If you ask Tom, who has never studied Chinese and knows only the dialect of his province, to translate a passage of Chinese, he very reasonably wonder, will the demand in jest, and if you insist, sees fit to be teased, will be offended and punches. Yet the same guy, even without being asked, you believe authorized to speak to a whole series of questions which are known as the Chinese, which ignores the technical language, the historical position, the connection with other quarrels, sometimes the same fundamental elements distinctive. At least know that the Chinese is a language of a particular people living in a certain place in the world: to this question ignores the ideal topography and the boundaries that limit.
Antonio Gramsci
"Past and Present"
Notebook 15, § 21
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