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How language and geography shape us (literature.cafe)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have been thinking more and more about how our personal lives impact our access to literature and information in general.

For example, I am reading a book I am rather enjoying, but it's in French with no translation in any other languages. It's also from a local small publishing company. At the moment, I am not aware if it has been published as an e-book, that would make it more available, but for what I know this one book is accessible only to people in a rough 100km radius from where I am, and has a language requirement.

In a similar way, news is highly language based, and new outlets will differ significantly in what news they are distributing depend ing on language and geographical location (have you heard about the Serbian protests in the last weeks? I wouldn't if it hadn't been for a Serbian friend - and I have very limited first hand access to news about it).

How conscious are you that you live - necessarily - in a bubble? When do you notice it most?

Related, check out this website: novelty-insights.com where you can analyse your goodreads book data to see what sort of categories you read most from - a sort of "filter" we apply to ourselves, sometimes willingly, sometimes unconsciously.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I notice it most in situations like you mention, with books and other media in other languages. However I also tend to go out of my way looking for that so I'm fairly frequently running into it.

Besides that, my specific interests (such as have led me here) also pretty often make it clear I'm treading my own curious path through some less visited tunnels and wires.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I often start feeling so limited in my own world views and experiences! I had wanted to learn German for a while, after after years of learning it I can barely read young adult novels... Not to speak about Russian, where I got barely passed the alphabet...

I feel more keenly aware of this nowadays because I moved to a less internationally minded city, and it feels like the culture wall around me is a bit steeper than it used to be.