http://snarkmarket.com/2010/6044 The stomping grounds of Tim Carmody, Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. It's a long-running conversation about media, journalism, technology, cities, culture, design, books, music, movies, the future and the past. Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:20:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 http://snarkmarket.com/2010/6044/comment-page-1#comment-13113 Facebook Arabic == Demise of Arabic? « Greg Strange Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:02:03 +0000 http://snarkmarket.com/?p=6044#comment-13113 [...] Facebook Arabic « Snarkmarket. Share this:StumbleUponDiggReddit [...] […] Facebook Arabic « Snarkmarket. Share this:StumbleUponDiggReddit […]

]]> http://snarkmarket.com/2010/6044/comment-page-1#comment-12940 Saheli Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:01:34 +0000 http://snarkmarket.com/?p=6044#comment-12940 I can kind of sympthaize with the dismay expressed by the elites; it reminds me of the dismay some of my (much older) elders have expressed at the lack of Sanskrit in the education of younger generations of Bengali elites. Sure, there are more literate Bengalis than there ever have been (both b/c of population growth and b/c of the spread of education & literacy) but the fact that rising to the top no longer requires some fluency in Sanskrit and Sanskritized Bengali essentially means that whole bodies of literature may soon be inaccessible and alien to <i>everyone</i>, not just <i>most</i> people. Obviously, that's not a good enough reason to maintain it as a barrier in education, but the extinction of so much culture, after so much other culture has already been crushed to pieces, can sometimes be a little hard to take. There's cliched and lazy nostalgia, and then there's the painful reality that a generation which gloried in soaking up the knowledge and attention of its elders is now facing a youth that more often couldn't care less for its opinions or mores. I can kind of sympthaize with the dismay expressed by the elites; it reminds me of the dismay some of my (much older) elders have expressed at the lack of Sanskrit in the education of younger generations of Bengali elites. Sure, there are more literate Bengalis than there ever have been (both b/c of population growth and b/c of the spread of education & literacy) but the fact that rising to the top no longer requires some fluency in Sanskrit and Sanskritized Bengali essentially means that whole bodies of literature may soon be inaccessible and alien to everyone, not just most people. Obviously, that’s not a good enough reason to maintain it as a barrier in education, but the extinction of so much culture, after so much other culture has already been crushed to pieces, can sometimes be a little hard to take. There’s cliched and lazy nostalgia, and then there’s the painful reality that a generation which gloried in soaking up the knowledge and attention of its elders is now facing a youth that more often couldn’t care less for its opinions or mores.

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