Importado (Issue IV)

8/3/2019 Importado (Issue IV)

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EO IMPORTADO ISSUE IV 3 NOVEMBER 2008

UNITED WORLD COLLEGE OF COSTA RICA PAGE 1

In keeping with the original concept ofImportado being a space in which the

community can express their views, anal-

ysis and opinions on topics relevant to our

lives, both at school and in the context of

the outside world, the focus of the first is-

sue of the new year is Language. We have

tried to include articles and poetry that

cover a range of the numerous aspects oflanguage-related issues that people face,

either here or in the wider context of their

lives. We hope that you are moved,

amused and provoked to thought by the

contributions presented here.

In this issue:

Bilingualism or Diglossia?

Ejemplo gallego

Afrikaans-The African

Dutch"

Palabrotas

Du sprichst aber gut

Deutsch

Youre from Belgium?

La Lengua Imperial

A womans language

Getting to know you

Lenguaje corporal y facial:Las sonrisas no tiene idi-

omas

Banana Girl

Language

And the final Veni, Vidi

Note from the Editors
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EOR IMPORTADO ISSUE IV 3 NOVEMBER 2008


EX EA COMMODO CONSEQUAT DUIS. UT WIS

WE WANT YOUR VOICE!

Any responses that members of the community have for articles or issues raised in this

first edition should be sent to [email protected] because we plan to establish a

Letters to The Editor section in the next publication.

Spain is, de acuerdo con la constitucin, amultinational state, this meaning that there are

different nations (grupos culturales) coexistingwithin its fronteras. There are territories in which

there are two lenguas oficiales, such as the caseof Galicia, los Pases Catalanes o el Pas Vasco.

Does it mean, however, that we are bilingualcommunities? Not really. For the understanding

of this issue, we must go down to the root of thediscussion: definiciones.

We are already all familiar with the pala-bra bilingualism. However, I would like to recall

its technical definition: bilingismo es la habili-dad de una persona de comunicarse en dos len-

guas, cualesquiera que stas sean (for instance, Iknow a guy from the Netherlands who speaks

Dutch and Swahili). El bilingismo is a concept

that concernssolely the individual. Hence, it is alogic falacia to talk about a bilingual comunidad

o escuela, por ejemplo.

On the other hand, el gran desconocido

para el gran pblico: diglosia. Diglossia is a situ-

ation of linguistic conflict: two languages are be-

ing spoken in the same area, and the coexistence

is not balanced. La lengua A es ajena e impuesta,

y acapara las funciones de prestigio y de poder.

Language B, on the other hand, is vernacular i.e.

original from the territory, and is subordinated

and displaced by language A. Esta situacin

takes place during any kind of conquista o colo-

nialism process, may it be political, cultural or

economical.

Galicia is taken by many linguists to be

one of the most representative examples of a di-glossic cultural group y un grupo es diglsicotan solo porque la mayora de los individuos

tambin lo son. Therefore, diglossia, unlike bi-

lingualism, is both an individual and a socialconcept.

Qu mejor manera de explicar la diferen-

cia entre bilingualism and diglossia que con unejemplo. Let s take two typical individuals, both

hablantes of both Spanish and Galician. The first

individual is mi compaero Fran: Fran and his

parents speak Galician to Fran s grandparents,

pero hablan castellano (aka Spanish) entre ellos.

Fran habla gallego con sus amigos de la village

pero approaches girls in Spanish when he goes

clubbing in the city; y merca una barra de pan

de lea at the grocery, aunque compra un ba-

guette en el supermercado.

The second individual is me: I speak ga-llego en cualquier situacin: with my family, con

el doctor, at school y en los actos oficiales. Thishas caused me to be subject to mockery and dis-

crimination in many ocassions, y a menudo hancado sobre m los prejuicios tpicos acerca de los

galaicoparlantes: I am either a country bumpkinor an ultranationalist neither of them being true.

Volviendo a la definicin de diglossia, it

is worthy to mention that a situation of linguistic

conflict cannot be held forever, and there are two

possible outcomes: la asimilacin lingstica y

final sustitucin, with the disappearance of thevernacular language, o la normalizacin

lingstica, with the reintegration of all its lin-

guistic functions.

Therefore, we must ask ourselves about the sus-

tainability of having a bilingual or better said,diglossic community, and my hope is that the

understanding of the definitions and implications

of bilingualism and diglossia can bring about a

reconsideration of the bilingualism debate, which

has been so far worked out with conceptos

errneos and if erroneous are the premises, er-

roneous must therefore be the conclusions.

Xiana Garca Freire

BILINGUALISM

OR DIGLOSSIA?

El ejemplo gallego
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EOR IMPORTADO ISSUE IV 31 OCTOBER 2008


AFRIKAANS- THE AFRI-CAN DUTCH

Picture this a black, coloured

(mixed-race) and white SouthAfrican, sitting around a table,

conversing about the latest hap-penings in South African poli-

tics. They have varying levels

of education and wealth and hail

from different parts of South

Africa. Yet, the three have one

common factor- Afrikaans is

their native language, their pre-

ferred medium of communica-

tion.

To discuss the state of Afri-

kaans in post-Apartheid South

Africa, the language s origins

and development must be con-

sidered. The first European set-

tlers arrived at the Cape in 1652

under Jan van Riebeek. The

area was inhabited by indigen-

ous people, known as the

Khoikhoi. Later, French Hu-

guenots, Germans and slavesfrom Indonesia and Malaysia

joined the Dutch settlers. Thus,German, Portuguese, Malay and

French minimally influencedAfrikaans. Historians disagree

about the language s origins anddevelopment. Some argue that

this unique coalesce contributed

to the formation of a Kitchen

Dutch. Others argue that the

slaves, who wanted a medium

of communication not unders-

tood by their masters, formedthe language. The slaves used

Afrikaans as their mother ton-

gue, whilst Dutch was spoken

by the Dutch descendants. The

Dutch descendants only con-verted to Afrikaans as their

mother tongue and a medium ofinstruction after they decided to

stay in South Africa and createtheir own culture. They felt that

they needed their own distinc-tive language to help forge a

common bond between people

of European descent that did not

want to take on the English cul-

ture. Thus, they adopted Afri-

kaans as part of their unique

Afrikaner culture.

