HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.esperanto,eunet.politics
Subject: Re: EC membership of Sweden and Austria ?
Date: 12 Apr 92 01:18:53 GMT
Reply-To: eric@sejnet.sunet.se
Followup-To: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.esperanto,eunet.politics
Organization: Swedish University Network (SUNET), Stockholm, Sweden
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-5

In article <1992Apr9.103450.29436@ccsun.strath.ac.uk>, duncan@ossian.uucp (Duncan C Thomson) writes...
>Esperanto is estimated to be 4-10 times easier to learn than natural languages.

I am tired of this argument. It is totally meaningless and unscientific, since
neither the native language of the speaker nor the natural language being
compared to Esperanto is mentioned. It's like saying that "bacillus X is 4-10
times less dangerous for the human body than other bacilli", without mentioning
what population and other bacilli you are talking about. I have never seen this
kind of sweeping statement in medical reports, perhaps because medical
scientists are a tad more serious than your average Esperanto bigot.

Ease of learning is an important factor, which of course must be measured
scientifically and with usable accuracy. But another important factor, and
probably the most important of all, is willingness to learn. Learning English
is a necessity in today's business world, and lets you understand MTV, movies
in English, and so on. English lets you go about anywhere in the world and find
people who will understand you. The younger generation is mostly enthusiastic
about learning English, even though they may be reluctant to use it. Esperanto,
on the other hand, brings you close to nothing nowadays. MTV and movies are
certainly not being switched to Esperanto anytime soon, nor will the population
of the US (and ancillary industry) start talking Esperanto. Making people learn
Esperanto would involve a tremendous cost in 'propaganda' and other forms of
incentive: you would have to subsidize TV broadcasts in Esperanto, movies,
songs, books, and so on (and before you tell me they already exist, I was not
talking about intellectual literature but things which please the masses - just
about what you see on MTV most of the time).

>Yes, but the people who go to `international' conferences where English is
>the conference language are unlikely to go if they don't speak English.

Whereas, of course, people who go to conferences in Esperanto are very likely
to go if they don't speak Esperanto. Brilliant reasoning I must say.

  Eric
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
From: orhan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Orhan Mehmet Arsel)
Subject: Re: News/Haber--Part II
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 92 00:35:09 GMT


Quite interestingly, and unexpectedly, the German reaction on
Turkey's conflict with Kurds eased significantly last Tuesday.
Below is the news bulletin written to soc.culture.turkish and
posted here without permission. Any comments on the subject are
welcome.

In article <9204160249.AA24131@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU> Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BITNET@forsythe.Stanford.EDU> writes:
>
>    Tue Apr 14, 1992  9:12 am  EST
>
>EUROPEAN COMMUNITY FOREIGN MINISTERS DECIDED NOT TO DISCUSS KURDISH ISSUE
>    04/07/92, HURRIYET-- Contrary to the expectations, Turkish government's
>handling of the Kurdish crisis during new year, Now Ruz, celebrations in
southeastern Turkey was not discussed during the meeting of European Community
>foreign ministers in Luxembourg.  Germany which claimed its arms were being
>used against civilians decided not to bring up the subject.  England and the
Netherlands reportedly played a major role in the decision not to discuss this
>issue during the meeting.

Sincerely,


Orhan.


Xref: sparky soc.culture.europe:3814 soc.culture.esperanto:710 eunet.politics:636
From: higa@lclark.edu (Keith Higa)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.esperanto,eunet.politics
Subject: Re: EC membership of Sweden and Austria ?
Date: 12 Apr 92 03:08:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: lclark.1992Apr12.030830.13829
Organization: Lewis & Clark College, Portland OR

In article <1992Apr12.004745.21692@sunic.sunet.se> eric@sejnet.sunet.se writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.103450.29436@ccsun.strath.ac.uk>, duncan@ossian.uucp (Duncan C Thomson) writes...
>>Esperanto is estimated to be 4-10 times easier to learn than natural languages.

>I am tired of this argument. It is totally meaningless and unscientific, since
>neither the native language of the speaker nor the natural language being
>compared to Esperanto is mentioned. It's like saying that "bacillus X is 4-10
>times less dangerous for the human body than other bacilli", without mentioning
>what population and other bacilli you are talking about.

OK, try this.  If you learn Esperanto, it will make learning other foreign
languages even easier.  There have been studies with two groups of students:
Group A:  taught one year of E-o followed by three years of French.
Group B:  taught four years of French.

