On 21 Jul 1995, Barry Mallis wrote:
> Replying to LO216 --
>
> Lilly's thoughts on language were great. I am always fascinated by
> linguistic phenomena. I'd like to continue the approach for just a moment
> with Russian.
>
> The words sound very similar in Russian for teacher, textbook, to learn,
> etc. While it may be true for Serbo-Croat also, I do know that in Russian
> the verb "to teach" is "uchit'"; the verb "to learn" is the reflexive
> form, "uchit'sa", to teach oneself! So as with the other Slavic language,
> the concept of teacher/learner is built into the same action/verb.
>
> I'd say that this is related in some way to all esoteric traditions which
> in some form or other relate that the student/teacher relationship is
> symbiotic, that in the best such relationship the teacher learns from the
> student and vice versa.
>
> So what about us Anglophones? (My dad was born in Russia, my mom in
> Poland. And I was born 'n' bred in a briar patch within shouting distance
> of Manhattan Island. Linguistically not "pure bred", I don't think.
> There was always Yiddish and Hebrew floating around the house....)
I think that issue - about teaching vs learning - goes awfully deep and
far back in Western culture. How old is the word "autodidact"? How far
back does the phrase "self-taught" go? We simply have no analogous idiom
for "learning without a teacher" or "learning on one's own."
--
Regards
Jim Michmerhuizen
web residence at http://world.std.com/~jamzen/
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