The only African language totake its name from the conti-

nent, Afrikaans means Afri-

can in Dutch. Classified as anIndo-European language, be-

longing to the West-Germanic

family, Afrikaans and Dutch are

mutually intelligible. Afrikaans

shares about 80-90% of the

same vocabulary as Standaard

Nederlands (Standard Dutch).

Afrikaans is one of South Afri-

ca s 11 official languages. It is

the home language of about 13,

3% of the population. In com-

parison, English is only spoken

by 5, 8% of the population as a

home language, but is the lan-

guage favored by commerce,

politics and the media. Afri-

kaans is the native language of

79.5% of South Africa s ap-

proximately 3, 9 million Colou-

reds, followed by 59.1% of

Whites (4.29m), 1.7% of In-

dians/Asians (1.16m) and 0.7%

(35.42m) of Blacks. Due to theformer regime s preference of

Afrikaans, it is a language al-

most every South African un-

derstands. Afrikaans-speaking

communities are found abroad,such as in Canada, Belgium, the

USA, UK and Australia, due toimmigration.

Afrikaans remained a spoken

language until the beginning ofthe 20th

century. In 1875, Die

Gennootskap van Regte Afri-

kaners (The Fraternity of TrueAfrikaners) was formed. This

gave birth to the association ofan Afrikaner being a white. An

Afrikaner is defined as A whiteSouth African who speaks Afri-

kaans as their first language,esp. one descended from Dutch

settlers . Ironically, the majority

of Afrikaans speakers are non-white (coloured). South Africa

became a Union in 1910 and

Dutch and English were the

official languages. In 1925,

Afrikaans gained official recog-

nition and was no longer consi-

dered a dialect of Dutch. 1948

saw the introduction of Apar-

theid under the National Party.

Afrikaans was the government s

favored language, but it held

equal status with English as anofficial language.

The link between Apartheid and

Afrikaans still exists. Many

black South Africans still see

Afrikaans as the language of

the oppressor and as the lan-
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IMPORTADO ISSUE IV 3 NOVEMBER 2008


their throats. In 1976, the Bantu

(relating to African people who

speak one of the Bantoid lan-guages) Education Department

issued a directive stating that

Afrikaans was to have equal sta-

tus as the language of instructionin non-white schools (i.e. Half of

the subjects would be taught in

English, the other in Afrikaans).Thus, black children, who were

already receiving inferior educa-

tion compared to whites, wouldbe taught in a language they did

not understand. Many students

felt that Afrikaans would teachthem to be submissive. Thus,

they staged a protest (the 1976

Soweto Uprising) that became adefining moment in the fightagainst Apartheid and white do-

mination, as it was the first time

that the youth en masse lent theirvoice to the struggle. Afrikaans

was also the language in which

blacks were asked for their pass-books, which stated that they had

permission to be in an area

deemed only for whites. Thepassbooks were a symbol of

black oppression and the denialof the rights of the majority eth-

nic group inhabiting the country.Afrikaans still has connotations

of white racism, which although

subtler than before, is still veryevident in South African society.

Even though English also hasties with colonialism, it is the

koine (common language) of

South African society, because

its history is not viewed as

harshly as that of Afrikaans and

it has international ap-

peal/importance. Typically, ablack parent will, in his/her ef-

fort to make the child a polyglot,

teach a child to speak English

(after the native language-e.g.Xhosa), before even considering

whether the child should learn

Afrikaans.

Afrikaans is the lingua franca of

the Coloured population. Whatwould Cape culture be without

the unique flavor of Kaapse

Afrikaans? As stated previously,the majority of Afrikaans speak-

ers are non-white, contrary to the

definition of an Afrikaner. Afri-kaans is my parents first lan-guage, the language spoken by

my grandparents and their par-

ents. When I was younger, I ex-pressed no real interest in learn-

ing or speaking Afrikaans, but as

I became older and learnt moreabout South African history, my

appreciation of the language

flourished. Afrikaans has wea-

thered the period after Apartheid

and the language s future looksmuch more promising than 10

years ago. Some say the lan-guage s future is in doubt, as the

state-owned broadcaster (SABC)

has reduced the amount of tele-vision programs in Afrikaans,

the country s name at foreign

diplomatic missions is only dis-played in English and the

amount of Afrikaans-medium

schools are reducing. After 1994,

the government decided to focus

more attention on the pre-

viously neglected African

languages (e.g. Zulu, Xhosa).Despite its connotations to

colonialism, Apartheid and

racism, I believe the language

will not cease to exist, as itsroots are steeped too deeply

in South African society and

history. Language is an im-portant part of an ethnic

group's cultural identity. It is

embedded with the values,beliefs and norms of the

groups who use it. Thus, as

the post-Apartheid govern-ment aims to honour all

South African s cultural and

religious beliefs, Afrikaansshould be respected as a lan-guage and given the opportu-

nity to further develop.

Chad Sonn

ALL STATISTICS COURTESYOF

www.southafrica.info/about/people/languages

- Estimates based on the National

Census of 2001- The figures listed after the rele-vant ethnic group refers to the

total population (e.g. Whites in

SA= 4.29m)

2Definitions taken from Word

Web

3Definition courtesy of Stats NZ,reference report concerning lan-

guage (2004).

