Julia Jones wrote: <<In message Pine.SOL.4.30.0111252326130.21847-100000@kruuna.Helsinki.FI, Kai V Karmanheimo karmanhe@cc.helsinki.fi writes
English-speaking peoples are now in a rather privileged position of living in a linguistically dominant cultures that are giving out the influences rather than digesting them.
Ahem. The latter part of that statement is a load of bollocks, or at least is accurate in the sense that I presume from context you did *not* mean.>> <snip the rest of the message, including a series of hilarious comments that indeed make my above comment look very genital.>
"And for my next trick, I shall swallow my other foot."
Of course English has drawn heavily from numerous languages over the centuries, which is one reason why it has prospered. It is still doing it. I really am slipping...
What I believe I was thinking, was that today English is more the donor of influences to other languages and cultures than the receiver. English is not the world language yet, but in areas like international trade it is quickly become just the thing. Whether it's items of popular culture or science, more is coming out of the English-speaking world than going in, at least in my perception, which I admit is not terribly well-informed. But I would say that the English-speaking countries are today far less dependant on translations of another cultures' texts and have less *need* to draw on foreign influences than many other countries (and I am not suggesting that the cultures of all English-speaking countries are homogenous). Do correct me if I am wrong.
This I was I think my attempt to rationalise Kathryn's comment that lot of native English speakers don't comprehend the untranslatability of puns and the idioms. Bearing in mind that misconceptions about translation and blindness to one's own linguistic idiosyncrasies are a fact of life in just about everywhere, I still find it a hard notion to swallow. Almost as hard as this foot (damn, should've washed me feet first...)
Kai