The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms

1« Previous thread | Next thread »
- schizo
- tesco value gabba
- Ex-Muslim
- One must be absolutely modern.
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
OP - September 05, 2013, 09:40 AM

The coordinated eradication of elaborate and devotional idioms in favour of those of a more technical and scientific persuasion.

What are peoples thoughts on this? I'll hold off on presenting any sort of judgment of my own until we've amassed a body of argumentation to proceed from.
- toor
- Administrator
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #1 - September 05, 2013, 11:16 AM

You may want to provide examples here.

Before it gets too late, you will find escape.
- schizo
- tesco value gabba
- Ex-Muslim
- One must be absolutely modern.
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #2 - September 05, 2013, 12:02 PM

I'm not sure how to approach this. I don't think it applies to western European languages so much as it does to Arabic and other languages ınfluenced by the ıslamıc dıaspora.

Take, for instance, the word 'hakikiyat/et' which means actual or unseen truth in Turkish. Now you could quite plausibly base a poem on hakikiyat/et but if you were to base the very same poem on 'gerçek' (visible truth) it would carry a completely different meaning.

My question is: with the prevalence of science and technology are we enabling older terminology with spiritual undertones to become antiquated? Everyone uses gerçek in Turkey but hakikiyat/et is considered to be an antiquated term.

Another example: 'muhterem' means respected person but not merely one who must be respected out of political or societal obligation. A man of intellectual and religious/spiritual repute, if you will. The term 'saygılı', which has *actually* superseeded muhterem refers to a more modern concept of respect without the intellectual/spiritual undertones (like Sir and Madam, in English).

Let's hypothetically assume that an enlightenment of some sorts takes place in the Islamic world in the next 100 years. We, as ex* muslims will applaud with hardiness and could quite happily die as satisfied humans.

But wait. How is this enlightenment going to alter our thought patterns? We speak devotional languages, not technical ones. We may be forced (like many turks) to speak an abhorrent and minimal language peppered with artificial neologisms. It's no coincidence that those against Ataturk in Turkey don't resent his blatant nationalism and irriligiosity as much as they do his 1928 latinisation of the Ottoman alphabet which was previously written in a perso-arabic script.
- yeezevee
- Pub Regular
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #3 - September 05, 2013, 12:05 PM

Quote from: schizo on September 05, 2013, 09:40 AM
The coordinated eradication of elaborate and devotional idioms in favour of those of a more technical and scientific persuasion.

What are peoples thoughts on this? I'll hold off on presenting any sort of judgment of my own until we've amassed a body of argumentation to proceed from.

Go for it schizo., it will be very useful thread for those who get brainwashed with word jugglery., I am not sure one need to ERADICATE those silly so-called devotional idioms., but better thing is to educate the folks and if necessary make fun of them and the fools who consider these idioms as divine or devotional effect on the brain.

Go for it schizo., tell the world " You idiots, those idioms are nothing but word jugglery that make you feel good/brain washed/have hypnotic effect on you"

Quote from: toor on September 05, 2013, 11:16 AM
You may want to provide examples here.

Oh toor., you can take any statement/words from any religious books., millions.. nah billions consider those words as devotional/divine idioms., take them as examples and rip them apart..

Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything
I renounced my faith to become a kafir,
the beloved betrayed me and turned in to a Muslim
- moi
- Pub Regular
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #4 - September 05, 2013, 08:14 PM

Steven Fry has been discussing the language I am using now. It is a dog's dinner of Norse, French, Welsh, Latin and home grown stuff. Queen was perfectly well spelt with a cw at the front for example.

Plain English is about using ordinary terms in the place of complex ones.

Languages are continually changing, and I would strongly support as wide a vocabulary as possible for everyone. Part of the problem is that languages might not be able to express the required breadth of meanings.

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
- Quod Sum Eris
- King of the
- Pub Regular
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #5 - September 05, 2013, 08:22 PM

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
- toor
- Administrator
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #6 - September 05, 2013, 08:59 PM

Quote from: schizo on September 05, 2013, 12:02 PM
My question is: with the prevalence of science and technology are we enabling older terminology with spiritual undertones to become antiquated? Everyone uses gerçek in Turkey but hakikiyet is considered to be an antiquated term.

Idioms lose currency with disuse - self-evident enough. That said, people are quite willing to adopt whatever words most closely approximate what they want to say - as the failure of the Académie Française to discourage the use of loan-words might suggest. Cometh the need, cometh the neologism (or resurrected archaism), surely?

Quote from: schizo on September 05, 2013, 12:02 PM
Let's hypothetically assume that an enlightenment of some sorts takes place in the Islamic world in the next 100 years. We, as ex* muslims will applaud with hardiness and could quite happily die as satisfied humans.

But wait. How is this enlightenment going to alter our thought patterns? We speak devotional languages, not technical ones. We may be forced (like many turks) to speak an abhorrent and minimal language peppered with artificial neologisms. It's no coincidence that those against Ataturk in Turkey don't resent his blatant nationalism and irriligiosity as much as they do his 1928 latinisation of the Ottoman alphabet which was previously written in a perso-arabic script.

Interesting thought, but an idiom that is arrived at spontaneously - rather than imposed from above within a relatively short period - is surely not the most obvious instrument of an enforced cultural divorce in the manner of Ataturk. Perhaps this makes the history of the Turkish language a special case?

Before it gets too late, you will find escape.
- schizo
- tesco value gabba
- Ex-Muslim
- One must be absolutely modern.
- offline
The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #7 - September 07, 2013, 08:43 AM

Quote from: toor on September 05, 2013, 08:59 PM
Interesting thought, but an idiom that is arrived at spontaneously - rather than imposed from above within a relatively short period - is surely not the most obvious instrument of an enforced cultural divorce in the manner of Ataturk. Perhaps this makes the history of the Turkish language a special case?

Indeed it does. However,

This drive to purify the Turkish language was conceived of during the Tanzimat period, by the likes of Ahmet Midhat Efendiand Namik Kemal. See Enver Pasha's failed reforms to the Ottoman alphabet for evidence of this. So whilst Ataturk's reforms undoubtedly accelerated the process the ideology isn't without pedigree.

More prosaically, how can (assuming it adopts Islam's mass-mobilisation) nationalism alter the course of non-arabian islamic languages?
- schizo
- tesco value gabba
- Ex-Muslim
- One must be absolutely modern.
- offline
Re: The coordinated eradication of devotional idioms
Reply #8 - September 07, 2013, 10:25 AM

Quote from: moi on September 05, 2013, 08:14 PM
Languages are continually changing, and I would strongly support as wide a vocabulary as possible for everyone. Part of the problem is that languages might not be able to express the required breadth of meanings.

I don't support the Gülenıst undertones of this newspaper but the writer is bang on point with the last paragraph of this article:

Quote
At an insurance company where I consult, the employees of the partner bank (name withheld to protect the guilty!) regularly send us emails that can only be described as “Turklish.” They have given up trying to find Turkish equivalents and just write the English words, with Turkish endings stuck on them: “Benim concernum,” “unemploymentsiz” are recent cracking examples.
Apart from railing against some “linguistic monstrosities” (for example, he abhors the -sel ending), Lewis argues that by simplifying the language Turkish has lost its rich shades of meaning. Thought, concept, reflection, sentiment, consideration … all of these become “düşünce” in Turkish. I think he would take heart to see how the language is evolving in the decade since he wrote his book: Some of the older words are creeping back in when pure Turkish just doesn’t have the perfect word to say exactly what we mean.

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-202858-was-the-turkish-language-reform-a-success-or-a-catastrophe.html
1« Previous thread | Next thread »