El tema de la siguiente edicin es Ideologas polticas. Invitamos a con-

tribuir a con cualquier tema que les interese; puede ser un artculo sobre

una corriente poltica que te interese/desagrade; una respuesta a un even-

to poltico o simplemente algo que haya afectado tu forma de pensar.

Envalo al correo [email protected] o a Tom/Helen.
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Palabrotas

Es dicho popular que una imagen valems que mil palabras. Pues tengo que confe-

sar que discrepo con tal proverbio y que mu-

chas veces prefiero esas mil palabras. Y no

me malentiendan, que lejos estoy de referir-

me a un cuarto de monografa o dos terciosde literatura mundial, sino a esa libertad para

la abstraccin de los conceptos que hacen del

lenguaje algo ms que lingstico, algo per-

sonal.

Si pienso en el lenguaje como medio de

comunicacin, una irona se me viene a la

cabeza. Una quizs divertida irona que mesugiere que nadie entiende lo mismo de la

misma palabra y que las connotaciones son

tantas como personas puede haber. Si no,

pregunten a la gente al lado suyo qu es ca-sa , qu es la msica, o si tienen nimos de

incitar una discusin, pregunten qu es Re-

volucin o desarrollo .

Y siguiendo con esta lnea no puedo sino

reflexionar en cun lindo suenan algunas pa-

labras que mucho usamos por ac. Nos gusta

hablar, por ejemplo, de paz, de entendimien-

to y multiculturalismo. Pues tengo que con-

fesar que personalmente no he encontrado un

significado de paz que me satisfaga, que no

caiga en la pasividad y miedo al cambio.Creo que entendimiento se confunde mu-

chas veces con la mera tolerancia propia de la

diversidad de nuestro colegio, y que a vecesmulticulturalismo me suena a zoolgico de

etnias.

Ahora, quiero dejar en claro que no es mi

intencin criticar la naturaleza del colegio

como institucin, ya que considero que este

es un espacio ms que propicio y placentero

para nuestro desarrollo como personas, y que

los ideales, si bien abstractos, pautan una di-

reccin positiva que necesitamos desarrollar.

Lo que s quiero criticar es cierta falta de re-

flexin que muchas veces tenemos los miem-bros de esta comunidad con respecto a los

valores que promovemos (y me incluyo to-

talmente en esto). Pero no me refiero a que

debiramos tener una reflexin colectiva (un

especial de la reunin de comunidad) porque

creo que sta debe ser una meditacin perso-

nal que nos ayude a aplicar o desarrollar estos

valores en mbitos internos y externos al co-

legio.

La procesin va por dentro dicen de

donde vengo. Los pilares del colegio no estnen ningn syllabus y nadie nos va a evaluar al

respecto. De todas formas, confo en que to-

dos ac estamos buscando ser consistentes

con lo que decimos. Por eso, considero que

necesitamos dejar los meros smbolos para

construir nuestras mil imgenes a partir de

cada palabra.

Ague

college musings


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Du sprichst aber gut Deutsch!But you speak good German

How languagereveals stereotypes and racism in contemporary Germany

I am Afro-German.There are several debatable de-

finitions on who exactly quali-

fies as an Afro-German. In thisarticle I will however focus onthe typical person defining

themselves as Afro-German: the

one with one black parent andone white German parent, such

as myself. My mother is fromGermany and my father is fromNiger. I was born in Munich, a

big city in the south of Germany

and lived near Munich from age10 to 14, attending a regular

German public school.

Without focusing too much on

many social and identity issues,

unlike other ethnical minoritiesin Germany, the Afro-Germandoes not have a common indi-

genous mother tongue, other

than German (there is no suchthing as a common language,

religion or culture in the African

continent to which Afro-Germans could relate and build

a collective identity upon). Nor

is the Afro-German s physicalappearance strictly homogenous.

Some individuals have more

typical African features liketightly curled hair, while othershave lighter skin tonesor straigh-

ter hair, more similar to Euro-

pean phenotype. The overwhel-mingly white German power

structure defines the black as not

German, so the Afro-German slife is characterized by the con-

stant need to assert or prove

one s Germanic heritage. Un-

like, for example, Jews who areassumed to be German unlessthey admit to their Jewish herit-

age, the Afro-German situationis quite the opposite in that

blacks are assumed to be any-

thing other than German unlessthey explain why they do not look

typically German.

Personally, I never feel acceptedor perceived as a normal Ger-man in Germany, but rather as a

foreigner who speaks German

very well. From my physical ap-pearance I am identified as some-

one from a different origin, andthus am not expected to speakGerman as if it were my mother

tongue. As a consequence, racist

comments such as Du sprichstaber gut Deutsch!have beenthrown at me too many times

while living in Germany. Shock-ingly, not only children my age,but adults have made such state-

ments, making me believe that

there exists a clear image of whata German should look like. The

black is still an anomaly in Ger-man society and so is the idea of a

black person speaking German asfirst language. An incident that

caught my attention was the de-

scription of a searched man pub-lished on the webpage of the po-lice in Cologne, Germany and dis-

played in public spaces. On the

posters the crime committer wasdescribed as African and

speaks accent free German . Not

only are the implications of theterm African unclear, but it

should also be logical that people

with darker skin tones cannot nec-

cersarily be described as Afri-can . It turned out that the Afri-

can individual was a Germancitizen with Ethiopian heritage,demonstrating an incorrect de-

scription carried out by the police

as he turns out to be European .Also, if the man speaks accent

free German he was most likelyone of the about three hundred

thousand Afro-Germans and thusneither African nor European

(as if classifying a person by con-tinent would help a police investi-

gation in the first place).

