Re: yl112's Meep, LOL...

Quoting "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:

> That's not at all new... Bahasa Malaysia has officially adopted the
> method of "enriching" their vocabulary by basically transliterating
> English words (rather than extending the meaning of existing words,
> such as e.g. Mandarin Chinese has done, or coining new Malay-sounding
> words). You get words like "sistem", "ekonomi" (though that is from
> Greek), "universiti", "fizik" (physics), "konstruksi" (construction),
> "radikal" (radical), etc.
>
> Not that it's a bad thing per se, but it does make the language lose
> some of its unique flavor and sound a little too Indo-European :-P
...and on the other hand makes the Indo-European languages that
are so essential to becoming globally successful in science,
technology and business (English, French, German, Spanish, etc.)
all the easier to learn. It is said that one reason (out of many)
the Philippines got back on their feet so quickly after the
financial crisis of 1997 was that they have a long-standing
cultural finesse with learning language (especially those of
former colonial powers: English and Spanish).

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III