- Dear M. Night,
scenes where a largish number of extras group together doing mostly nothing but "focus" on and follow developments in a protagonist's unfolding personal drama, like talking on the phone to her kids who are facing danger do not work.
you gave us unexpected helpings of such scenes in lady in the water and the village. These in terms of drama do not cut it anymore in terms of believability , since you're a "realist" gothic director would exclude this bullshit from the threshold for sus. of disbelief.
Secondly, they are distracting. even if well played by the extras no one expects a dozen people let alone more to stand around following the conversation of a poor woman in distress on a cell phone no less.
No seriously, drop the sentimentality. Sure give us the hard facts , the drama/action events but don't pause and linger after each one to pout and try to show and savour rather academic emotion. Our emotions are intelligent and elicit themselves by themselves. they don't need these outdated methods to be evoked.
- There was the scientific gaffes which got a thorough drubbing in many filmgoer reviews websites . but one of the criticisms can be overlooked like we had to do in "The ruins" (2007) which is the speed of an evolving plant action , a central premise to the story.
... Read more
17 September 2008
music note: the "world" mislabel
a lot of labeling / mislabeling / marketing music as "world" actually does that music a disservice or injustice.
a lot of music called "world" should be simply called "folk".
it would be arrogant to reserve the folk label only to largely anglo-saxon or gaelic music or even restrict it to just european regional musical flavors.
yet other music might now be simply local folk or tinge - but is more distinctly within a well known genre , such as soul , funk , reggae , ska, latin, techno, jazz, pop , gospel choir, dance , etc.
The slapping of a "world!" sticker did not have to be endured in the case of modern latin american music - whose genres were recognized in the english musical lexicon and were identified by the proper names of their own styles ranging from son rhumba and salsa (cuba,...) , bossa nova (brasil) to tango (argentine)
likewise, nor should the tree of genres of musics in africa suffer a "world" label that bypasses the complexity and variety even within localities by omitting naming them with their proper names.
it is notable that some of the latin style names and the way they carry over to african styles from the sahil to the sudan (eg, sudanese rhumba) help in mapping to their sources the many african influences on modern music. ... Read more
a lot of music called "world" should be simply called "folk".
it would be arrogant to reserve the folk label only to largely anglo-saxon or gaelic music or even restrict it to just european regional musical flavors.
yet other music might now be simply local folk or tinge - but is more distinctly within a well known genre , such as soul , funk , reggae , ska, latin, techno, jazz, pop , gospel choir, dance , etc.
The slapping of a "world!" sticker did not have to be endured in the case of modern latin american music - whose genres were recognized in the english musical lexicon and were identified by the proper names of their own styles ranging from son rhumba and salsa (cuba,...) , bossa nova (brasil) to tango (argentine)
likewise, nor should the tree of genres of musics in africa suffer a "world" label that bypasses the complexity and variety even within localities by omitting naming them with their proper names.
it is notable that some of the latin style names and the way they carry over to african styles from the sahil to the sudan (eg, sudanese rhumba) help in mapping to their sources the many african influences on modern music. ... Read more
Etymo note: the glyph R and Rei, Rex , Ric , rich, Roye , Roy , Roi , Reg, Regular, Regn. , Reign, Reich , Raïs, Ra'is
Proto sinaitic may have had a considerable genealogic influence on proto-canaanite , whence phonoecian and its descendants come (nearly all non-logographic alphabets (as the wikipedia article, "Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic", also notes.
There is a clear descendance from the hieroglyphic Ra's (head) representation of a head and the proto-sinaic glyph to the proto-canaanite then phonecian P pointing left, then the greek Rho with the glyph P .
the origin of this letter in proto-cananite and phoneician was rather pictorgrammic or ideographic , originally taken from a graphic refernce to "head" part of the human body. this relation persists through proto-sinaitic and to hieroglyphic where the pictogramm is derived.
as such the glyph's logogramic ancestor was a morpheme which semantic content got sublimated abstracted or removed while some graphic form was retained.
so it is ironic that the european term for the monarch , at least starting with latin
"rex" and "regula" would come to be represented with an initial R .
though it is difficult to look at Rex , Rei, ric and ra'is or ra's and not get ideas.
compounding this is that ra` and rais and ra's and the pictogram all originated in the same country, the antecedent in a direct line to the european alphabets.
compound this further with the persistence of the morpheme "ra's" head in semitic language such as arabic. though, here, in the semitic language the glyph is far from the P or R glyph.