To mobilize an ethnic movement

around race is problematic because

the German Establishment insiststhat race and racism are non-issues

in contemporary German society.Rather than racism, mainstreamGermans refer to discriminatory

and racially grounded prejudices

asAuslnderfeindlichkeitor hostil-ity towards foreigners, not fellowcitizens. I sadly hope that I suc-

cessfully pointed out previouslythat the Afro-German is in mostcases still distinguished as a fo-

reigner rather than a fellow citizen,

effectively excusing the racism ofthe white German because it is

suddenly defined by xenophobia.

On a very personal level, I feel,

just like any other Afro-German,

the constant pressure to prove myGermanic heritage through the

proficiency of the German lan-

guage as that is the only way forme to prove that I am not a fo-

reigner: I am German! But even

then, it seems that my skin colorand speaks accent free Germanstill haven t found their place in

the German Volk.

Mirja Hitzemann

1Cassandra Yvette Johnson, PhD

Candidate in Sociology, University ofGeorgia, Collective Memory and the

Afro-German Experience.

2 More interesting information to this

incident, unfortunately only in Ger-man, can be found on following link:

http://www.derbraunemob.info/deutsch/index.htm
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7/17



ten in the three languages, as is

our constitution. However lan-guages become a real issue

when we tackle theFrench/Dutch conflict. And the

reason why I am keen to raiseattention about the Belgian case

, is because what was a lan-

guage conflict some decades

ago has become a community

struggle.

To make it short and concise:

Belgium's two largest regionsare the Dutch-speaking region

of Flanders in the north, with

59% of the population, and the

French-speaking southern re-

gion of Wallonia, inhabited by

31%. The Brussels-Capital Re-

gion, officially bilingual, is a

mostly French-speaking en-clave within the Flemish Re-

gion and near the Walloon Re-gion, and has 10% of the popu-

lation. Belgium's linguistic di-versity and related political and

cultural conflicts are reflectedin the political history and a

complex system of government.

Youre from Belgium?

When people discover I amfrom Belgium, different reac-tions occur, but the most com-

mon are: yum yum, beer and

chocolate. or where did you

say you were from?...ah , east-

ern Europe. Right? . But hard-

er to explain than where and

my country actually is, the

question I always fear is What

language do you speak? , be-

cause I know it will take me the

next fifteen minutes to explain.

Belgium has three official lan-

guages: Dutch, French and

German. The Belgian policy

does not want any of those to

be predominant but the fact that

German is always left a bit

apart is undeniable. Indeed, on-

ly one percent of the Belgian

population speaks German, and

they all live in the extreme

south-east of the country. Ofcourse they do have their re-

gional government and theirrepresentatives at the Senate,

the king speaks German asfluently as he speaks Dutch and

French and my passport is writ-

Belgium was born in 1831.

Two different languages were

spoken by the aristocracy on

the Belgian territory, so be-

cause French was the Aristo-cratic European language of the

time, it was chosen to be the

official one. However the

people living in the North of

the country spoke Flemish, de-rived from Dutch; whilst those

living in the south of the King-dom spoke Walloon, a language

derived from Latin, similar toFrench. The Flemish call them-

selves Flemish speakers ,whilst the Walloons are con-

scious of their Francophonie .

And this makes the difference.

The Flemish system, especiallyeducational, is more nationalist

than the Walloon one: in theFlemish schools, pupils are

taught Flemish history beforeBelgian History, whilst we have

never heard of Walloon history

(although it does exist). This isbecause, until the 60s, French

was still the dominant lan-

guage, so it is normal that the

Dutch speaking part had to find

a way of acknowledging their

Identity.

Because of all these factors, the

two sides of the country are,

somehow, culturally different.

And often misunderstandings

occur, but since we had decidedthat none of the languageswould be dominant, we have

tried to develop a system basedon equality and fairness.

Lately, however, Belgium is

Flemish Community

Flemish & French Commu-nity

French Community

German-speaking Community


8/17



not the kingdom of respect and

bilingual harmony it used to be.Without a proper government,

Flemish politicians and Wal-

loon politicians are constantlyfighting for what they call Thefuture of the country and what

I see as which part is going to

get the Brussels Capital Re-

gion if we split up. New

struggles appear frequently: a

Flemish politician accuses a

Walloon of being mentally re-

tarded when they are not able to

learn Dutch, whilst all the Fle-

mish have basic French (that

was how it started); then, someweeks later you have some Na-

tionalist Flemish who comes up

with the point that the Dutchspeakers would be economical-

ly more prosperous if the coun-try split because the Walloon

region has a high rate of unem-ployment. I usually agree with

those points, although I amWalloon because this is a con-

sequence of our history. Sixty

years ago, the Dutch speakers

were dependant on the Walloon

economy, but the wheel of time

has been turning. The money

will always be on one side of

the country, but it is our duty

and our wish, as Belgians, to

make it work.

Worse than those political is-

sues, are the community issues.

A wave of nationalism (as wecall it in Belgium, but from an

external point of view it would

be called separatism ) is de-vastating the country. Indeed,

the politicians might have ef-

fects on the people, but whatwill really determine the futureof the Kingdom will be the

people s reaction, especially

people from our generation.

But separatist events keep on

happening and more and more

people join them.

One of them, on the Flemish

side is the pilgrim of the

Yser ,IJzerbedevaart, which

used to be a commemorativemarch for the Flemish soldiers

who died in WWI and which

has become the biggest Flemish

Separatist gathering in Bel-

gium. There they proclaim theattachment of Brussels to their

region and the definitive sepa-ration of the country. It is dis-

approved by most of the Dutchspeakers but there are still more

than 5000 participants. Moreo-ver, the Vlaams Belang (the

extreme right separatist Fle-

mish party) has been getting

more and more powerful. I will

never forget how in 2004 they

got 24.1 percent of vote in the

regional elections.

