Re: [tlug] Free program translates Euro languages to/from English

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Drew" == Drew Poulin <poulin@example.com> writes:

    Drew> This is just uneducated speculation, but it has occurred to
    Drew> me that the difference between Japanese and English, at
    Drew> least, may be that with Japanese it's understood that the
    Drew> burden of understanding lies with the reader/listener, while
    Drew> with English that burden lies with the writer/speaker.

I used to think so, but I've lost too many times on that.  I came to
the conclusion that that was a false dichotomy based on Western ways
of thinking.[1]  I think that in Japanese the burden rests on _shared_
understanding (aka joushiki).  This is why gaijin can only get so far
without "going native".  You can't speak Japanese; you have to live
it.

    Drew> If there's any truth to this, maybe it could be explained on
    Drew> a sociological level by the traditional emphasis on
    Drew> hierarchy in Japanese society.  The reader/listener accepts
    Drew> the role of student/underling, along with burden of
    Drew> understanding what is being communicated, while the
    Drew> speaker/writer plays the role of sensei/boss, who is free to
    Drew> be as clear or as ambiguous as they please.

No, clarity is deprecated, and it will be removed from the standard in
Nihongo 2010.  :-)

Ahem.  But when me-ue demands a report or answer, me-shita is also
permitted to be rather ambiguous, and in fact political survival may
depend on it.  Van Wolferen has a fair amount to say about this stuff,
which rings true but I can't verify from personal experience, since I
have no direct pipe into the elite course that he is principally
interested in.



Footnotes: 
[1]  It's been 20 yeaers since I read Kalapuhana on Buddhist
philosophy, but IIRC the Buddhist equivalent of the Jesuits (or
Talmudic scholarship if that rings your chimes louder) advocates a
multivalued logic with _eight truth values_, including values like
"both is and is not"---the law of the excluded middle doesn't hold
here!


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