On another strain , that is however more tenuous and speculative , the egyptian word Ra' denoting at least a sun god , if not a brahman-type or godhead deity , may have been at the origin of the transition to the latin Rex, a name which would also written with the letter Rho and glyph P which descends from the writing 'head' in proto sinaitic.
This is only one reason to surmise an afro-asiatic origin to the latin Rex .
Another reason could be the glyphic link itself. ... Read more
There is a clear descendance from the hieroglyphic Ra's (head) representation of a head and the proto-sinaic glyph to the proto-canaanite then phonecian P pointing left, then the greek Rho with the glyph P .
the origin of this letter in proto-cananite and phoneician was rather pictorgrammic or ideographic , originally taken from a graphic refernce to "head" part of the human body. this relation persists through proto-sinaitic and to hieroglyphic where the pictogramm is derived.
as such the glyph's logogramic ancestor was a morpheme which semantic content got sublimated abstracted or removed while some graphic form was retained.
so it is ironic that the european term for the monarch , at least starting with latin
"rex" and "regula" would come to be represented with an initial R .
though it is difficult to look at Rex , Rei, ric and ra'is or ra's and not get ideas.
compounding this is that ra` and rais and ra's and the pictogram all originated in the same country, the antecedent in a direct line to the european alphabets.
compound this further with the persistence of the morpheme "ra's" head in semitic language such as arabic. though, here, in the semitic language the glyph is far from the P or R glyph.
On another strain , that is however more tenuous and speculative , the egyptian word Ra' denoting at least a sun god , if not a brahman-type or godhead deity , may have been at the origin of the transition to the latin Rex, a name which would also written with the letter Rho and glyph P which descends from the writing 'head' in proto sinaitic.
This is only one reason to surmise an afro-asiatic origin to the latin Rex .
Another reason could be the glyphic link itself. ... Read more
egypt mother of the world + synthesis from a probabilistic clou
there is another reason to vindicate the proverb / adage "egypt is the mother of the world"
the first reason i'd thought and mentioned before on past blogs is the genetics view that current humanity hail from a stock of a few tens of thousands originating in africa (perhaps east africa) - who thus must have fanned out onto the rest of the ma`moura. This means that they must have passage this passage mostly through Egypt.
Such movement being essentially generational and slow , most if not all of the people of the earth today have had egyptian-born ancestors who may have lived all their lives in egypt - bona fide egyptians.
now the other reason, in light of an earlier language note , would come from a proto-sinaitic script origin to the proto-canaanite->phonecian script .
Such a vector seems to agree with the genetic conjecture that modern humans have come from an original african stock that migrated through egypt.
the proto-canaanite script , via its phonecian and aramaic script descendants has led to most of the alphabets or abjads used in the world today from indochina to europe to the native americans.
this observation also lends credence to the deduction of genetic links that accompany script lineages and divergences.
thus earlier i conjectured earlier that a glyphic lineage link might exist between south arabian and ancient berber and that it might indicate a genetic or ethnic lineage also between the arabian bedouins and the berbers.
now by the same mode of the thought we can also conjecture that a glyphic lineage from proto-sinaitic to proto-canaanite corresponds to a genetic / ethnic lineage between the egyptian people (themselves a link in the genetic chain from the east african stock) and the canaanites and their descdendants who populated the fertile crescent.
Update:
It must be recognized that Egypt was not (or could not possibly be) the only route out of Africa. The close relationship between the South Arabian and Ethiopic scripts leaves little doubt as to direct contact across the strait Between Southwestern Arabia and Africa's eastern pseudopod, so-called its horn, that was as intense as that between Phonecians and Greeks. This is in addition to the much-recorded common history of both regions.
