'In the eyes of many a Yugoslavian despot, Slovenia is the golden goose that got away. Rich in resources, naturally good looking and persistently peaceful, Slovenia has been doing just fine (flourishing, even) since breaking away from its Yugoslav owners in 1991. Travellers in search of an antidote to much of Europe's crowds and high prices can, at least for the meantime, consider it their little secret. ... '
lonelyplanet.com
Maximiliano of Habsburg used to like Slovenia, didn't he, it's right next to his favourite place at the naval base of Trieste ... i recall reading how he felt quite homesick for the area, after he'd been sucked into the family power politics to the point where they had him trying to conquer a people on the other side of the world ... he wasn't a bad guy really, just in the wrong place in the wrong years ... anyway, we handled it for ya
There used to be a liechtensteiner on one of the gulf islands here, quite an amusing young fellow, sharp wit and a gift for mimicry, he would get outrageous with three beers in him ... so ever since, i use the nationality in hypothetical scenarios, like for instance 'suppose the liechtensteiners were to invade Oregon ..' ... because they've demonstrated that they can take it without getting upset, small nations are like that eh
Not wise to have spanish first in announcements, not in New Jersey anyway ... aggravates the anglos, no point in that .... there is a movement to dictate english as 'official' language, promoted by two classes of people, mouth-breathers and those who haven't thought it through, it would be smarter politics of the hispano to avoid as much as possible the conversion of the latter class to the former
Whatever the japanese speak, they were sure fluent in it last night, whew
Didn't finish that post last night - main thought was going to be how the mixing showed up in the language, and beyond that - how the mixing of language itself was a cause of vigour, as well as an effect of it .... there are thousands of words from arabic in spanish, and they came all of a sudden, within a decade or so, as the moros used their newly modified spanish to trade throughout the 'roman lake' area, and spread it well into Africa as well, took it back east and used it as lingua franca around their caliphate offices also ... without a tongue fairly common to all they couldn't have ruled/traded, and so that's how spanish got retained as the closest living language to latin, by being for a time subject to some heathen faith, ironic eh
'lingua franca' - rings a bell, i saw this idea somewhere recently - suppose one of the currently warring factions in Palestine were to be deeded a stretch of land in France, for the settling of the matter .... now, leaving the french out of it for the moment, there are certain advantages to the plan, eh ..... and not least of which is the logically zippy name for the resulting franco-palestinian creation -
.
.
Frankenstine |