In the French speaking part, themanifestations are not that ob-

vious. People get scared, scared

to go to the North of the coun-try because they dont feel wel-

come anymore and scared that

the country would split up be-cause we would lose every-

thing.

Although the phenomenon isincreasing (now we dont speak

about Belgium in our localTV-channels , but about Wal-

lonia and Brussels ; people

buy T-shirts with the logo

proud to be Flemish , it wont

be .be on the internet any

more but .VL or .bxl , )

there is still a huge part of the

population that keeps on de-

monstrating for the Unity, asthey did in the Campaign I

WANT YOU FOR BELGIUM

in November 2007, which

brought together 35 000 Bel-

gians in favor of the Unity.

Attention, see how difference

leads to intolerance and is may-

be about to split, not only a

country, but 10 000 000 lives if

we dont do anything about it.

But I have hope in the new

generation. I was born Belgian,

and I want to die Belgian.

Sarah Boukari

Queremos or tu voz!

Cualquier respuesta o comentario para los artculos de la primera edi-

cin debern de ser enviados al correo [email protected] porque

planeamos establecer una seccin de Cartas al editor en la siguiente

publicacin.


9/17



zaron a detenerse con parsi-

monia, hasta quedar petrifica-das por el silencio absoluto.

Ahora slo se limitaban a es-

cuchar y a tratar de entender

lo que algunos de esos mucha-

chos trataba de decir con al-

gunos errores. Incluso cuando

en esa habitacin no se encon-

traba ninguna persona anglo-

parlante, todos dejaron atrs

gran parte de su manto cultu-

ral, con el afn de poder co-municarse entre ellos. Este

hecho es a lo que Skutnab-

Kangas le da el nombre de

lingicismo.

El lingicismo establece una

divisin social entre indivi-duos y grupos bajo el criterio

del lenguaje, distinguiendo

entre quienes tienen acceso en

grados diversos al lenguaje

dominante y quienes lo igno-ran. Esto es verdad para todas

las lenguas dominantes en ca-

da poca de la historia, ya se

trate de las lenguas naciona-

les de una determinada zona

del mundo, de las antiguas

lenguas coloniales (francs,

espaol, alemn), o del papel

preponderante del ingls en la

actualidad.

En Amrica Latina, se puededecir que actualmente estamos

Dentro de una habitacin co-

pada de afiches socialistas enblanco y negro, grandes e im-

provisados dibujos hechos so-

bre pedazos de papeles magu-

llados, frases punzantes de

Neruda, y bajo la luz tenue

que brotaba de una lmpara

cubierta por un viejo cartn

rojo, se encontraban un grupo

de muchachos amalgamando

sus risas y voces en una con-

versacin bulliciosa de la cualtodos ellos eran parte. Segui-

damente se escucharon los

comnmente mencionados:Me jodieron en Mate!, Tie-

nes permiso para salir? o un

simple Maana no voy a cla-

ses!

Luego de unos minutos de ini-

ciado el bullicio, atrados por

el escndalo estrepitoso que se

armaba en esa habitacin, unapareja de muchachos, uno de

Ruanda y uno de Alemania se

suman al grupo pidiendo una

explicacin para participar del

improvisado coloquio. El am-

biente cambi, no se escucha-

ron ms los, Qu ms parce,

cmo va? O qu tal huevn,

todo bien? Todo eso cambio

por un forzado e innatural,

How are u doing man?

Algunos de las bocas comen-

unidos bajo una misma len-

gua, bajo una lengua que nosfue impuesta de manera cruda.

Impuesta por el deseo de ex-

pansin cultural y religioso y

territorial del antiguo impe-

rio espaol. Es por ello que

muchas de nuestras lenguas

originarias, han seguido el

camino obscuro del olvido, y

ahora queda un resumido por-

centaje de la poblacin quien

puede hablarlas. Adems, aese mnimo porcentaje de la

poblacin que tiene aun arrai-

gada su lengua nativa, las so-ciedades latinas occidentaliza-

das se estn encargando de

discriminarlos e invizibilizar-

los.

Mas empero en la actualidad,

la imposicin imperialista se

da de manera contundente,

tanto en el sistema econmico,poltico, militar como en los

bagajes culturales, sociales y

comunicativos. Este imperia-

lismo de lenguaje est neta-

mente ligado al ingls, ya que

debido al antiguo colonialismo

Britnico y al nuevo e ponde-

roso rgimen imperialista nor-

teamericano, El Mundo est

Unido bajo el yugo del

ingls.

La Lengua Imperial

The topic for the next issue is Political Ideology. We are encouraging contribu-

tions on any aspect of this subject that interests you: be it a discourse on a politi-

cal theory that interests/repels you, a response to a political event or simply

something that has affected the way you think, to be submitted to either Tom or

Helen or sent to [email protected].


10/17



El ingls, se ha convertido en

el lenguaje dominante debido

a la masificacin de informa-

cin tanto del entretenimiento,

como educativa y laboral quese ofrece tan slo en ingls.

Un ejemplo de esto son las

cintas de videos elaboradas

completamente en el idioma

ingls, la industria de la msi-

ca que tiene un poder exorbi-

tante en los pases anglopar-

lantes (vemos que cantautores

que no son angloparlantes se

ven forzados a hablar el ingls

para aumentar sus ganancias)y en la cultura de social, como

lo es la macdonalizacion o los

anglicismos usados

comnmente en otros len-

guajes.

El ingls, como cualquier otra

lengua dominante, significa

una barrera en el mbito edu-

cativo y en el sector laboral.

Se dice esto, ya que el ingls

nicamente favorece a la

cpula de las personas que

tiene al ingls como su lengua

nativa o a la gente que puede

subvencionarse el estudio del

ingls o la gente que consigue

becas para estudio fuera. Pero

aun as, para las personas

adultas que no hablan ingls,

resulta casi imposible hacer un

aprendizaje adecuado de la

lengua.

