Time to get rid of the Monarchy?

[W|M]

forced assimilation can cause the outright loss of cultural traditions - I never learnt any traditional Talian songs because ultranationalist language policies led to them not being passed on to younger generations

 

[Samson]

No, only the upper class spoke French.

From wiki:

After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (a relative of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era​

​

Either way, the question remains what does "natural" mean in your context.

 

[Arakhor]

And given that only the upper and monastic classes could typically read and write, they imposed their spellings on Middle English, such that as the Great Vowel Shift took place (and the printing press took hold), Anglo-French scholars were making decisions about the spelling of English pronunciations that soon disappeared anyway. It's why English light and German licht look so similar, but aren't pronounced even remotely similarly.

 

[Angst]

yea modern english is not a "natural continuation" of anything. english is shaped by like ... 5 languages if i count correctly, not including "foreign" influences like greek

 

[Uncle Paul]

You have a lot to learn about Canada. Every major city and most mid-sized cities have churches, mosques, and temples. It's considered NORMAL. I don't care what language people pray in, as long as they don't impose it on me or public school students or force it on the courts or in hospitals or other public buildings. That goes for *any* religion, in *any* language. The one exception I personally make is for Remembrance Day. It's a multi-faith, multi-lingual ceremony on Parliament Hill, and it was a pleasant surprise some years ago when the Catholic chaplain acknowledged non-believers. Up to that time we were ignored, as though we couldn't possibly have any reason to participate in this. Later on they added an indigenous component, in which the Act of Remembrance is not only in English and French, but also in one or another of the indigenous languages (ie. Inuktitut or Cree).

This is not traditional, though, this comes from the last couple of decades. It would be unthinkable to a Canadian from 1922. It's sad the way Canada bends over backwards for Amerindians these days.

It's nice that the anthem was changed to get rid of the sexism. Now if they'd change the wording that suggests that only Christians are patriotic, I could finally sing it again with a clear conscience (that change was put in a mere 40 years ago).

Just replace it with Die Stem, which is a far superior anthem anyway.

Tell me what, in a multicultural country, constitutes "foreign" languages or garb. Sikhs wearing turbans is NORMAL. There are women living in this building who wear saris and various other garb from whatever country they came from. It's NORMAL. Hearing half a dozen different languages on the bus is NORMAL. I do admit that the manager and I were a bit nonplussed by my neighbor who came from North Africa, as he continued to wear his accustomed clothing well into winter, and our reason for being nonplussed was due to wondering at what point this man would realize that he was courting frostbite or even hypothermia by not wearing pants (trousers). I guess it finally did get cold enough for him, as eventually he did start wearing them.

A language that isn't from the founding stock. In Canada, languages other than English and French are foreign, and French is only not foreign in French Canada...it's foreign in Vancouver. Multiculturalism makes life worse for the founding stock of a country.
Diversity, Inclusion, Equity = DIE
I don't want to see countries DIE.

Funny thing about "when in Rome, do as the Romans do"... Rome was a multicultural empire, with many languages and faiths (tolerated by some of the emperors, though of course we know of the ones who considered themselves to be divine and that anyone praying to other god/desses was committing treason). There were different dialects of Latin, and some of the aristocracy considered Greek to be a more cultured language than Latin. So when you're "doing as the Romans do" I guess it depends on which Romans you want to fit in with.

Obviously, I prefer the less tolerant emperors.

Yes, of course I've heard of the multiple bigoted remarks made by Prince Philip. His rank evidently didn't prevent him from expressing his bigotry and coming off as an uncivil jackass. I get that the Queen loved him. I just can't figure out why.

His comments were legendary, and I wish that more public figures said that kind of stuff. It's a breath of fresh air. Prince Philip was based.

I confess I've had similar thoughts at times. It usually comes when a white person gets screamed at for their hairstyle by a black person whose hair is obviously dyed blond. It's like nobody else in the world ever wore braids.

One standard for us, another standard for them. Once you realize that they don't care about us, it becomes very easy to simply not care about them. Someone your age will likely pick up on the following reference: "well, if you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand." They've made it clear they wouldn't lend us a hand if we were drowning, so why should we treat them any differently? Take an eye for an eye, turn your heart into stone.

Lately it's "my culture is not your Halloween costume." Okay, I get that it's incredibly disrespectful to wear an indigenous headdress for a costume. Those are part of religious and political ceremonial regalia and should not be worn as a costume. But it should go both ways. My ancestral culture isn't *their* Halloween costume, either.

