In a message dated 7/30/2004 1:02:46 AM Eastern Standard Time, Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: JL has provided a healthy trove of references to 'African Language,' 'African Language Program[s].' and the like. Yet it still doesn't follow, as Paul Grice of happy memory would have reminded us, that there is such a language as African. If there is a corresponding 'European Language Teachers Association.' I'm pretty sure that its members neither study nor speak a language called 'European.' ---- Ah, the problem of the indefinite 'an'. The issue certainly becomes more subtle when we speak of "European" (as opposed to "African", or "Asian" -- there are too many languages in those continents). Surely, if you hear Mr. Pappandreu speak in Modern Greek, the statement (1) Mr. Pappandreu speaks Greek. entails (among historians of language): (2) Mr. Pappandreu speaks Indo-European. Oddly, R. Paul seems to be suggesting that (2) is a _sloppy_ variant of what R. Paul would have as more correct: (3) Mr. Pappandreu speaks _an_ Indo-European language -- viz.: Greek. The issue ("Do not multiply languages beyond necessity") was once attacked by Geary, in "The Foundations of Language: The Willhelm Herder Lectures" "We speak of English, the English, and the Englishes. But we don't speak [of] the Japaneses. Language, and Languages, are cultural constructions [Derrida, op. cit]. The Hun, The German, the Teutonic, (all) refer to _Family_, not Genus -- let alone, as some may wish it, _species_. It's back to "The Tongues of Men", as the Bible nonsexistly puts it [sexistly?]. The bottomline is: all dialect[ic]al differences are arbitrary ['dialectic'] and there's only The One and Only Language that Mankind at Large Should Speak -- and I speak it (at large)." Cheers, JL ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html