En lneas generales se tiene undesbalance antidemocrtico

dentro de las sociedades, ya

que debido al imperialismo de

una lengua, las personas hab-

lantes de esta lengua imperial

se ven favorecidas enorme-mente desde su nacimiento,

mientras que los dems pu-

eden llegar a equiparar esta

situacin mediante largos aos

de estudio. Por otro lado, es

injusto el hecho de que la per-

sona que aprenda la lengua

imperial, se vea indirecta-

mente persuadido a aprender

y/o adoptar las costumbres y

cultura imperialista, ya que eseso lo que se imparte en los

cursos y libros de las socie-

dades imperialistas.

Para finalizar, hablando sobre

la situacin que se vive en nu-

estro CMU, se puede apreciar

que aunque digan que en este

lugar se respira un ambiente

de bilingismo, al final de cu-

entas se puede aseverar que

eso es una utopa la cual se

est buscando traer a tierra.

Digo esto ya que es muy

difcil aislarse de la situacin

que se vive en las sociedades

externas. Por ejemplo, al final

de los dos aos la mayora de

estudiantes angloparlantes y

no angloparlantes desean apli-

car a Estados Unidos con el

objetivo de conseguir una be-

ca para seguir sus estudios un-

iversitarios. Pero es en estemomento en el que las perso-

nas que tienen un nivel bajo

de ingls, se ven disminuidas

y en algunos momentos dis-

criminadas, debido a que para

entrar en el circulo de la so-ciedad imperialista, debes

adoptar su lenguaje.

Nosotros como estudiantes los

cuales proponemos el cambio,

debemos seguir contribuyendo

a que se solidifique las bases

del bilingismo real en este

colegio. La manera que debe-

mos hacerlo es respetando nu-

estro propio lenguaje y par-

tiendo de ello asumir losdems como segundas lenguas

las cuales se deben estudiar

para aprehender nuevos con-ocimientos. No decaigamos si

sentimos que estamos luchan-

do solos contra la corriente,

debemos seguir intentndolos,

porque es as como luchan los

autnticos romnticos revolu-

cionarios.

Hasta la victoria, siempre!

Luis Reyes

Los editores quisieran agradecer a todos los participantes de este numero de Importado e

enviar a cualquier miembro de la comunidad inspirado por el tema de la siguiente edicin

a que nos enven sus artculos, anlisis o poesa para publicar antes del Lunes 17 de No-

viembre. Quisiramos agradecer a nuestras traductoras de esta edicin, Eva y Regina.


11/17



A womans language

Women: a still undiscovered species

in the fields of communication and use oflanguage. Understanding what a woman

really means when she replies or adds aquick comment to something is still hard for

some men . Have you ever found yourselfexplaining to your girlfriend on her birthdaythat you cannot come to the party later due

to an overload of physics homework? Andall she answers is thats ok! Do youunderstand the real, underlying truth behind

these replies? Well my dear friend, in orderto simplify your life I will now give you a

short tour of what a woman really meanswhen she replies.

First word is the classical reply

FINE

.What a woman is really trying to say here is:

I know I am right so please just shut up.

And an additional tip: never describe her

looks as fine . It can often seem worse than

you lookawful because for a woman it

demonstrates passiveness, and is a bad of-

fence. If a woman EVER replies

NOTH-INGwhen you ask what is wrong; the best

tip is never to leave the conversation like

this. A reply like this means that she is dis-

appointed in you; that you cannot under-

stand or see what is wrong, which should be

obvious to you. Many men make this mis-

take, because when nothing is wrong , tru-

ly nothing is wrong right? Well, take five

minutes, sit down or make a cup of tea (I

have teabags). And talk about the nothingproblems even though it might seem like a

waste of time. A reply such as ITS OK/

THATS OK, is a phrase I would cate-

gorize as danger zone reply . It is probably

the worst reply you can get as a man from a

woman, the woman is truly hurt and disap-

pointed in you, she will now have to think

and reflect upon what she feels before talk-

ing to you again. Please dear friend, avoid

answers such as these. And if they should

ever occur after a discussion or an obvious

disappointment, mend the wound rapidly, in

order to avoid other phrases such as weneed to talk or simply a slap in the face

And that s it.

Go out there and be sensitive and caring,

and life will be beautiful for us all! Believe

me, this might be the key to your new love

life, or might improve what you already

have.

(And just for the record: I am not making

or trying to make connections to any per-sonal experience, any person that feels

touched in this article can address the issue

to me, and we can discuss it)

Ida Stuve
http://www.pdfcomplete.com/cms/hppl/tabid/108/Default.aspx?r=q8b3uige22http://www.pdfcomplete.com/cms/hppl/tabid/108/Default.aspx?r=q8b3uige22http://www.pdfcomplete.com/cms/hppl/tabid/108/Default.aspx?r=q8b3uige22http://www.pdfcomplete.com/cms/hppl/tabid/108/Default.aspx?r=q8b3uige22http://www.pdfcomplete.com/cms/hppl/tabid/108/Default.aspx?r=q8b3uige22


12/17



Getting to know you

I am about to write about lan-

guage and how it is intimately

linked to identity and all I can

think of is that when I write inEnglish I can never express

myself as freely as I do in mymother tongue. When I write in

French, my words and sen-

tences have a flavor, a music.

When I write in my second lan-

guage, my words just commu-

nicate. It is highly useful to be

able to communicate with more

people but maybe it is losing abit of the charm of my though-ts.

Language is part my

life. I am a language teacher. Icome from an officially bilin-

gual country where I speak thelanguage of a minority. I

worked for four years in a tri-

lingual school. I share my life

with someone who has a differ-

ent mother tongue to mine. I am

(trying) to raise a bilingualdaughter. Y ahora aprendo una

otra lengua...

