Written by The progress of the ‘star wars’ (AKA missile shield) affair, which Russia seemed willing to aggravate by talking about plans to station missiles in Kaliningrad, without any concerns whatsoever for the welfare of Kaliningraders and Europeans, should make the European Union reexamine its current policy under the Kaliningrad Strategy, of collaborating with Russia by facilitating [...]
READ MORE »Posts in category Politics
Accession of Turkey to the European Union: A Quick Reference of Common Pros and Cons
Spanish President (i.e. Prime Minister) José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero promised he will personally support Turkey’s accesion to the European Union for 2010, because – he says – “that great country has been waiting for too long at the doors of Europe”. That is probably a follow-up of his concept of the Alliance of Civilizations, which [...]
READ MORE »About the European Union’s arcane language: the EU does seem difficult for people to understand
Mark Mardell asks in his post Learn EU-speak: Does the EU shroud itself in obscure language on purpose or does any work of detail produce its own arcane language? Of course it is not just the lingo: the EU does seem difficult for people to understand. What’s at the heart of the problem? His answer [...]
READ MORE »Is euroscepticism gaining momentum in Ireland, as it supposedly did in France and the Netherlands?
Less than half of the Irish population voted on the Lisbon Treaty, the so-called Constitution of the European Union. In other words: 862,415 votes against and 752,451 in favour, giving a majority of 109,964 against, decided this time the future of nearly 500 million Europeans. Some pro-Europeans are asking now what eurosceptics have often asked [...]
READ MORE »Air Berlin against the use of Catalan when flying to and from Catalan-speaking regions – Where is the European Union language policy based on “multilingualism” when one really needs it?
I don’t like to write about ‘domestic’ problems, so to speak, and I don’t usually do it because I cannot be neutral, but I think this one has transnational implications that go beyond Spain’s language policy – or, better, the language policy of Spain’s Autonomous (i.e. ‘slightly less than federal’) Communities – to reach the [...]
READ MORE »Rhetoric of debates, discussions and arguments: Useful destructive criticism for scientific & academic research, reasons and personal opinions; the example of Proto-Indo-European language revival
Rhetoric (Wikipedia) is the art of harnessing reason, emotions and authority, through language, with a view to persuade an audience and, by persuading, to convince this audience to act, to pass judgement or to identify with given values. The word derives from PIE root wer-, ‘speak’, as in MIE zero-grade wrdhom, ‘word’, or full-grade werdhom, [...]
READ MORE »Argumentation, debate, and dialectic in Science, applied to Linguistics
The title is somehow formal, but I couldn’t find a better one. I tried to talk with my uncle again about Indo-European: I don’t care about a thousand ignorants saying “PIE is an invention”, but it’s obvious I don’t like a learned Latin professor like him promoting this idea among his students… So, after introducing [...]
READ MORE »Tamil vs. Sanskrit, or Indian ‘official classical languages’, and the first tongue in India (AKA. Indus Valley Civilization language)
I have read and heard many stupidities regarding linguistic status and language differences: – Brazilian is a different language (i.e. not Portuguese), because Galician is a language also (yes, Galician is interestingly enough a ‘language’ which stops in the administrative division between Spain and Portugal – more or less like Valencian and Catalan). – French [...]
READ MORE »