Rash That Looks Like A Sunburn

HUGO CHAVEZ AND THE ENGLISH

CANTV, the company Venezuela's largest telephone, began a campaign this week to defend the use of English among their employees. The company, bought not long ago by the government of Hugo Chavez, calls the campaign: "Say it in Castilian, say it with pride." The Venezuelan government statement, we suggest some English words to avoid such frequent use of certain words in English: team, not staff, sponsor and sponsor not ; meeting and not meeting ; mouse, not mouse , server, and not host , telesales and telemarketing not .

Chavez has done many things worthy of our most picturesque dictators (the change of half an hour, for example). In this context, the language policy that wants to implement a consistent measure, in keeping with their fight against "cultural imperialism" of the U.S. (Chavez populism incoherent rather the economic policy toward the great empire: America is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil.) In fact, for quite some time "before the arrival of the" pro-American "Sarkozy - the French tried, as part of its cultural, everyday speech banish concepts like France weekend, OK and boss.

What Chavez does not seem to know is that simply can not legislate people's language. Hierarchies, the English Language Academy, dictionaries, governments - can propose anything they want, but in the short and long the street is available. And the street in Latin America, receives every day a merciless barrage of words in English, and appropriates it needs, of which sound good. An Argentine writer who lives in Spain once told me, purist him that their policy language was very simple: if the word was going to use Castilian equivalent, since he used the word in Castilian. Therefore, wearing jeans instead of jeans. But I said that, for a Latin American, even English-sounding word, jeans was very artificial, while jeans was natural.

If the main trunk of a language is strong (and the English is) words from other languages \u200b\u200bthat are incorporated into this as strengthen, enrich it. The strength of English comes largely from the ease with which he adapted words from other languages \u200b\u200b(due mainly to the United States there is no Language Academy to act as a safeguard and is dedicated to monitor the entry of other words English, nor is there a dictionary "official"). Remember that there have been other times when the English language purists have pulled their hair at the linguistic invasion. By the late nineteenth century, the cultural primacy of France gave the English a lot of gallic acid. The English not only survived the Gallicisms, but the modernist writers, flagged by Darius, founded the modern Latin American literature thanks largely to her admiration for the words and the internal rhythms of the French language.

So, good luck to Chavez with his proposal. Meanwhile, I write in Castilian and proudly publish this article in the newspaper, but also send email to my friends, I will hang on my blog, and give everyone permission to that linker. Because email and blog and link already in the English, right?