The article Utopian for Beginners was very interesting. John Quijada certainly had an interesting idea to create a language that hopes to eliminate vagueness so the language would be more efficient and precise. Though I would not say that I fully agree with he’s intention, for the vagueness is what makes a language alive. To be able to manipulate a sentence is what keeps the language and culture vibrant. One thing that I was reflecting over while reading the article is how I use English. When I’m home in Sweden there are certain things I can’t translate (of course I could) because it loses its meaning in Swedish. I would agree with Lackoff when he states that Ithkuil is a work of art, for it is but I would not go as far as saying it is functional though I agree with Quijada when he states that its optimal for political and philosophical debate.
Author Archives: Hanna Fagerstrom
IAT
After class I took the IAT test to see how I view religion. The results were was very surprising to me. I am an atheist and I don’t believe in any religion, but I was schooled in Christianity. When I took the test I was very annoyed with the colors, and I honestly don’t understand the purpose of having it in the test but besides that the test went by fairly quickly. The results of the test was that I was most keen to Buddhism (even though all my result where on the deeper end of the scale), which is not surprising since it’s more of a lifestyle than religion. In the middle I paced Islam and Hinduism and all the way at the bottom was Christianity. I found it interesting that I placed the religion that I’m born into as the most disliking of them all. Perhaps it is due to the fact that that is the religion I know the most about?!
Folktales
In Sweden where I am from, most of our folktales are about trolls or female creatures. I remember when I was a child my grandmother always used to tell the story of the mountain troll that lived by the Viking rune stones. The story goes that the troll lived there to protect the treasures left by the Vikings and that if anyone tried to climb the mountain the troll would come out and eat you. Of course this story scared me and my brother to death.
I understand that mostly the story was to protect us from hurting ourselves when we walked around in the woods. Though as we got older me, my brother and our cousins always played on the mountain, but in the back of our minds we always remembered that story of the mountain troll.