Re: Grammar

[John Haltiwanger <john.haltiwanger@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:27 PM, Matija Šuklje <matija@suklje.name> wrote:

> Personally I feel that the political correctness has gone a bit too far, but
> where the line should be drawn, I don't know.
>
> I can provide a few examples of where political correctness *has* gone too far
> and can actually be even counter-productive:
>
> In Slovenia it is rude to call Bosnians "Bosanci", Albanians "Šiptarji" and
> Gypsies "Cigani" and the official political correct terms for them are:
> "Bošnjaki", "Albanci" and "Romi".
>
> With first two the problem is that they even officially call _themselves_
> "Bosanci" and "Šiptarji" in their own language.

Who is considering it rude? Do the Bosanci consider it rude when you
call them Bosanci and prefer that you would use Bošnjaki? Or is it a
different set of people who are offended? This is my personal litmus
test for navigating the preferred naming of groups (preferred by the
groups themselves, that is).

There are many cases in American culture at least of groups using a
term within themselves that they do not want others to use, but not
usually the names used by that population when politely referring to
themselves (i.e. generally these terms are loaded slang words
appropriated from the dominating culture and internalized in order to
redistribute the balance of power that forms around that word.) So I'm
wondering if the situation you describe in Slovenia is being driven by
these groups, or if those groups would actually prefer to go by the
name they call themselves.

> With the so called Roma people, the problem is even bigger, since to my
> knowledge Roma are just one of the tribes. So by having to call _all_ gypsies
> Roma, you are effectively putting one tribe in front of the others and denying
> the existence of the others.

I have to ask the same question: Do the tribes in general prefer Romi
over Cigani? Also: am I going to far in assuming that any movement to
encourage them to all be called by their individual tribal names would
inevitably be referred to as pushing a 'politically correct' agenda?

In proper synchronistic fashion, I came across this piece today that
fits our topic of discussion:

  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383131592767868.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
-- Lost in Translation
-- New cognitive research suggests that language profoundly influences
the way people see the world; a different sense of blame in Japanese
and Spanish

"All this new research shows us that the languages we speak not only
reflect or express our thoughts, but also shape the very thoughts we
wish to express. The structures that exist in our languages profoundly
shape how we construct reality, and help make us as smart and
sophisticated as we are."
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