Each group is allowed to go at its own pace, and after four years the
students' knowledge of French is assessed.
Results:  Group A learned more French than Group B and is better able to
use the language than group B.
There have also been similar studies with other European languages.

There is a way to "quantify" ease of a language:  proficiency per unit time.
That is, with its lack of exceptions and simple rules, one unit time of
learning E-o will produce the same proficiency level as learning language
X for Y units of time, thus making it Y times easier to learn.
Speaking personally, even after 8 years of learning Japanese, I still can't
speak it with confidence, and reading is difficult.  Whereas I have studied 
Esperanto for one year and can say relatively complex sentences that make
some sense, and read just about anything with a dictionary.
-- 
Keith K. Higa			Lewis & Clark College
higa@lclark.edu			Portland, OR, USA
"Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics.
 I can assure you that mine are still greater." -- Albert Einstein
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.nordic,eunet.politics
From: gd8f@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Gregory  Dandulakis)
Subject: English OR Esperanto?
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 21:00:06 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.113514.15008@ccsun.strath.ac.uk> duncan@ossian.uucp (Duncan C Thomson) writes:

>The third solution is to adopt an easy, neutral auxiliary language.  It is
>fair, it is cheapest in terms of time and money.  Many people oppose this
>on the grounds that it is `artificial'.
>
>The language problem in Europe *must* be solved, and it will worsen as time
>progresses.  It is a *big* problem.  It needs a powerful, cheap, fair and
>intelligent solution.


         I absolutely agree.


>I believe that Esperanto is the best solution.
>
>It is the most widely spoken auxiliary language in the world - spoken by
>millions of people worldwide - estimates vary from 2 million to 20 million.
>
>It is proven to work - at the world Esperanto congress thousands of people
>from all over the world meet and discuss a huge variety of topics, without
>a single interpreter.
>
>It is easy to learn - between 4 and 10 times as easy as national languages -
>so it would take less time and money to teach it to everybody in the world
>than English, Mandarin or Spanish.
>
>It is fair - it belongs to no nation, religion or race.
>
>It is outward-looking - it is spoken not only in Europe, but across the
>world - from Nigeria to Nepal, from the USA to China.


   It seems like a very good idea to me, indeed! You convinced me :-)
   In one or the other way, all the advanced languages initially were 
   artificial creations of the bureaucratic elites to facilitate the 
   large scale transactions.

   Some provisos though. How this is going to be applied transiently
   without hurting the economy at this critical technologically 
   historical turn?
   I would propose that all the EU states adopt the policy of teaching
   both English and Esperanto as foreign languages obligatorily.
   With this way you can still keep up with the modern world of
   science, business etc, while simultaneousely you work toward the
   goal of creating a common neutral language, gradually within few
   generations.
   An absolute prerequisite for starting this programm will be 
   securing the required long term commitement from the participating
   people as a whole, which can only be realized by a strong central
   government committed to this goal. This was always the case with
   the previous emergence of all the modern *advanced* languages; a central
   government promoted them.

>	-Duncan

Gregory Dandulakis
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.nordic,eunet.politics
From: anson@akb.in-berlin.de (Andreas Bewersdorff)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,alt.usage.english
Distribution: world
Organization: private site in Berlin
Subject: Re: billion/milliard, was: English OR Esperanto?
X-Charset: iso-8859-1
Reply-To: anson@akb.in-berlin.de
X-Software: HERMES GUS 99.0 Rev. Sep 02 1991
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 09:19:44 MEST

Hallo !

In <1992Apr12.014952.22066@cs.tu-berlin.de>, Wolfgang Schwanke writes:
 ()              US              Ger
 () 10**12       trillion        Billion
 () 10**15       quadrillion     Trillion<- error

I'm sorry to have to correct a German on German numbers, but Wolfgang has
skipped a word in the German column between 10**12 and 10**15 : Billiarde !