Likewise, movement across the Gibraltar strait is not inconceivable, and some suggest that
this raises questions like but whence came the felix arabs? In such trangenerationally slow processes, did south arabia first become inhabited by a population drift from the north and ultimately via sinai? Or was colonialization started by early east african seafarers?
We find that in this transgenerationally slow process of population movement and ethnolinguistic genesis ,
a. more fidelity may be found in a continuum model were movement could have reached there simultaneously or nearly so from both west and north.
b. such movement would likely be bidirectional and indeed omnidirectional. This is after all human activity accumulated over many generations.
The continuum model thus postulates movement of people pretty much in all directions, including a continuum of motion or flow closing the path geographically circumscribing the red sea into a closed cycle of population movement. Even like a vortex. This blurs the certitudes on whether the earliest south arabians came from the north or the west (or even from the east), giving instead a probability distribution. Though I wonder if this would hold up to genetic and protegenic data on the regions involved.
Just taking the physical analogy a qubit further , in its own context (which is inferred from religious text to be open), it is not insignificant historically that the continents were connected, bridged as it were, at Egypt and not in the south. And that the Sinai passage has been in the stewardship or fief of rather than that of others.
... Read more
the first reason i'd thought and mentioned before on past blogs is the genetics view that current humanity hail from a stock of a few tens of thousands originating in africa (perhaps east africa) - who thus must have fanned out onto the rest of the ma`moura. This means that they must have passage this passage mostly through Egypt.
Such movement being essentially generational and slow , most if not all of the people of the earth today have had egyptian-born ancestors who may have lived all their lives in egypt - bona fide egyptians.
now the other reason, in light of an earlier language note , would come from a proto-sinaitic script origin to the proto-canaanite->phonecian script .
Such a vector seems to agree with the genetic conjecture that modern humans have come from an original african stock that migrated through egypt.
the proto-canaanite script , via its phonecian and aramaic script descendants has led to most of the alphabets or abjads used in the world today from indochina to europe to the native americans.
this observation also lends credence to the deduction of genetic links that accompany script lineages and divergences.
thus earlier i conjectured earlier that a glyphic lineage link might exist between south arabian and ancient berber and that it might indicate a genetic or ethnic lineage also between the arabian bedouins and the berbers.
now by the same mode of the thought we can also conjecture that a glyphic lineage from proto-sinaitic to proto-canaanite corresponds to a genetic / ethnic lineage between the egyptian people (themselves a link in the genetic chain from the east african stock) and the canaanites and their descdendants who populated the fertile crescent.
Update:
3.XI.2008
It must be recognized that Egypt was not (or could not possibly be) the only route out of Africa. The close relationship between the South Arabian and Ethiopic scripts leaves little doubt as to direct contact across the strait Between Southwestern Arabia and Africa's eastern pseudopod, so-called its horn, that was as intense as that between Phonecians and Greeks. This is in addition to the much-recorded common history of both regions.
Likewise, movement across the Gibraltar strait is not inconceivable, and some suggest that
this raises questions like but whence came the felix arabs? In such trangenerationally slow processes, did south arabia first become inhabited by a population drift from the north and ultimately via sinai? Or was colonialization started by early east african seafarers?
We find that in this transgenerationally slow process of population movement and ethnolinguistic genesis ,
a. more fidelity may be found in a continuum model were movement could have reached there simultaneously or nearly so from both west and north.
b. such movement would likely be bidirectional and indeed omnidirectional. This is after all human activity accumulated over many generations.
The continuum model thus postulates movement of people pretty much in all directions, including a continuum of motion or flow closing the path geographically circumscribing the red sea into a closed cycle of population movement. Even like a vortex. This blurs the certitudes on whether the earliest south arabians came from the north or the west (or even from the east), giving instead a probability distribution. Though I wonder if this would hold up to genetic and protegenic data on the regions involved.
