Is the world really flat?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RWood

Enrichment reading recommendations are The Immense Journey by Loren Eiseley and The Silent Language by Ed Hall. Great books. Not required, just great related reading.

Speaking personally, I'd make Hall's _The Silent Language_ required reading, and I'd add his _The Hidden Dimension_ and _Beyond Culture_ to the syllabus.

All written languages evolved over time to meet the demands of the society that created them with the exception of Korean that was devised completely by one of their Kings.

That can be considered an evolution, too. Prior to King Sejong, the Koreans used Chinese characters, and had developed three different systems for using Chinese characters to write Korean: Hyangchal, Gukyeol and Idu.

Hangul did not replace them entirely, and a fair number of Chinese characters can still be used in written Korean (though whether and how many appears to be a matter of debate in Korea.)

Have you noticed what’s happening as we come forward in time?

At each change of Dominant Media, more and more people are involved in creating the content and that content is spread to an ever-widening audience. This is the key to Dominant Media. From here on it just gets faster, more people are involved at every stage, and the distribution gets wider and wider. A side benefit is that education levels rise, as more people are required at all levels.

The key point for me is the velocity at which information propogates, and the rate of change that produces.

And I've seen a speculation that the complexity of the Chinese written language was a means of social control. It took a long and a lot of effort to master it, so only a relatively few could. Most folks simply couldn't afford the investment of time and money required. Nobles and wealthy merchants could send their kids to school to learn to read and write. Peasants couldn't - the kids were needed in the fields.
______
Dennis

[RWood]

Remember that this was originally from 1974.

When we last visited the world, the printing press was being used to disseminate knowledge throughout the world. Anyone with access to books and an education was able to read philosophy, science, history, and a whole host of things that people had seldom thought before. At the same time it small things like spelling started to be standardized within languages and new words were developed to express new thoughts and concepts. Sometimes, new objects or professions. Additionally, words of one language were borrowed by another language – not that English doesn’t have a lot of French constructs incorporated from the Norman invasion of 1066.

Things went along great for many years. Books were written, libraries were established, free libraries were established, the ability to read and write that was once restricted to the elite was eventually thought of as a right of a person in many countries (there are still countries today that restrict people’s learning), and newspapers were established. Now people could read or have read to them stories of recent events rather than hear tales at the ale houses and local markets. The same story now went to all people in an area at the same time. Everyone was “in the know.” Papers could be distributed to other areas and towns so what happened in one part was quickly known in another part. Add to this the improvements in transportation and it is easy to see how England knew within a month that a bunch of their colonies had declared independence back in 1776. Later the telegraph provided the ability for major news items to be sent vast distances so an event in New York City could be reported in the San Francisco paper the next day. Undersea cables linked the US and Europe.

People around the world were now reading about events in other parts of their own countries and in other countries. Some were able to get the papers from other countries and cities to read more details of events there. Since most newspapers were sold primarily in the area where they were published, they represented and reflected the attitudes and opinions of that group. If you compare the reporting of the recent war in Viet Nam as published in the Washington Post or the New Your Times with the reporting of the same incidents in the Times of London you get a completely different perspective. You might even think it was a different war.

War correspondents were a unique breed. From William Randolph Hearst’s famous quip, “You give me the pictures and I’ll give you the war.” (If you are taking notes, that one’s called the “Spanish-American War”) to Ernie Plye’s reports from the trenches in World War I, newspapers no longer relied on reprinting dispatches from other countries, they sent their own people to report it the “right way.” If you want a shock just read any European paper and see what they are saying about President Nixon and his troubles.

The telegraph and the telephone were point-to-point communications, newspapers had to be physically distributed and sometimes by the time you read it in the papers it was old news. Consider the stock market crash. If you had money in the market and your first knowledge was when you read it in the papers, you were far too late. After invention, the early experiments, and government funded development, radio spread from early amateurs to hucksters to full commercial networks stretching from one coast to the other. Radio is the next Dominant Media.

Most radio today, as it was in the beginning of commercial broadcasting, is concerned with local events, there was a time from the 1920s to the early 1950s when there were major commercial radio networks in the United States (names you know today like CBS and NBC) that provided news and entertainment. These dominated and homogenized the news and information areas. Now something that happened in New York could be heard in Los Angles at the same time as it was heard in Chicago. World Series baseball games were broadcast around the country as they were happening. You didn’t have to read about them the next day in the papers. More people listened to radio than ever read a book or newspaper. To feed this growing medium required more people to create the content – both news and entertainment.

