The Inquestia Times. L'Inquestia

The Palestinian Authority has emerged triumphant and, as Campbell Clark from The Globe and Mail reports in todays news, it has "won a lopsided victory in its bid for “non-member observer state” status at the UN, 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions. Canada was one of the nine that voted against." (Nov. 30, 2012 art. Canada 'disqualified' itself from Palestinian peace talks after UN vote, negotiator says ) Alongside the U.S. and Israel, Canada was one of the few countries who opposed the upgrade of the UN status for the Palestinians. My goal here is not to take sides, but rather only to explore some of the roots of the problems faced by the Middle-Eastern countries surrounding the issue of Palestine, and this simply in order to provide readers with an informed perspective in order to better understand what is currently being reported in the news. Let's go back to the beginning... In his concise history of the Middle East, Goldschmidt (2002) provides us with a h...

While in the European Union, in recent years, there have been attempts made by Indo-European revivalists to revive a common lingua franca in order to both simplify life for Europeans in a borderless European Union; to the contrary, here in Canada, we have the English-French schism. Since the beginning of the 17th century, both France and Britain established colonies in North America, two nations that basically vied for continental dominance for nearly a century and a half after their implantation here. To make a long story short, the current state of cultural affairs in Canada is as Martin Marger ( Race and Ethnic Relations , 2009) describes it: "Although other ethnic groups would subsequently contribute to Canada's population, the confrontation of English and French groups consumed the affairs of state from the outset of Canada's history and continues to play the preeminent role in intergroup relations... The historical and contemporary relations between French and Englis...

In my previous blogpost, the StatsCan results were discussed in terms of exploring language diversity in Canada. Although, the classification system of languages in general, it was mentioned (although often taken for granted) is in itself a recent "innovation" - if we can even truly call it that. The majority of us, meaning somewhat literate and functional human beings that have learned over the course of our short lives to function in a social democratic system with beaucoup of administrative and bureaucratic red tape - always forms to fill out at every level of our existence, whether it be governmental at the municipal, provincial, or federal levels, or just plain forms at the doctor's office for a check-up. In short, we are used to checking off any great number of options to get what we want on any officialized piece of paper in order to get what we want - be it a driver's permit, hunter's permit, wedding license, or whatever else. It is simply the way...

In case you missed it, a couple of weeks ago, Statistics Canada published their analytical finds relating to Canada's linguistic diversity, information obtained from the 2011 Census (see StatsCan document "Linguistic Characteristics of Canadians"  ). In these finds, what is the least surprising is the usual national obsession of surveying the two official languages, English and French, and to explore in great detail the linguistic duality in Canadian society with all the statistical breakdowns respectively given for each province and "census metropolitan area" (CMA). Very interesting, however, what seems to have captured the interest of most people is that outside the usual discussions that pertain to English and French as they are spoken - or not - in the mouths of Canadians; it is rather the use of what StatsCan terms as the "top immigrant languages" that have garnished the most attention. At home, here in the National Capital Region, in the Ottawa...

The English term inquest comes from the Old French enqueste "inquiry", which in turn finds its origin in the Latin inquaestia (from the verb inquirere ). Etymologically, the Latin roots of the work can be deconstructed in two composite words, in "into" + quaerere "seek, question, ask". Quest , query , question and inquisition are but a few of the related terms English has inherited from the Roman cultural sphere, for the most part a living testament of the British Isles' long period of interaction with the mainland French and their language, an  offshoot of Latin. What better title then, to have Inquestia as a banner-heading to hang over this blog in order to try to describe it. As the blog's interests shall assuredly reflect the blogger's (or the author's) own interests and preoccupations, consequently, I have more than a sneaking suspicion that most of the posts featured in the Inquestia Times shall be dedicated to explore the world ...