Just taking the physical analogy a qubit further , in its own context (which is inferred from religious text to be open), it is not insignificant historically that the continents were connected, bridged as it were, at Egypt and not in the south. And that the Sinai passage has been in the stewardship or fief of
16 September 2008
language note: language
from http://www.omniglot.com/writing/swahili.htm :
The earliest known manuscript in Swahili, a poetic epic, was written in the Arabic script and dates from 1728. During the the 19th century Swahili was used as the main language of administration by the European colonial powers in East Afrian and under their influence the Latin alphabet was increasingly used to write it. The first Swahili newspaper, Habari ya Mwezi, was published by missionaries in 1895. ... Read more
The earliest known manuscript in Swahili, a poetic epic, was written in the Arabic script and dates from 1728. During the the 19th century Swahili was used as the main language of administration by the European colonial powers in East Afrian and under their influence the Latin alphabet was increasingly used to write it. The first Swahili newspaper, Habari ya Mwezi, was published by missionaries in 1895. ... Read more
11 September 2008
film review draft
the wokowschis' Speed Racer
The quickest impression this flick gives is its color styling. the color style is reminiscent of the worst 90s disney and daytime tv cartoon style. as krisfaluci noted on the latter, it is ugly.
When I first saw that flick, I thought woe , that's the wochowskis' matrix - their head trip...
Geuaaaah. At first I thought primary colors? but then no. it was not a primary theme like the 80s Dick tracy . it was ghastly. hello john krisfaluci? whaddaya think of the color styling on that thing?
Another big thing about this flick i guess is the races. nevermind the over the top combat that's going on instead of racing. the thing is, I've played car racing video games before - so the spectacle wasn't new to me. Nor was it new since the spectacle (not very convincing) of roadside combat from the matrix 2 or 3 "recycled" or "unloaded" or whatever it was called.
Point is if a racing game I came across looked like that (there's a racest "environment" in there that looked like a take on that mosque in spain with the many columns and striped arches, but large enough to accomodate the feeding frenzy of racing combat that was going on.
i guess criticizing a wochkowskys' flick is like shooting fish a barrel, or nit picking about how bad a movie made by cinderella's evil stepsisters would be , but here goes.
christina ricci must have been really jonesing for work - as in hasn't been getting any - to work in this affair. Then again, being from the "makers" of the matrix , it was bound to be a hit and a sound biz decision for her.
The sets are terrible.
The conceptions of technology eg computer displays , sets, "workflows" like the workers on the indoor segway highway (segway?) were to be polite, not inspired.
john goodman is not well directed / motivated here. i think i now have a visual of what some reviewers call "phoned in his performance"; though assuming he's a good actor, that'd be harsh.
i didn't like the boy or his persona.
the monkey pet , have they been reading jo zette et jocko ?
They must have been watching however a lot of Pixar. I could see some of Cars in there also Monsters Inc., the Incredibles.
But also Willie wonka and the chocolate factory. wasn't it disney that made the remake?
Cutouts? The big corporate mega conglomerate baddie is keeping a life size cut-out poster of god knows what pre-war industry or racing illustrous personnages in tall hats? What the hell was that.
Don't get me started on the score. Which is odd because just today i checking an early Peter jackson (braindead, 1992) , a real rather provincial (the from down under complex) and primary Jackson material . Anyway , listening to the score on Braindead i could appreciate the effort that was made to punctuate and synchronize with the horror-comedy action. In this flick , however, Speed racer, the score, like other scenes was ham-fisted.
it's like the whockoskis' or whatever don't have good taste in colors or music, or what makes for "impressive" and what doesn't , and what's cool and what's not.
which brings me to that it was not cool - cf. the scene where the CEO and the family on what I guess is the corporate conglomerate's "tour train" slide into what looks like a huge bar with gaudy rococo - think gold guilded over purple , intense fuschia-ish pruple. Also with golden edge lighting occasionally on the actors style of a setting sun ray from across the window.
