
point of reference. Hence, "Far East," "Orient," "Near East" (or "Middle
East") are biased in this sense whereas "Southeast Asia", "East Asia" etc.
are not, because it is clear that they are refering to a part of the whole
region that is "Asia."
Of course, this doesn't address the more troublesome issue at hand, which is
that making generalizations about scripts according to geographic area is
sometimes inadequate. Getting the geographic nomenclature correct is
necessary, but hardly sufficient.
@D
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Cimarosti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 3:09 PM
Subject: RE: Term Asian is not used properly on Computers and NET
[quoted material deleted]
> All geographic expressions involving cardinal points ("Far East", "Near
> East", etc.) are biased in assuming *Europe* as the point of observation.
>
[additional deletia]
>
> _ Marco
>
