That's a fairly normal human thing maybe, to express your tribal identity through regional manner of speech, or through jargon specific to occupation .... west coast loggers here, from northern California to southern Alaska, had something of a dialect with hundreds of words and expressions, many came from indian terms but most were developed within the culture ... more than a few made it into mainstream english, like 'skid road' .... here on SI lots of the computer programmer crowd use sometimes an industry jargon, don't understand any of it myself, beyond the fact that it is a bonding thing
Near our other house there is much tzotzil and ch'ol, two current dialects of maya ... it is said that they tend to say everything in sort of a literary manner, rarely making simple declarative statements, mostly using metaphor and other device related to their oral history or to current events ... it is considered pushy and/or distant to say something overly straight-out .... this shows in the way they speak spanish, for instance, a man who simply asks you for a cigarrette is at the same time telling you that you are at arms length, not of his tribe, he can be expressing respect here but also something else, a separate-ness .... but when he gets to know you better and intends to convey acceptance he will say, my friend we invite you to celebrate with us the saint's day of El Fumador [a god well known from the maya glifs]
So what do you think about Liberia? ..... looks to me like a great way for the DC neocons to salvage some of the respect they've lost with their Iraq policy - if they play it right, talk like reasonable people to liberians and to their allies, i would support canadian involvement in a peace-making, peace-keeping, policing and admin building effort ..... and so would my good friend here, who did two tours in Liberia for MSF Holland, last one about ten years ago |