I now recognize that not all outrageous is "good". There is good outrageous outlandish and there is bad outrageous .
did i mention the snakeoil character?
oh or the childhood memory of a letter murder?
like others (see cloverfield and the prior std fest from spielberg to menachemgolan) they are fixated on the t word.
as i'm listening now to the single "Acceptable in the 80s" by Calvin Harris, it Incidentally feels appropriate.
The visuals (game-like CGItricks and all), the cultural assumptions / pretensions would seem to have worked better in the 80s.
I mean when you got a desert-side fight scene that if you pause looks like a Madness video, you got 80s trash on your hand.
One particularly mean race is set in what seems to be one of the wakoskys' personal nightmares: a sort of hybrid arab/muslim/christian european locality called Casa Cristo, a take on the arabs' casa blanca i guess (the sets in that sequence are all their take on arabesque - that's where the bad guys are hanging out and where the snake oil character - a rival race driver - hails from.
There's also the bashing / stereotyping of france, one of the myriad tv presenters cutaways was a clearly disapproving "disgusted" frenchman.
It's clear now after watching matrices 2 and 3 , the freudian v for vendetta and this , that th re were different creative forces at work on the Matrix (the first , the only one).
I was planning to avoid this doobie if it weren't for a friend's recommendation, whose past recommends fell flat frankly. i just don't learn. ... Read more
The quickest impression this flick gives is its color styling. the color style is reminiscent of the worst 90s disney and daytime tv cartoon style. as krisfaluci noted on the latter, it is ugly.
When I first saw that flick, I thought woe , that's the wochowskis' matrix - their head trip...
Geuaaaah. At first I thought primary colors? but then no. it was not a primary theme like the 80s Dick tracy . it was ghastly. hello john krisfaluci? whaddaya think of the color styling on that thing?
Another big thing about this flick i guess is the races. nevermind the over the top combat that's going on instead of racing. the thing is, I've played car racing video games before - so the spectacle wasn't new to me. Nor was it new since the spectacle (not very convincing) of roadside combat from the matrix 2 or 3 "recycled" or "unloaded" or whatever it was called.
Point is if a racing game I came across looked like that (there's a racest "environment" in there that looked like a take on that mosque in spain with the many columns and striped arches, but large enough to accomodate the feeding frenzy of racing combat that was going on.
i guess criticizing a wochkowskys' flick is like shooting fish a barrel, or nit picking about how bad a movie made by cinderella's evil stepsisters would be , but here goes.
christina ricci must have been really jonesing for work - as in hasn't been getting any - to work in this affair. Then again, being from the "makers" of the matrix , it was bound to be a hit and a sound biz decision for her.
The sets are terrible.
The conceptions of technology eg computer displays , sets, "workflows" like the workers on the indoor segway highway (segway?) were to be polite, not inspired.
john goodman is not well directed / motivated here. i think i now have a visual of what some reviewers call "phoned in his performance"; though assuming he's a good actor, that'd be harsh.
i didn't like the boy or his persona.
the monkey pet , have they been reading jo zette et jocko ?
They must have been watching however a lot of Pixar. I could see some of Cars in there also Monsters Inc., the Incredibles.
But also Willie wonka and the chocolate factory. wasn't it disney that made the remake?
Cutouts? The big corporate mega conglomerate baddie is keeping a life size cut-out poster of god knows what pre-war industry or racing illustrous personnages in tall hats? What the hell was that.
Don't get me started on the score. Which is odd because just today i checking an early Peter jackson (braindead, 1992) , a real rather provincial (the from down under complex) and primary Jackson material . Anyway , listening to the score on Braindead i could appreciate the effort that was made to punctuate and synchronize with the horror-comedy action. In this flick , however, Speed racer, the score, like other scenes was ham-fisted.
it's like the whockoskis' or whatever don't have good taste in colors or music, or what makes for "impressive" and what doesn't , and what's cool and what's not.
which brings me to that it was not cool - cf. the scene where the CEO and the family on what I guess is the corporate conglomerate's "tour train" slide into what looks like a huge bar with gaudy rococo - think gold guilded over purple , intense fuschia-ish pruple. Also with golden edge lighting occasionally on the actors style of a setting sun ray from across the window.
