Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

From: Alexandre E. Kopilovitch (aek_at_VB1162.spb.edu)
Date: 02/10/04 

Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 01:03:24 +0300 (MSK)
To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org

Robert I. Eachus wrote:

> > ... languages are nothing more than tools for
> > composing computer programs. The good craftsperson selects the
> > appropriate tool for the job at hand.
>
> Not really. Programming languages are also tools for thinking. And
> different languages favor different ways of thinking.

Yes. And they provide a multitude of convenient patterns for those favored
ways.

> This effect can
> also be seen in spoken languages you can't understand the French and the
> people of Quebec unless you can think in French. (I am the first to
> admit I can't. I can try, but I find the exercise very strenuous. I
> need to literally accept a foreign viewpoint to do it well and I am
> unwilling to do so.

Actually you need not *accept* that foreign viewpoint as a "proper" or "true"
one for you, but you should become aware of its essense and its relationships
with various facts, events, doctrines etc. And yes, you need to admit that
that viewpoint is viable and somehow appropriate for its native environment
and circumstances. No more than that. That should not be destructive for your
own worldview... if you don't think that the latter is definitely better than
all others and therefore should be propagated everywhere and dominate over all
those inferior others.

By the way, nowadays the English language is very interesting in this
aspect - because there is a clear choice between two possible viewpoints for
this language: American and British (in alphabetical order -:) . These are
certainly different viewpoints, and a learner has to choose between them.

> The cultural baggage with Arabic and Chinese is
> larger that that which comes with French, but it isn't as imperialistic.

This sentence seems quite strange... well, not exactly. I can't believe that
you know so much about Arabic or Chinese culture that you can estimate whether
or not it is imperialistic. After all, most of their cultural baggages (which
are large, as you said) were created during their corresponding Imperial ages.
Not knowing French (as you said) you certainly can't judge French cultural
baggade in this aspect as well. But you did that, and there is a clear cause
for that - you see French as the most important center of resistance against
worldwide propagation of American viewpoint. Well, I think that this feeling
is quite correct, and this is why recently I gradually become interested in
learning French (there are, and always were other reasons of course, but this
new additional one has a chance to be decisive).

> Japanese on the other hand, is much more demanding than French, but in
> another sense it is not as hard. Japanese requires you to act in
> certain ways, but it doesn't try as hard to impose its worldview on you.
>...
> However, I have found
> that there is a huge difference in world view between those Japanese who
> speak English and those who don't,

This passage about Japanese vividly reminds me the following anecdote:

----------
A Pan Am 727 flight engineer waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard
the following:

Lufthansa (in German): Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany.
Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody
war!"
----------

> I haven't studied Russian in decades, but I remember it as being like the
> Germanic langauges. They do fit your discription above. They are tools
> and can be used in many different ways.

I can't speak for Germanic languages, but for Russian I tend to agree. Yes,
I don't think that Russian, as a language, is substantially associated with
any specific viewpoint. (But its Soviet flavour certainly was... I hope it is
obvious.)

But just one external observation about Germanic languages: although it may
be true that the whole family of Germanic languages isn't substantially
associated with any particular viewpoint, this seems to be false for one
particular area, and the corresponding language flavour: Austria. It seems
that there, in Austria, some coherent viewpoint was present (I don't know
whether it is still alive).

Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia

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