Their tribal "religions" are actually false cults, and their political independence should have been dissolved generations ago. It's time for them to assimilate and play by the same rules as everyone else. No special considerations.

Ditto for art. Indigenous artists are quick to point fingers at anyone copying their designs, and of course they have the legal right to call out anyone committing fraud or copyright infringement. But it needs to go both ways. Sorry, but Baby Yoda was NOT created by Inuk artists, and those who gleefully started using Baby Yoda designs in their items need to show proof of a license from the actual copyright holders of Baby Yoda, or cease and desist.

Personally, I find it sad the way such a small minority is able to boss around the rest of the country. Imagine how good it would feel to tell them "I don't care if you're offended, go cry about it!" Like I said, they don't care about us, they advocate for their own group, why should we be any different? Treat them the way they treat us.

They're not saying which senior member of the Royal Family was "worried" about what the color of Meghan's then-unborn son's skin would be, but I'd bet it was Philip. It's exactly the sort of disgusting thing he would say.

1. He had every right to care how his great-grandchildren looked
2. It was more likely Queen Camilla who said it

You do realize that everyone in the UK had ancestors who originally came from somewhere else, right? Go back far enough and you reach East Africa (yes, I know your opinion about that, and reject it in favor of the available evidence).

Well, then I guess the Amerindians aren't really native to North America, either, so you just wasted a lot of posts defending them.

About modern English... do you not realize just how much of this language was borrowed from other languages? There are words commonly used in Canada that I've had to explain to non-Canadians, because they're indigenous words that became part of our everyday language.

That's unfortunate. If you needed to borrow words, you could have at least borrowed from Afrikaans.

forced assimilation can cause the outright loss of cultural traditions - I never learnt any traditional Talian songs because ultranationalist language policies led to them not being passed on to younger generations

How is that a bad thing? It means you fit in in your country, instead of being a perpetual foreigner.

From wiki:

After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (a relative of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era​

​

Either way, the question remains what does "natural" mean in your context.

Old English evolved into Middle English, which eventually supplanted Norman French among the upper class.

And given that only the upper and monastic classes could typically read and write, they imposed their spellings on Middle English, such that as the Great Vowel Shift took place (and the printing press took hold), Anglo-French scholars were making decisions about the spelling of English pronunciations that soon disappeared anyway. It's why English light and German licht look so similar, but aren't pronounced even remotely similarly.

English spelling is less logical than Afrikaans spelling, indeed.

 

[Marla_Singer]

From wiki:

After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (a relative of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era​

​

Either way, the question remains what does "natural" mean in your context.

Anglo-Norman is a "langue d'oïl" which group all dialects from Northern France (including what will become modern French). As such it is a lot more similar to modern French than were Occitan languages spoken in the South of France. You can see that pretty easily with the huge English vocabulary directly coming from French.

I've heard a theory from a linguist telling that germanic English was saved by the black death, which devastated urban elites in England. And indeed, it's only after black death that urban elites in England abandonned French. I'm not so sure though, as Germanic and Latin languages are really different. For instance the border between Latin and Germanic languages in Belgium dates back to the Roman Empire, and hardly moved since then. Generally there's only two ways to make disappear a language: either if it gets demographically overwhelmed or if there are strong incentives making people voluntarily abandon it. English has never been in either cases.

 

[Snowygerry]

Anglo-Norman is a "langue d'oïl" which group all dialects from Northern France (including what will become modern French). As such it is a lot more similar to modern French than were Occitan languages spoken in the South of France. You can see that pretty easily with the huge English vocabulary directly coming from French.

I've heard a theory from a linguist telling that germanic English was saved by the black death, which devastated urban elites in England. And indeed, it's only after black death that urban elites in England abandonned French. I'm not so sure though, as Germanic and Latin languages are really different. For instance the border between Latin and Germanic languages in Belgium dates back to the Roman Empire, and hardly moved since then.

I think the Flemish dialects are closer to your "Old English", while they still employ some "French" (Roman) vocabulary, the root is thoroughly Germanic, close to what your "Saxon" ancestors would have taken with them across the channel long before the Norman conquest I suspect.

And "Afrikaans" sounds just like a Flemish dialect as it would have been spoken in the 15th century, at least it is perfectly understandable to me without any extra effort or education.

What they call "boerewors" is simply "boerenworst" here, being in Africa for so long, separated from the root of their culture, they lost some gramatical nuance over time likely.

 

[Traitorfish]

Britain's monarchy is very apolitical. When did Her Majesty ever weigh in on politics?

