Spanish is the most beautiful of all languages
No, it is you who missed my point, LAA. The classification of people never leads to anything worthwhile, whether classifying by supposed "color", or by some other standard. This is just another idiotic classification.
I just find it funny that someone would be against one, but accept the others. I guess they just don't see it like I do. And then I feel they have totally missed the point of how useless all of it is.
One thing I do not understand is why Americans invent new meanings for words like Latino or Hispanico and then they make such a big confusion.
DOn't you learn in schools the meaning of those words? After all they are exclusive from the USA and I have seen the meaning change at least one time.
««People group together by racial lines.»»
This is what I call racism. There are no white americans, everybody is mixed. The native look is the American look I think the whites are the foreigners. Why call them Latinos if they are the true Americans?
It is a way of denying their culture as native americans or partialy. Making them of Hispanic race instead of true American.
"Guest" seems to be anti-European. Are you familiar with the term "Cem-Anahuac" guest?
<<The classification of people never leads to anything worthwhile, whether classifying
by supposed "color", or by some other standard. This is just another idiotic classification. >>
I totally agree with you Tiffany but we must be realistic. Unfortunately such classifications has existed worldwide for centuries and still are strong. I think that such sense of equality never will be achieve for the humankind. Everybody feels different from his neighbours due to differences as language, religion, culture or ethnic group and even for economic conditions. That has a name: "nationalism" and we all are biased by it, inculcated since childhood. The problem is when a group loses the control over it and transforms it in extremism.
Probably in any society where there is some diversity amongst the population, people will divide themselves into groups. This isn't necessarily ethnic; it will usually refer to what has historically been of most importance. In my view, this is fine, as long as one group isn't prejudiced against another (which almost inevitably seems to happen, unfortunately).
In countries such as the United States and South Africa where physically distinct groups have lived together (or not) for centuries, it is only natural that people will identify in that way. I don't see it as something which fundamentally ought to be changed; what needs to be eradicated is racial prejudice and discrimination.
In Britain, like many Western European countries, things are very different. 92% of the population is 'white', and if someone doesn't look 'white', it's almost always because they or their parents/grandparents moved here at some point in the past 50 years, often more recently. Exactly how the 'immigrants' (a word usually associated with anyone who isn't white, even though this is totally inaccurate) ought to be 'dealt with' is a very controversial, and talking about it is usually considered taboo. Contrary to the received wisdom, especially from the French people on this forum, ethnicity is NOT generally the *main* way in which most people here group themselves.
Instead, the main way in which people here group themselves is according to social class. I am middle class. I will always be middle class, regardless of how much money I have or don't have, because social class is defined by family background, mentality, accent and how you 'do' certain things. I have little to do with working class people and don't feel as though I have much in common with them either. For me to marry an upper class person would be unthinkable for both parties concerned, even if I were to become a millionaire. The whole 'class' thing is a very difficult mentality for people from the United States to understand, but it hasn't traditionally been such an issue there — it goes totally against the notion of the American Dream.
This is why American films, programmes and books often emphasise race-relations, whilst British ones often emphasise class-struggle. Conceptually, it's not really all that different, especially as social class is often perceived as unchangeable in Britain (moreso in England) — it's more that the *criteria* is different.
««"Guest" seems to be anti-European. Are you familiar with the term "Cem-Anahuac" guest?»»
I am not anti-european I am anti racism.
Cem-Anahuac means universe. Is this what you wanted to know?
Anahuac was the name of the Azteca empire.
Guest - I live in reality and thus cannot deny it.
There will always be an -ism. It's human nature to classify. Some have said that one day the whole world will be beige. While I don't think this will ever come to be (even if by some miracle, society would freely allow "bloodlines" to intermingle, genetics doesn't work like that), even if the entire world was beige, our population would choose other traits to classify themselves.
Believe me, they would make up a difference, any difference, at all costs. Benjamin's is a great example - England, 92% white, uses class as skin color is mostly irrelevant.
Already hello with all! I wanted to react on the phonetics of French,
one can say that French is a language little "singing" like Spanish or
Italian but the North-South difference of France phonetically is
astonishing, rather look at this advertizing with the accent of French
of the south! and tell me your opinions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7R8NZjWORY
(I do not know if you include/understand me well because I used
a translator Internet)
Beautiful south French,
Could you provide some more south/north contrasts, without music in the background? That is, conversational language.
Benjamin,
I did not know that class conflict was still so strong in the U.K. That sounds like something out of the 19th century. Even after decades under Labor Government??? Very strange indeed. But shouldn't it be the same way in the U.S.? I mean, after all, we're both Anglo-Saxons, lol. Jk.
Guest,
"Cem-Anahuac" literally means the "One World". It was the Nahuatl name for the world around them, that is, the world that they knew of. This would include lands beyond the Mexica Empire. It would basically include all of Central Mexico, on down south into Mayan lands in the Yucutan Peninsula and parts of northern Central America.
Why are you prejudiced against white people?
Fab,
That French accent actually sounded more like Italian than the French I'm used to hearing. I must say, I think I prefer this accent over the Parisian. Or perhaps it is just the particular actors.
But, they were both rather old, and they still used the uvular 'r'! :)
« Benjamin,
I did not know that class conflict was still so strong in the U.K. That sounds like something out of the 19th century. Even after decades under Labor Government??? Very strange indeed. But shouldn't it be the same way in the U.S.? I mean, after all, we're both Anglo-Saxons, lol. Jk. »
Admittedly, it's probably more of a Southern English thing than a UK thing. But Southeast England is where most of the money is, where London is and where a third of the UK live, so that's what dominates 'British'.
It's not exactly a 'conflict' as such, but it's certainly true that people of different 'classes' may have difficulty in accepting each-other into their respective friendship groups (as I experienced for five years at my previous school). It's not really a superior/inferior thing either, as working class people usually want to be seen as such. It's just something that's sort of 'there'. It doesn't really have anything to do with money either — David Beckham, for example, made has made a lot of money from being a football star and lives in a mansion, but is still distinctly working class.
Don't get me wrong, it's certainly not as rigid as it once was. It's more that people usually keep the class identity with which they grew up, regardless of how much money they make or lose later in life — unless they make a very specific effort to change their character and mentality (which I wouldn't encourage). Entrance to the real upper class is often seen as unattainable except through birth.
** It's not really a superior/inferior thing either, as working class people usually want to be seen as working class.