I now recognize that not all outrageous is "good". There is good outrageous outlandish and there is bad outrageous .
did i mention the snakeoil character?
oh or the childhood memory of a letter murder?
like others (see cloverfield and the prior std fest from spielberg to menachemgolan) they are fixated on the t word.
as i'm listening now to the single "Acceptable in the 80s" by Calvin Harris, it Incidentally feels appropriate.
The visuals (game-like CGItricks and all), the cultural assumptions / pretensions would seem to have worked better in the 80s.
I mean when you got a desert-side fight scene that if you pause looks like a Madness video, you got 80s trash on your hand.
One particularly mean race is set in what seems to be one of the wakoskys' personal nightmares: a sort of hybrid arab/muslim/christian european locality called Casa Cristo, a take on the arabs' casa blanca i guess (the sets in that sequence are all their take on arabesque - that's where the bad guys are hanging out and where the snake oil character - a rival race driver - hails from.
There's also the bashing / stereotyping of france, one of the myriad tv presenters cutaways was a clearly disapproving "disgusted" frenchman.
It's clear now after watching matrices 2 and 3 , the freudian v for vendetta and this , that th re were different creative forces at work on the Matrix (the first , the only one).
I was planning to avoid this doobie if it weren't for a friend's recommendation, whose past recommends fell flat frankly. i just don't learn. ... Read more
05 September 2008
geneaology of scripts
A partial geneaology of scripts with a conjectured interpretation.
legend:
ivory ellipses represent languages
purple edges mean "maybe"
green edges are standard genealogical connections. ... Read more
03 September 2008
etymo note: some cultural notes
many western words cognate with counterparts in the indian languages, particularly hindi , have a B sound in their western branches, that is
substituted with a V sound in the indian languages.
This pattern is also found in some languages neighboring the indian subcontinent such as farsi and turki.
Indeed we find that identity between an eastern V with a western B (phoenician greek romance and germanic - don't know about celtic yet) in the russian or slavic languages as well.
Incidentally this division is more of a true (more literal) east-west division with russia, persia, turkic asia, india on the east * (not mentioning the far east, the more easterly half of this "east") ; and europe , at leastthe western levant ** , and africa on the western side.
As if
* this includes the caucasus, being a region comprising the extensions of three nations, the russ, the turks, the persians (kurds are a turkic people) and perhaps those of arab or semitic nations too.
** the arab world would happen to be smack in the middle looking onto both sides - though the linguistic implications thereof do not concern us here.
then we have to think what does it take for a person to sound a B as a V.
----------
in the process of imagining realizing the hindu religion is as it were to its people it helps to think of ancient greek religion.
firstly, we must ask whether we can talk of a greek "religion" in the first place. it seems to me from past encounters in reading that individual regions bestowed their own religious elements, not least bringing / adding their regional deity(ies) to the relgious dogma of "belief". it would thus appear that greek religion which we know chiefly via mythology related to us by poets (maybe they weren't poets
at all) was in fact my fragmented regional religions and cults sharing a common general pantheon that rather liberal in its admission policy and a general cosmogony. these common religious elements become closely tied / entertwined with linguistic features (such as greek names for hell like hades and to culture in general (contributing to a large canon of poetry dramaturgy folklore and philosophy).
It seems reasonable that hinduism is similar in this way to its greek
contemporary.
as it were there may have been a brief and interesting encounter between indic culture and perhaps by extension hinduism and buddhism and greek culture in the moment of alexander the great.
another linkage bridging the two east and west localities (hind/sindh
and europe) is the famed indo-european , or indo-aryan connection
connection and ethnic.
a reasonable / useful reminder is the paradoxical disdain of those germanic aryans to the roma who by most trusted accounts hailed from india during the late middle ages.
i was once told that hinduism is a collection or agglomeration of numerous local cults sects and regional folk religions. an agglomeration that catalogues regional and recurrent elements such as deities and that embraces different scriptural books into a common persistent pantheon and textual canon.
it should be understood as such.
