[clue-talk] [ANN] Bantam: a lightweight file manager for X11

[Matt Gushee]

Jeff Cann wrote:

> Anyone who writes their own file manager is hard-core in my book. 

In a *good* way, I hope :-)

> On Sunday 01 May 2005 10:45 pm, Matt Gushee wrote:
> 
>>[*] Well, I guess that one is a real African word, but I still say its
>>     usage by a British software company is pretentious.
>  
> I guess it depends on whether someone thinks words are tied to the culture of 
> origin and therefore are only available to members of that culture.   Given 
> the absorption of other-language words into English, most English speakers 
> seem to think do the opposite.
> 
> Given their definition of the word, it seems like it would be far-reaching 
> across cultures.  
> 
> "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also 
> means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux 
> distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.
> 
> In what way do you think it's pretentious?

'Pretentious' is probably the wrong word. I'm not sure quite what is the 
right word for why "Ubuntu" bugs me. Part of it, I guess, is that it 
seems designed to lend a sort of spiritual glow to the product that I 
don't think any piece of software deserves. Now it could be that some of 
the people behind Ubuntu Linux actually come from Africa and sincerely 
believe that their product is part of some sort of humanizing mission. 
With no evidence either way, I'm a bit distrustful, since there are many 
cases of Americans and Europeans grabbing things from other cultures for 
commercial purposes.

As to the broader issue of appropriating words (or ideas, or practices, 
or artifacts) from other cultures ... I don't believe there's a 
cut-and-dried answer to that. But it's an issue I've become sensitive to 
as a result of a lot of time spent studying, and living in, a few other 
cultures. To state a few general principles:

  * We should avoid using out of context words that have deep spiritual
    meaning to native speakers of a given language.

  * We should not borrow foreign words without a good understanding of
    what the words mean in their native context (so *I* shouldn't borrow
    words from African languages, but it might be OK for me to borrow
    Japanese or Chinese words).

  * If we care about fairness and justice, we should be doubly cautious
    about appropriating from cultures that are much less powerful than
    ours.

(BTW, in case it isn't obvious, I'm not referring to foreign words that 
have become established parts of English, but rather to deliberate 
introductions of new words).

Good questions, Jeff.

--
Matt Gushee
Englewood, CO, USA