I have come to think,

through my various experiences

in the world, that I had to learn

the language of the people I

met in order to know them. I

mean to know them well, very

well. As I met people and madefriends from various countries

with different mother tongues, Istarted to think that when we

communicate (in most casesboth in our second language)

we must be losing something intranslation (yes, I ve seen the

movie with that title but it

didn t do anything for me). Imean, how well do I understand

my friends who don t speak

their mother tongue with me? I

can t stop myself from thinking

that there are aspects of my

friends that I don t understand,

and I won t understand why Idon t understand until I learntheir language. Woah! That is

wordy! Here are two of my fa-vourite examples to illustrate

this; a serious and a more light-hearted one.

When I was living inSalluit, an Inuit town in north-

ern Canada, I noticed how peo-ple took other people s things

without asking. In innuttitut,

the Inuit dialect, there isn t aword forplease. After manyconversations with my Inuit

friends I came up with a theory.My friends ancestors lived in

the most drastic weather condi-

tions on the planet. At that time

if you were hungry, if you

needed a weapon to go hunting,

a tool to sew or anything else;

why would you ask for permis-

sion? It was a matter of sur-

vival. You took to survive. No

time or reason to say please!

Knowing this small piece of

information changed my per-spective of a few of my arctic

adventures. I had a better un-derstanding of events and/or

behaviour; I felt I knew myfriends better.

Another of my favourite

examples to illustrate how your

mother tongue defines you bet-ter comes from my reading.

There is nothing like reading an

original version of a book, even

if the work of the translator is

amazingly good. There might

always be a little something

you lose somewhere. In the

French version of Harry Potter,

Harry and Ron don t call each

other mate . There is no simi-

lar expression in French. When

I read my first Harry Potter in

its original British version itjumped out at me. Suddenly Ifelt I had a better appreciation

of their friendship. A smallword can mean a lot...

In her book Losing

north, Nancy Huston, one of the

most prolific Canadian authorswho writes primarily in French

and translates her own worksinto English, writes an interest-

ing thing about translating dic-

tionaries. She says that theylead you to confusion, theyconfuse us, lead us astray, put

us in the frightening magma ofthe in-between-language where

words dont want to say, wherethey start to say one thing and

end up saying something dif-

ferent . I couldn t agree more

with Mrs Huston. Even if it is

extremely small, we do lose

something in translation.

I wish I could under-

stand all of my friends when

they speak in their mother

tongue; but I can t and I don t

foresee it being possible. Anddon t get me wrong on this;

having unifying languages likewe do here in UWCCR is just

wonderful. It allows you and Ito meet and talk with people

from all around the world. It is

fantastic! But one should not becomplacent about it and should

remember that learning a for-

eign language is to give oneself

a chance to truly know some-

body. What a wonderful thing

that could be...

Carine Lagac


13/17



Lenguaje corporal y facial: Las sonrisas no tiene idiomas

Los idiomas son una mezcla de agua y azcar, diferente, pero si existe una cuchara que losagite, pueden llegar a unir fronteras. Esa cuchara es la sonrisa

Alfredo Jocelyn Ramirez

Primero aclararles a los lectores

que en este momento me apro-vecho de un Nick de de Mes-

senger que suele usar Rusland,Las sonrisas no tienen idi-

oma . La primera vez que lo le

se me vino a la mente Vero y

nuestras espordicas charlas

que cambiaban el mundo. En

una de ellas comentbamos laimportancia de sonrer. Cmo

una sonrisa puede alegrarle el

da a otra persona de sobrema-

nera. Lamentablemente, esta-

mos tan ocupados que muchas

veces se nos olvida alimentarnuestro espritu y el de los

dems. En mi experiencia per-sonal, soy mucho ms eficiente

cuando ando de buen humor,las cosas salen bien por si solas,

no as cuando ando de mal hu-mor, parece que el universo

conspira en contra para que to-do te salga mal.

Siguiendo con el tema

de las sonrisas, las risas y car-

cajadas que de vez en cuando

hacen nuestros das ms alegres

o menos grises, est probado

cientficamente que liberamos

ciertas endorfinas que sirven

como analgsicos (inhiben el

dolor y reducen inflamaciones),estimulantes (activan el sistema

nervioso parasimptico) y anti

depresivos (activando recuer-

dos relacionados con estados

anmicos, vase psicologa de la

emocin y estados anmicos).

Empricamente podemos ver

que la risa si trae buenos resul-

tados en la mayora de los ca-sos, la ciencia est recin aven-

turndose en este campo y enmedicina la risa es usada como

terapia alternativa. Su mayor

exponente es el Dr. Patch

Adams.

Para mi es muy impor-

tante lo que decimos lamayora de las veces, y tambin

cmo lo decimos. La forma y

contenido de nuestros mensajes

son claves para establecer una

buena comunicacin y lograr

nuestros objetivos. Desde que

nuestro medio de expresinms utilizado es el oral (aunque

tambin el escrito, en nuestrosexmenes, correos que envia-

mos a la comunidad, poemas

guardados en nuestras compu-tadoras, diarios de vidas,bitcoras, etc.), podemos mane-

jar estos dos elementos de for-

ma y contenido, aunque no

siempre lo hacemos.

