The Tarim Basin Mummies in Perspective, (appeared on June 30, 2000 on AMAZON.COM website as book review) By Izabella Horvath (Skokie, il USA) This review is from: The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (Hardcover) It was with great enjoyment that I read the Mummies of the Tarim. The book should be a milestone in its attempt to popularize early Indo-European pre-historiography, by trying to reduce--if not oversimplify--a formidable amount of theory, data, and material evidence into some sort of comprehensible format. The illustrations (maps, charts and color photos) help bring a little known cultural sphere to life. The style is easy to understand and the chapter headings eye-catching, though the reader needs to be versed in many of the particulars. Mair's and Mallory's overall reluctance to draw the conclusion that in 2000 BC there was an en masse migration of western European Celtic groups eastward into the Tarims oasis area (China's Xinjiang autonomous province), is commendable.
The first one is that our rights are not well enough protected. If we had a written constitution with a proper Bill of Rights, as they have in America, we would feel safer and more sure that we would be protected from governments that wish to take too much power. We have lost many of our rights in the UK and this is because we do not have a written Bill of Rights and because government and Parliament have too much uncontrolled power. Another argument is that the people of the UK would feel more patriotic and identify more with politics if there was a written and codified constitution as they have in the USA. Every American citizen knows about their constitution and they are proud of it.
English as the Official language of the United States There are over 6,900 languages in the world. While English is being more accepted globally as a standard language, the United States has never been bold enough to take a stance. For the first 200 years of U.S. history although it was never officially declared, Americans understood that English was the primary language. English should be made the official language of the United States because fluency in English is necessary for world-wide communication, it encourages immigrants to embrace American culture, and electronic communication makes mastering English even more important. Recently Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi created headlines by saying, “achieving world-class excellence demands that all Japanese acquire a working knowledge of English.” (Masci, N.p) He not only went on to say that English should be the nation’s official second language but also suggested the alternative was to be left behind in the global race to prosperity.
(355). The author backs his point by providing examples such as the spread of Greek in the Middle East over 2,000 years ago, and the spread of English from imperial Britain in the 19th century. With such examples, the historical context effectively appeals directly to the reader’s common logic. This historical context illustrates that through America as a world power, English will soon thrive throughout the world. The writer also adds that a language will thrive out of a successful country despite how hard it may be to learn.
“Repaired and Modern” The author of the article “Broken and Obsolete,” Fareed Zakaria, believes that due to the divide in the beliefs of Republicans and Democrats coupled with the poor immigration laws currently in the US, the present immigration status will remain as it is, as he states “broken.” The author gives a few reasons for this belief coupled with examples, like the idea that other countries have been transforming themselves into immigrant societies, adopting many of America's best ideas and even improving on them, and as a result the U.S. is not as exceptional as it once was, and its immigration advantage is lessening. However, overall his claims are wrong because the supporting evidence behind the comparisons that he makes are
It was conducted in 50 countries and some of the results were actually surprising. It of course showed anti-American sentiments are on the up swing which is no big surprise, but what was surprising was the fact that the desire to learn English was also on the up swing. One of the questions asked on the survey, “Children need to learn English to succeed in the world today” was met with overwhelming concurrences in Vietnam, Indonesia, Germany, South Africa, India, China, Philippines, Honduras, Japan Nigeria, Uganda, France, Mexico, and Ukraine. To immigrants, the results come as no surprise because they know how they must conform to succeed in today’s
Because myths are linked historically not just to literature, but also to the experience of the sacred, their use has the effect turning an experience sacrosanct (Clasby xi). The two texts, Wild Thorns and Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story are imbued with various myths, of heroism and martyrdom, nation and national identity, and the motherland and revolution. Though the myths in the story are born out of a historical and political necessity to create a unified community, the same myths are also far removed from the lived experience, often alienating characters instead, and limiting the exploration of different possibilities and interpretations of history and nation. Myths, as the chosen form of communication of “prophets, poets and rebels” (Clasby xv), offer a symbolic language for articulating experience that can be used as a narrative of the experience of a people. In the light of the fact that many scholars see “modern consciousness” as a fall grace (Clasby 1), myths elevate the ordinary experience to the sacred (Clasby xi).
In the article, "Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse," Helen Tiffin raises a number of issues in regards to the hybridization of the colonized and how European universals invariably clash with that of the native. From the very beginning of the article, Tiffin notes that there is a "call to arms" (so to speak) that encompasses the "demand for an entirely new or wholly recovered 'reality,' free from all colonial taint" (95). This hope is idealistic, especially when evaluating the role that the English language plays in the lives of those who are colonized. Tiffin realizes this fact and views most post-colonial literature as a "counter-discursive" mode of expression that is highly involved in "challenging the notion of literary universality" (96). The most interesting challenge raised by this European universality is the fact that many post-colonial authors use English as the means to express or disassemble notions of these supposed commonly held mores, thereby creating a hybridized literature.
These initial perceptions have been spread wide all over the country and even throughout the world. Stereotyping is overly-defined as the negative prejudicial labeling of one’s ethnicity, race, or religion. But on the far end, the scope of stereotyping as a human act can sometimes be misleading. For example, labeling a person or a group of people without a substantial basis to such a degree where it could actually boost the morale or esteem of that person or group is still stereotyping. A cliché yet concrete example could be; males are better in math than the females.
Should English Be Official? English is the official language of at least 50 countries including Singapore, New Zealand, and India, except the United States of America. The English-only legislation is an issue that affects millions of individuals and has drawn lots of attentions and concerns in these recent years. In fact, making English the official language is simply unnecessary and yet may even contribute to negative effects which include perpetuating stereotypes and abridging people’s rights. The usual argument made by U.S. English, an organization that advocates for English as the official language of the U.S., is that making English the official U.S. language would unite Americans around one common tongue so that they could communicate much better with each other.