Day: May 30, 2017

He who asked me, Michaelis Maus, professes a contrarian and hedonistic nihilism, and a parallel call to arms against the Matrix of complacent consumerism—of cultural constructs more pressingly than of commercial goods. Cute in small doses, bracing in moderate doses. I try not to inhale.

She who asked me, Victoria Weaver, professes an optimistic view that the communist utopia can actually happen, if the robots settle in as the new proletariat, and the abundance they generate is not hoarded. I’ve alternated between calling it technocommunism and Star Trek communism, and I’ve been astounded that more people aren’t professing it.

Congratulations to Emlyn Shen, Vicky Prest, and John Gragson, the three names I recognise.

Ah, the Quill.

Yes, the Quill.

I’ve already said what I think of the Quill, and the Quill awarders, and the Quill lack of transparency, and the Quill divisiveness, and the Quill proving only that you write what Quora wants you to write and not that you are a lesser being if you don’t get the Quill, and Quora’s bizarre notion that the Quill is the sum total definition of the Quora community worth engaging with to the extent that they actually do engage with it, once too often. (I guess this makes it twice.)

I’ll limit myself this iteration to saying that my main disappointment is how small the cohort seems to be, so far. In March, I got a couple of dozen names to add to the Answer Wiki, out of the community nomination question; this time, it was two. And to add that this time, the predictions in Who should be in the final batch of Top Writers 2017? correlated with the results in a comically bad fashion.

Kaylee Lowe’s answer to How can I get Esperanto taught at my school? Read now for the general principles at work. This answer is the added detail.

Kaylee Lowe correctly points out the added constraint of standardised testing and curriculum support; you can’t just waltz in to a school with a copy of Jen Nia Mondo, and start talking. There are accountability constraints at work.

Australia has adopted a national curriculum, and a lot of time has been spent hammering Ancient Greek and Indigenous Language curricula into shape; if there isn’t provision for Esperanto there, most schools would be reluctant to deviate from the national course.

Add that in Australia, State schools don’t have that much autonomy in what they offer, and Catholic schools don’t have that much more.

Honestly, your best bet is to talk to the local Council for Adult Education, and get it offered there. Esperanto was in fact offered in Australian schools in the 1970s (Morwell High School: here’s a description from an alumnus), but we’re not in the 1970s; things in education are much more tightly controlled. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. From the description:

Trouble was, Ivan had to cajole other teachers into taking the classes – he taught them the lesson one day,and they taught it to us the next! We had one text book, and we began at page 1 in Form 1, and began at the same page 1 in Form 2. It is the only subject in which I ever ‘cheated’ – as did most of the class. Sorry Ivan, but we thought it was a bit of a joke. It was a compulsory subject in Form 1 and 2, in Form 3 if we took French we also had to take Esperanto. In Form 4 I opted out of French because although I enjoyed the subject I didn’t particularly like the teacher – but guess what, that year if you didn’t take French you had to take Esperanto. I was finally free of it in Form 5. But in four years we only ever used the one text book, and always started from page 1! It was a small tan coloured soft covered book.

Oh well.

Bonan sukceson, kaj bonvolu komuniki al mi pri pli da detajloj!

Ancient Macedonian language – Wikipedia

… the recent epigraphic discoveries in the Greek region of Macedonia, such as the Pella curse tablet, suggest that ancient Macedonian might have been a variety of the North Western Ancient Greek dialects.

You may not have heard of NW Greek, the dialect of Epirus and Western Central Greece. You will have heard of the closely related Doric (which some authorities subsume in NW Greek, and some authorities vice versa). In fact, the text of the Pella curse tablet is, to my relatively untrained eyes, straight Doric.