I looked the numbers up in the (German) 'DUDEN Etymologie' and found :

  The German word 'Million' is taken from the Italian 'millione' which is
  derived from the Latin/Italian 'mille' (1000) by appending an 'enlarging-
  suffix', giving the meaning 'big-thousand' without a fixed number associated
  with it. This meaning spread from Italian to all European languages since
  the 13th century. 'Million' as the number '1000*1000' was introduced in the
  17th century. In the 18th century, 'Milliarde' for '1000 Millionen' was
  taken from the French word 'milliard' (which in French was derived by changing
  the suffix of the French word 'million'). The word 'Billion' was taken from
  French in the 18th century in its original meaning (but today, French 'billion'
  is 'eine Milliarde'!). The word 'billion' was a 'scientific composition' with
  the Latin prefix 'bi...', indicating the 'second'/'next' power in the series.
  The next powers were built likewise with 'tri...', 'quad...', etc. :

    10^(0*6) :  ---             10^(0*6+3) : Tausend
    10^(1*6) :  Million         10^(1*6+3) : Milliarde
    10^(2*6) :  BIllion         10^(2*6+3) : BIlliarde
    10^(3*6) :  TRIllion        10^(3*6+3) : TRIlliarde
    10^(4*6) :  QUADrillion     10^(4*6+3) : QUADrilliarde
    10^(5*6) :  QUINTillion     10^(5*6+3) : QUINTilliarde
    10^(x*6) :  xxxx-illion     10^(x*6+3) : xxxx-illiarde

Because of the direct correspondance of the powers and the names, I find
this system quite logical and easy to learn.

Do you have '<insert your own language> etymolgy' of these numbers ?
Why do other people use other systems with the word 'x-illion' for the
power 10^((x+1)*3), which force people to learn the numbers (instead of
being able to 'see' them), and to learn twice as many prefixes (bi, tri,
quad, etc) ?

                                                      mfG Andreas


-- 
Ich war ein .signature Virus. Mach' mit und kopiere mich, oder ich sterbe aus.
-- 
Andreas Bewersdorff,  D - W 1000 Berlin 12,  Germany, Europe, Terra
anson@akb.in-berlin.de

Xref: sparky soc.culture.europe:3794 soc.culture.french:3111
From: fingerhu@ircam.fr (Michel Fingerhut)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.french
Subject: Re: Euro Disney (was CNN Reports...)
Keywords: greve
Date: 15 Apr 92 11:39:54 GMT
Organization: IRCAM, Paris (France)

>                                   Il faudrait aussi se rendre compte que
>lorsque les gens vont debarquer a Disneyland, ils vont passer une ou deux nuits
>dans la region parisienne, d'ou un gain pour la restauration, l'hotellerie et
>les commercants. Il serait alors de bon ton de ne pas sombrer dans un
>anti-americanisme primaire;

'Alors'?  Parce que c'est une source de revenus?
Il est de bon ton de ne jamais tomber dans rien de primaire,
mais le fait que ce soit une source de revenus n'est pas, en
soi, une raison pour ne pas s'y opposer.
From: fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars Peter Fischer)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
Subject: Re: The nasty Kohl, was: EC membership of Sweden and Austria, and so WHAT ?
Date: 9 Apr 92 00:53:04 GMT
	<1992Mar25.115746.16013@odin.diku.dk> <x8c+Gt#@engin.umich.edu>
	<FISCHER.92Apr3084200@thor.iesd.auc.dk>
	<ABRAHAM.92Apr3132308@loke.iesd.auc.dk> <13825@star.cs.vu.nl>
Organization: Mathematics and Computer Science, Aalborg University

>>>>> "Grunwald" == Grunwald PD (peter@cs.vu.nl)

Grunwald> You can cry around that Germany is becoming a superpower and
Grunwald> that that is a bad thing, and that 'subtler than 50 years
Grunwald> ago, not by tanks but by capitalist means' the Germans are
Grunwald> slowly 'conquering' the East...

As someone from a small nation, the question is: Are the Germans any
worse than USA or Japan? Does it mean anything to me if the big
economic influence comes from Germany rather than from the USA? Do I
care if the big cooperation that own the local producer of mobile
communications equipment is American or German?

Personally, I would rather have the Germans. My cultural background is
closer to theirs, and through the European Union I might actually have
some kind of political instrument for dealing with them.

I find the strange that people are so scared about the Germans. Yeah,
they have a less-than-glorious past (from Bismark to Hitler) but their
is an even stronger force of German (or is it Germanic) culture that
is extremely important to what we call the Western world, from Bach to
to Strauss to G\"odel. The fact that non-German-inspired classical
music is usually called national tells a tale of heavy German
influence on European culture.

