[KS] NYTimes.com Article: Writing as a Block for Asians

[J.Scott Burgeson]

It seems rather obvious to point out, but the
assumption is that Chinese, Koreans and/or Japanese
only speak their respective languages in a pure,
self-contained, vacuum-like environment. But of
course, for several decades at least, most Koreans and
Japanese and many Chinese have studied English and
other foreign languages for years in schools and at
university, and those languages have in addition all
been heavily influenced and infiltrated by English and
other foreign languages. So the idea of some "pure"
Korean/Chinese/Japanese speaker who has not been
influenced by other foreign languages seems a rather
essentialized assumption... And of course, the study
of math and science which involve the use of abstract
symbols is also widespread and popular in these
countries... Are we talking the 19th or 21st century
here?
   --Scott Bug



--- Young Kyun Oh <youngoh at asu.edu> wrote:

> I better stop here.  Maybe it is fair to say,
> "Asians are brilliant imitators but poor innovators,
> adept at borrowing and improving on Western science
> but not so skilled at making advances themselves,"
> as quoted in the article.  I honestly think that I
> might have to agree with it.  But, are their
> languages or writing systems (and only those) to be
> blamed for that? 


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com