i would hazard that the degree of fragmentation not only in a typical "religion" 's divergent spiritual schools but als in its sects is much higher in hinduism than it is in islam (both now with comparable population sizes ).
that degree of fragmentation is a good measure of the aspect of religion concerning the solidity and consistency of its defining dogmatic idiosyncracies.
for instance compare the degree of fragmentation in divergence from central dogma in protestantism with that of its counterpart in catholicism.
hinduism is more fragmented than buddhism as well.
the modern (recent) spread of interest in hindu belief and practices - largely in the form of exceedingly peripheral orders and sect and schools - is trans-atlantic phenomenon. to a larger extent, the
persistence of the hindu collective religion despite the presence of more consistent forms of buddhism , and abrahamic religions , may have been also the effect of a western europe influence in the form of colonization (the dutch and then french and english east india companies , and the raj).
I could not help but notice the effect the raj has had on the displacement of a largely muslim predomination throughout the indian subcontinent , not only in terms of political power but also in terms of population size.
to appreciate the effect this kind of displacement or eradication has on the collective power and reach of the muslim religion,
we can use as an illustration the analogue of the effect displacing the arabic alphabet as the alphabet for many of the turkic languages from xin-jiang/turkestan in the east to turkey in the west,and replacing it with latin and cyrillic on the mutual reach and readibility between arabic and all those languages.
the displacement of both population (by expulsion or extermination)
and influence in many parts of the muslim worlds have been a recurrent pattern in the era european colonization that extends from the late midieval age to the present time. this has also been true in the case of latin american and australian nations and elsewhere.
in light of european colonization's displacement of social orders prevalent in the XVIth cent. the persistence of the archaic hindu system today may have been due to a revival and a patronage exercised over it by the brits.
this is not dissimilar to charges of british incubation of other religious trends such as arabian wahabism or ismaili and bahai religions.
one finds a pattern here, for it was in england as well that some of the more exotic offshoots of protestanism took refuge or were incubated.
Even if this is not true for the modern hinduism in the subcontinent, it would account for much of hinduism's interface with the "west"
(for it is through the residual colonial filter that hinduism comes in contact with arabs africans and latin americans in addition to europe)
particularly in the form of the exceedingly divergent sects and imitations of western-tinted persuasions such as the transatlantic movement of hare krisna - notably with charges of abuses among the western dominated communities.
P.S.
As if to support the argument , after posting the current entry i ran into this passage at wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_denominations
):
"Influential 19th to 20th century Hindu revivalist organizations include Arya Samaj, Tilak Mission Bhagwan Swaminarayan, Brahmo Samaj, Parisada Hindu Dharma, Prarthana Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission, Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana, Swadhyay Movement, Swaminarayan Sampraday, Sathya Sai Organisation.
Hinduism was politicized in the context of the Indian independence movement, and has resulted in the rise of Hindu nationalism to a significant political force in the Republic of India." ... Read more
substituted with a V sound in the indian languages.
This pattern is also found in some languages neighboring the indian subcontinent such as farsi and turki.
Indeed we find that identity between an eastern V with a western B (phoenician greek romance and germanic - don't know about celtic yet) in the russian or slavic languages as well.
Incidentally this division is more of a true (more literal) east-west division with russia, persia, turkic asia, india on the east * (not mentioning the far east, the more easterly half of this "east") ; and europe , at leastthe western levant ** , and africa on the western side.
As if
* this includes the caucasus, being a region comprising the extensions of three nations, the russ, the turks, the persians (kurds are a turkic people) and perhaps those of arab or semitic nations too.
** the arab world would happen to be smack in the middle looking onto both sides - though the linguistic implications thereof do not concern us here.
then we have to think what does it take for a person to sound a B as a V.