The offer is this: Saki, McDonalds, or Bach? Make your choice.

/Lars
--
Lars Fischer, fischer@iesd.auc.dk | It takes an uncommon mind to think of
CS Dept., Aalborg Univ., DENMARK. | these things.  -- Calvin
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
From: albion@bnr.ca (Alan Buchanan)
Subject: Re: CNN Reports...
Originator: albion@bcrks63
Keywords: american culture
Reply-To: alanbu@bnr.ca
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd, Ottawa
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 14:14:15 GMT


In article <1992Apr14.161328.8101@wam.umd.edu>, luigi@next02wor.wam.umd.edu (Luis G. Torregrosa) writes:

> 	As wonderful as DisneyWorld is for people of all ages, the fact  
> that you call it a "part of American culture" makes me feel real sorrow  
> for this country.  I really hope that what happens is that you just can't  
> quite grab the meaning of "culture", and not that what you say is true.
> 
> Luis Torregrosa	


Well, is this not the same country that is voting on which Elvis will go
on the stamps?

Culture - customs and civilization of a particular time or people.  [OED]




--
Alan Buchanan       Bell-Northern Research, Ltd       Ph.: (613) 763-2750
Silicon Design      P.O. Box 3511, Station C          Fax: (613) 763-3970
  Methods           Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1Y 4H7  

alanbu@bnr.ca        

        Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
                         - William Butler Yeats
Xref: sparky soc.culture.europe:3782 soc.culture.yugoslavia:3919
From: na0i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Nenad Antonic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Re: JUST WONDERING . . .
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:13:08 GMT
	<1992Apr11.161948.10966@husc3.harvard.edu>
	<1992Apr14.153818.6955@bcrka451.bnr.ca>
	<SCM.92Apr14164819@hector.cs.brown.edu>
Organization: Doctoral student, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Stanislav Markovic writes:

> With all love/hate that exists between Yu nations, we could still have
> escaped the war, were it not for the Western countries (and especially
> the US) that literally pushed us into it. 

	Sorry -- but you are completely wrong.

	It is clear, without doubt, that the culprit of all the recent
events in what used to be Yugoslavia is Slobodan Milo\v{s}evi\'c
and people around him (including the writers of the SANU 
Memorandum).

	Recall how many people changed in the office in other parts
of former Yugoslavia. But he is still in power. And pulling all the
strings.

	He came in power in 1987. At that time, we had a year of
Mikuli\'c government ahead. Markovi\'c was still in Zagreb. That
was the time of Agrokomerc scandal.
	And all those people are out of the politics by now. Except for
the main player: Slobodan Milo\v{s}evi\'c.

	Don't you remember the time when Drnov\v{s}ek got in the
office of the Federal President. And he was the guest of Milo\v{s}evi\'c
at Kosovo Polje celebration. This was early summer of 1989. And, in his
speech, Slobodan Milo\v{s}evi\'c promised the battles, with arms. He
promised the war that is going on now. And the Serbs in the crowd
applauded. There were not only a few there, but thousands. Half a million,
even though some in the euphoria said that there was a million of
participants. And they were not the locals -- many of them spent
hours, if not days, to arrive.

	Those who could have easily stopped the war were the people
that attended that rally on Kosovo, or one of the many in other parts
of the country. Unfortunately, they did not. They were there, applauding
their Leader when he was promising the war.
	And now we all have the war. For now, it's still only in other
peoples' backyard, but it is approaching Serbia. And you are looking
for the culprit in Western Governments. NO! 

	You'd better look in the mirror.

	Regards

		Nenad Antoni\'c.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.europe:3750 soc.culture.nordic:2857 eunet.politics:630
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.nordic,eunet.politics
Subject: Re: English OR Esperanto?
Date: 14 Apr 92 12:58:36 GMT
Reply-To: eric@sejnet.sunet.se
Organization: Swedish University Network (SUNET), Stockholm, Sweden
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-5

In article <1992Apr11.020300.20201@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, gd8f@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Gregory  Dandulakis) writes...
>May be I can illustrate the use of the adjectives "poor" and "advanced"
>for a natural language by taking as paralleles the use of the adjectives
>"low" and "high" level programming languages.
> 
>In both cases all the languages can be used to satisfy all or almost
>all the human needs, in principle. But the differences in the *efficiency*
>of doing that, with respect to the "user friendlyness", are large
>for most of the cases.