Pero de pronto nos

surge un problema , nuestrorostro y cuerpo tambin com-

unica. Catalogo esta temticade problema , pues el lenguaje

kintico es un poco ms difcil

de controlar que el lenguaje

oral para la mayora de las per-

sonas. Cuntas veces nos han

dicho cmo controlar las dife-

rentes tcnicas de expresin

fcil (a excepcin de la gente

que tiene estudios de teatro) y

en nuestros antiguos colegios,

le han dado cabida a este tipode cursos? Me encantara pen-

sar que es as, pero lamentab-lemente el nmero de personas

es reducido. En este mismo co-

legio, podemos desechar artes o

teatro y cambiarlos por una

ciencia, no as desechar una

ciencia y tomar teatro u artes.Recuerdo en el campamento,

una chica hace un comentario y

yo pienso: nada que ver y al

segundo despus ella me dice:

s que no te parece . Mi cara

me delat. Seguramente hiceuna expresin sin darme cuenta,

que debe haber sido muy expre-siva o la chica muy observado-

ra. En seguida consider doscosas, debera estudiar teatro o

debera controlar mis expre-siones. Despus de cinco minu-

tos me qued con la segunda.Slo basta mirar las caras en

reunin de comunidad para sa-

ber si la audiencia est con-

centrada o entretenida, depen-

diendo de la ponencia.

Finalmente, como dijo

Shakespeare: Las palabrasestn llenas de falsedad o dearte; la mirada es el lenguaje

del corazn. A veces es buenomirarnos, tocarnos y sonrernos,

a ver si encontramos soluciones

y nos sentimos ms humanos.

EdgardoGmez


14/17



Melody


15/17



Language,

Man s ingenious communication tool

Yet here I am, bereft,

No tongue on earth can

Convey my thought,

For words have lost their aptness

And humans can no longer empathise

So how can they understand

Empty eyes and hearts

Ears deafened by prejudice

Monique

The editors would like to thank all of the contributors to this issue of Importado, and encourageany member of the community inspired by the theme of the next issue to send us their articles,

analysis or poetry for publication, by Monday 17th

November. We would also like to thank ourtranslators for this issue, Eva and Regina.


16/17



Before I went to UWC, I had watched a

pretty embarrassing share of teenage movies aboutteenagers in high school. One such movie was

"Mean Girls." I remember thinking it was allhyperbole and congratulating myself on havingescaped such a pre-adolescent fate. "How unlike

this ridiculous movie the college shall be! God

bless us, every one!"

I know better now. The movie, just likethe myriads of American Pie-esque spinoffs, is

fundamentally similar to a campus bipolar anti-

thetical struggle. On one side Ms. Lohan is theMarxian opiate making the poor proletariat lucky

as they can be - and the next moment she's threeyears ahead of Derrida, deconstructing class and

gender in an orgy of playful postmodernism. Itisn't easy to tell if she's a cunning agent of the

bourgeoisie or the child of the revolution. None-

theless, we don t watch comedies to pull a Freu-dian psychoanalysis; rather, we watch it because

we can.

Indeed, the same transpires at UWCCR.

Many things happen there because they can andcan only happen there alone - a place as perplexingas its cultural merchandise, at least to outsiders.

For example, try explaining this to someone:

The other night I was having chapati withan Austrian and Brazilian; then drank with a CostaRican; kissed a Dane ; [insert neverending story];

and finally had a proper conversation with that

er wait, she s Zimbabwean?

So yea, when I was not doing my impres-

sion of Munch's "Scream" in a corner, I enjoyedobserving worshippers of Dionysus and Jesus alike

(and everything in between) literally connecting(orally too at times) at Amigos. I enjoyed learningabout cultures and listening to the tales of the Sin

City of Cahuita when not indulging in Dow like

dropping of industrial alcohol down my throat. I

enjoyed the pursuits and the heartbreaks; the pintoto Robert s cooking; Project Week and the EE, etcetera. Stargazing in the buff? Hey, whatever

floats your boat! It all boils down to beliefs andopinions, and it is fine to have different opinions.

Public discourse and significance is what deter-

mines the moral status quo, isn t it?

The simple truth is that I find this utterly in-explicable, and after having muddled through my lifethere, I have come to regard this as the enormous phe-

nomenal paradox that is UWC. I don't expect to everunderstand it, and I shan't even pretend to. I've already

tried to string together the few things I do understand:that UWC is an idealistic place where people stand up

admirably for what they believe in. That nothing canreally be taken seriously and that everything is ironicby default because all, in the somewhat misguided

spirit of Voltaire, are tolerant of even the most repug-

nant ideologies. Paradox again!

Perhaps we should abide to the teachings of

Wittgenstein s Tractatus, that what we cannot speak

of we must pass over in silence. Perhaps it doesn teven matter! UWC still stands as a relatively cogni-

zant place to outsiders, and as I continue to tell others,

whatever its shortcomings - shortcomings that are

universal anyway. Its paradoxical nature has been adialectic that, as history so far has shown, can bear the

strangest and yet most compelling fruit. From astro-

nauts to politicians, CEOs to the neighbourhood bumso don t be surprised when you hear World Fam-

ous Paul C on the radio one day.

I'm already veering off track, so here's the

point of my enervating laundry list of despair: This

period will be a complete random mood cycle in yourlife. Embrace it. Plot it! Bask in the debauched liberal

alternative-lifestyle. UWC as a mission civilisatrice?

Haha. Which Faustian contract did you sign? It's likeLord of the Flies meet Aristophanes, and the island is

a huge comedy and the sailors aren't going to come

and break up the party. Let laissez faire reign and he-donism be your camp leader in the name of comitatus

and camaraderie. Fill the unforgiving two years / With

63 113 851.9 seconds worth of distance run. In the

end, you will finally learn the answer of life, the un-

iverse and everything.

Still figuring?

It s 42 (PG). Oh crap, you re screwed aren t

you?

By the time you are reading this, just like

Elvis, Lenard Yangli Lim, as they say, has

left the building. He also passes on the

evil spirit of writing to all the new con-

tributors!

Veni, Vidi

The Divine Imitation of Comedy Life


17/17

Documents

Importado (Issue IV)