You're conflating "the monarch, as a person, is apolitical" with "the monarchy, as an institution, is apolitical". The former might be true but the latter never has been; the insistence on remaining apart from politics is essentially a personal quirk of the last two monarchs, George VI and Elizabeth II, and their particular ideas of the duties of the office. It happens that those two monarchs reigned for almost a century between them, so their personal priorities have the appearance of being institutionalised, but that's only an appearance, there's no rules or even clear convention enforcing it. Prior to his ascent to the throne, Charles appeared to follow the example of Edward VII and George V, in accepting the monarchy's separation from party-politics while continuing to espouse particular causes or policies, and while this occasionally generated some mild controversy, it hardly threatened to bring the monarchy crashing down. Should we expect that Charles will abandon the habits of a lifetime simply because he's traded out "HRH" for "HM"?

 

[schlaufuchs]

“Refraining from weighing in on politics,” is itself a political act, particularly when you have power and wealth.

 

[Arakhor]

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't" is never a particularly compelling discussion.

 

[Lexicus]

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't" is never a particularly compelling discussion.

It's also a strawman in this context

 

[schlaufuchs]

If they don’t like it, they could simply relinquish all their titles, privileges, land, and wealth, and just be a normal person like the rest of us*

*Normal people inaction is also political action, it just doesn’t matter as much on an individual basis.

 

[Lexicus]

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't" is never a particularly compelling discussion.

Whereas the monarchist two-step game of "they still get the inherited titles, power, and powers of their ancestors but can't be held to account for their ancestors' crimes" quickly grows tiresome; as does the related two-step of "the monarch has no real power and doesn't affect political outcomes, but also monarchy magically ensures political stability"

 

[Arakhor]

There's nothing magical about it; just like anything else, that needs to be worked at.

 

[Uncle Paul]

You're conflating "the monarch, as a person, is apolitical" with "the monarchy, as an institution, is apolitical". The former might be true but the latter never has been; the insistence on remaining apart from politics is essentially a personal quirk of the last two monarchs, George VI and Elizabeth II, and their particular ideas of the duties of the office. It happens that those two monarchs reigned for almost a century between them, so their personal priorities have the appearance of being institutionalised, but that's only an appearance, there's no rules or even clear convention enforcing it. Prior to his ascent to the throne, Charles appeared to follow the example of Edward VII and George V, in accepting the monarchy's separation from party-politics while continuing to espouse particular causes or policies, and while this occasionally generated some mild controversy, it hardly threatened to bring the monarchy crashing down. Should we expect that Charles will abandon the habits of a lifetime simply because he's traded out "HRH" for "HM"?

And how is that a bad thing? Why should royals be expected to keep their political views hidden?

“Refraining from weighing in on politics,” is itself a political act, particularly when you have power and wealth.

This is leftist Newspeak.

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't" is never a particularly compelling discussion.

And that is the position of White people in South Africa today. If we give up our land, we become poor and even more powerless than we already are, if we keep our land, many if not most blacks will continue to hate us and envy us. It's not fair to blame us for putting our own interests first.

If they don’t like it, they could simply relinquish all their titles, privileges, land, and wealth, and just be a normal person like the rest of us*

*Normal people inaction is also political action, it just doesn’t matter as much on an individual basis.

They shouldn't have to. Those are their birthright.

Whereas the monarchist two-step game of "they still get the inherited titles, power, and powers of their ancestors but can't be held to account for their ancestors' crimes" quickly grows tiresome; as does the related two-step of "the monarch has no real power and doesn't affect political outcomes, but also monarchy magically ensures political stability"

Their ancestors crimes are way overexaggerated...what happened during the Boer Wars was the fault of the elected government and the military officials, not Queen Victoria and/or King Edward VII.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Oh, and apparently Elizabeth II died of "Old Age"
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63078676
since the Queen Elizabeth II Health Thread has closed.............

 

[Lexicus]

Their ancestors crimes are way overexaggerated...what happened during the Boer Wars was the fault of the elected government and the military officials, not Queen Victoria and/or King Edward VII.

Her ancestors go back to like William the Conqueror bro

 

[Lexicus]

There's nothing magical about it; just like anything else, that needs to be worked at.

What does this mean?

 

[Uncle Paul]

Her ancestors go back to like William the Conqueror bro

So?

 

[Lexicus]

So?

So, just maybe, the crimes extend beyond the Boer War

Also since she, as monarch, is supposed to embody Britain and British sovereignty is invested in her person, how is she not responsible for the actions of the officials of what is referred to, literally, as Her government?