What the hell is "efficiency" or "user friendliness" of a language? What's
next, comparisons of the window systems of natural languages?

  Eric
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
From: peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters)
Subject: URGENT: Fax no and e-mail required
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 06:19:06 GMT

I have to meet a deadline (Wednesday 15 April) and am urgently looking for
a fax no and an e-mail address of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universita"t in
Mu"nchen - or even better - of the Institut fu"r deutsche Philologie 
(Schellingstrasse 3, 8000 Mu"nchen 40).
Who can help me out?? (Preferably by e-mail)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Bert Peeters                         Tel: +61 02 202344
Department of Modern Languages               002 202344
University of Tasmania at Hobart        Fax: 002 207813
GPO Box 252C                            Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au
Hobart TAS 7001
Australia
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.french
From: pkersale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Philippe Herve Kersale)
Subject: Re: Euro Disney (was CNN Reports...)
Keywords: greve
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 02:05:25 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.003949.18714@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, luzeaux@campanile.berkeley.edu (Dominique Luzeaux) writes:
|> Il faudrait aussi se rendre compte que
|> lorsque les gens vont debarquer a Disneyland, ils vont passer une ou deux nuits
|> dans la region parisienne, d'ou un gain pour la restauration, l'hotellerie et
|> les commercants. Il serait alors de bon ton de ne pas sombrer dans un
|> anti-americanisme primaire; de plus, quand un enfant va voir Asterix ou Disney,
|> il se fout de savoir si celui-la est Francais ou celui-ci Americain.
|> 
Il faudrait que tu saches que contrairement a ce qui c'est passe au Japon, ou
Disney avait vendu une licence, cette fois-ci Dysney a investi principalement en
hotellerie. Il est en effet illusoire de penser qu'un parc d'attraction est
rentable a lui seul. C'est l'environnement aux alentours qui en fait un affaire
juteuse (hotels, seminaires d'entreprises,...). Cela fait parti des clauses du
contrat que Dysney ait les terrains proches pour y construire des hotels.
(je trouve personnellement cela scandaleux, parce que pour construire ces
hotels, on a exproprie des gens, sous pretexte de "projet d'interet national")
Donc le gain pour la restauration est minime.

philippe (le Seul, l'...)
From: FR089001@ysub.ysu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
Subject: search
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:09:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: ysub.92104.150907FR089001
Organization: Youngstown State University

I am looking for the email address of the  university
of Zurich in Switzerland.

If you happen to know, please email it on my above address.

I really appreciate it very much.

Shaker
Youngstown, Ohio, USA
Xref: sparky soc.culture.europe:3619 soc.culture.nordic:2743 eunet.politics:610
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.nordic,eunet.politics
Subject: Re: English OR Esperanto?
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:33:48 GMT
Reply-To: eric@sejnet.sunet.se
Organization: Swedish University Network (SUNET), Stockholm, Sweden
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-5

In article <1992Apr6.210006.21678@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, gd8f@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Gregory  Dandulakis) writes...
>   In one or the other way, all the advanced languages initially were 
>   artificial creations of the bureaucratic elites to facilitate the 
>   large scale transactions.

Is that what they teach kids in US schools? :-) Damn. I didn't know the Greeks
and Romans had a bureaucracy that took care of teaching the language of their
choice to the masses. Learn a new thing every day.

>   I would propose that all the EU states adopt the policy of teaching
>   both English and Esperanto as foreign languages obligatorily.

Ah yes, a good dictatorship is the way to go. I'm sure people in, say, Ticino,
will be delighted to learn that, in addition to having to learn German because
that's what the industry of their country is based on, and English because it's
the international business language, they have to learn Esperanto for
pseudo-religious reasons.

>   An absolute prerequisite for starting this programm will be 
>   securing the required long term commitement from the participating
>   people as a whole, which can only be realized by a strong central
>   government committed to this goal.

Ah, finally something I can agree with :-) Yes, beyond any doubt, the only
means of securing the long term commitment of the masses towards such a stupid
project is some variation of dictatorship. Let's face it, the masses are
already hostile to the idea of learning English; if you want them, in addition,
to learn an artificial language which the older generations don't know and will
never learn, you are going to need a lot of luck :-)

  Eric
Xref: sparky soc.culture.europe:3503 soc.culture.nordic:2604 eunet.politics:573