So what happened? Just as printing helped to standardize the spelling of words and push aside regional variations (except in England that still insists on putting a “U” in certain words like “color”), radio helped to diminish the regional accents of various parts of the country. The southern drawl is not as pronounced as it was fifty or a hundred years ago just as the New England accent can now be understood even west of the Hudson River.

Just as the railroad of the 19th century had brought the country together commercially where a horseshoe manufactured in Troy, New York from iron ore mined in Minnesota and smelt in Lackawanna or Buffalo, New York could be used to shod a horse in Denver, so too did radio unite the country. When FDR gave his “Fireside Chats” it is said that you could walk down the street and never miss a word as every house had their radio tuned to the broadcast. (Those were the days before indoor air conditioning and suburbs where the houses are separated from each other and set back from the sidewalk and the road.)

One of the most popular entertainment shows on radio was called Amos & Andy. It was so popular that department stores like JL Hudson in Detroit would play it through their in store speakers because before they did, no one would shop while it was on. Likewise, movie houses (theaters) would time their features and shorts to pause for the time it was on, often this was advertised on the marquee in front.

One of the most famous radio broadcasters from out parent’s era was Edward R. Murrow of CBS. During the Battle of Brittan in World War II when Germany was bombing London, Murrow became famous for reporting from rooftops while the bombs and fighters rained destruction on the City of London. This set a standard of reporting that has often been imitated, but never duplicated. Many credit his reporting as laying the groundwork for the US to enter the war on the British side. There were a lot of support groups in this country that favored the German side. Remember that at that time Hitler was seen by many as a hero for pulling Germany from the ruins of World War I to the top ranks of nations. Most of the things that he and his followers are condemned for today were not known then.

End of Part 2

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue
"Ancient Greek lacked a word for colour blue ..."

Yes, And Aristotle speaks of the "three-coloured rainbow" in his Meteorologica (I've uploaded a version).

In Welsh, "Glas" can mean either blue or green.

It's not that people see fewer colours: they classify them in different ways depending on the language that they are using. (Arguably mid-blue and mid-green have more in common that pale icy blue and navy do.)

That's why it is a pity to lose a language: it may give us all sorts of new ways of looking at the world.

[nekokami]

Nice lecture! Cherokee (Tsalagi) was also a constructed written language (both versions; the version developed by Sequoya (aka George Gist) and the later version adapted to be easier to print from Latin fonts). The Vai syllabary in Liberia, Africa is another example.

Regarding the loss incurred to humanity as a whole when a language is lost, I would recommend Suzette Haden Elgin's The Language Imperative. You may or may not agree with her points and conclusions, but I think she covers the topic well.

[RWood]

Thanks Neko. Stay tuned as there are two more parts coming later in the week.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by RWood

Thanks Neko. Stay tuned as there are two more parts coming later in the week.

If I can be honest, Good Mister Wood, I haven't read the first two parts. Knowing there's more disinclines me to start, but only because I've sworn that I'll never start another "series" again until the final "book" is written.

My point (lest you think I'm being critical) is that I look forward to the lot being posted, so that I can combine them and chuck the resultant text onto my reader for consumption "off-line" (for my mind, more condusive to proper, appreciative comprehension).

Cheers,
Marc
PS. Can I call you Good Professor Wood from now on?

[RWood]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

PS. Can I call you Good Professor Wood from now on?

Call me anything except late for dinner. (I think we need an emotcon for a rimshot)

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by RWood

(I think we need an emotcon for a rimshot)

Oh, definitely!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Oh, definitely!

maybe we could find one of a drum, and name it

[Catire]

Is the world really flat?

It is according to these people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

maybe we could find one of a drum, and name it

[nekokami]

I favor this one:

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Yes, And Aristotle speaks of the "three-coloured rainbow" in his Meteorologica (I've uploaded a version).

Well many from the color science field will argue that are only 3 real colors, the rest are some combination of the original three.

=X=

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by =X=

Well many from the color science field will argue that are only 3 real colors, the rest are some combination of the original three.

=X=

that be correct...

for artists 3 primaries are red, yellow and blue - from these come all other other colours...[though it is doubtful one can obtain these in pure form]...

(slightly different for light - though, and also for colour printers)...

[=X=]

Answering the original post. I think the authors definition of 'FLAT' really confuses most readers, causing most to disagree.

However if we read this short excerpt from amazon

What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected"

what I see is most people agree with the author's comment on the world being flat.

While I don't agree with all the authors points on what makes it flat. I do know agree that technology has been a great facilitator of this. (I.e. Internet/web browser/software)

=X=