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in the process of imagining realizing the hindu religion is as it were to its people it helps to think of ancient greek religion.
firstly, we must ask whether we can talk of a greek "religion" in the first place. it seems to me from past encounters in reading that individual regions bestowed their own religious elements, not least bringing / adding their regional deity(ies) to the relgious dogma of "belief". it would thus appear that greek religion which we know chiefly via mythology related to us by poets (maybe they weren't poets
at all) was in fact my fragmented regional religions and cults sharing a common general pantheon that rather liberal in its admission policy and a general cosmogony. these common religious elements become closely tied / entertwined with linguistic features (such as greek names for hell like hades and to culture in general (contributing to a large canon of poetry dramaturgy folklore and philosophy).
It seems reasonable that hinduism is similar in this way to its greek
contemporary.
as it were there may have been a brief and interesting encounter between indic culture and perhaps by extension hinduism and buddhism and greek culture in the moment of alexander the great.
another linkage bridging the two east and west localities (hind/sindh
and europe) is the famed indo-european , or indo-aryan connection
connection and ethnic.
a reasonable / useful reminder is the paradoxical disdain of those germanic aryans to the roma who by most trusted accounts hailed from india during the late middle ages.
i was once told that hinduism is a collection or agglomeration of numerous local cults sects and regional folk religions. an agglomeration that catalogues regional and recurrent elements such as deities and that embraces different scriptural books into a common persistent pantheon and textual canon.
it should be understood as such.
i would hazard that the degree of fragmentation not only in a typical "religion" 's divergent spiritual schools but als in its sects is much higher in hinduism than it is in islam (both now with comparable population sizes ).
that degree of fragmentation is a good measure of the aspect of religion concerning the solidity and consistency of its defining dogmatic idiosyncracies.
for instance compare the degree of fragmentation in divergence from central dogma in protestantism with that of its counterpart in catholicism.
hinduism is more fragmented than buddhism as well.
the modern (recent) spread of interest in hindu belief and practices - largely in the form of exceedingly peripheral orders and sect and schools - is trans-atlantic phenomenon. to a larger extent, the
persistence of the hindu collective religion despite the presence of more consistent forms of buddhism , and abrahamic religions , may have been also the effect of a western europe influence in the form of colonization (the dutch and then french and english east india companies , and the raj).
I could not help but notice the effect the raj has had on the displacement of a largely muslim predomination throughout the indian subcontinent , not only in terms of political power but also in terms of population size.
to appreciate the effect this kind of displacement or eradication has on the collective power and reach of the muslim religion,
we can use as an illustration the analogue of the effect displacing the arabic alphabet as the alphabet for many of the turkic languages from xin-jiang/turkestan in the east to turkey in the west,and replacing it with latin and cyrillic on the mutual reach and readibility between arabic and all those languages.
the displacement of both population (by expulsion or extermination)
and influence in many parts of the muslim worlds have been a recurrent pattern in the era european colonization that extends from the late midieval age to the present time. this has also been true in the case of latin american and australian nations and elsewhere.
in light of european colonization's displacement of social orders prevalent in the XVIth cent. the persistence of the archaic hindu system today may have been due to a revival and a patronage exercised over it by the brits.
this is not dissimilar to charges of british incubation of other religious trends such as arabian wahabism or ismaili and bahai religions.
one finds a pattern here, for it was in england as well that some of the more exotic offshoots of protestanism took refuge or were incubated.
Even if this is not true for the modern hinduism in the subcontinent, it would account for much of hinduism's interface with the "west"
(for it is through the residual colonial filter that hinduism comes in contact with arabs africans and latin americans in addition to europe)
particularly in the form of the exceedingly divergent sects and imitations of western-tinted persuasions such as the transatlantic movement of hare krisna - notably with charges of abuses among the western dominated communities.
P.S.
As if to support the argument , after posting the current entry i ran into this passage at wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_denominations
):
"Influential 19th to 20th century Hindu revivalist organizations include Arya Samaj, Tilak Mission Bhagwan Swaminarayan, Brahmo Samaj, Parisada Hindu Dharma, Prarthana Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission, Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana, Swadhyay Movement, Swaminarayan Sampraday, Sathya Sai Organisation.
Hinduism was politicized in the context of the Indian independence movement, and has resulted in the rise of Hindu nationalism to a significant political force in the Republic of India." ... Read more
