Opening
My topic is the discovery of “A” and “The”. What did I discover? The answer is “civilisation”, western. eastern and modern civilisation. Today, I am the tour guide to take you through the three civilisations
Body
In order to understand the three. Firstly we need to understand the difference between “a” and ”the”? Let us begin with an example, a ball and the ball. What is the difference? The answer is, a ball means, it can be any ball. It can be a baseball ball, a basketball, or another basketball. On the other hand, when we say “the” ball, it must be specific and unique enough to identify the ball as only one.
Again, the ball, with “the", has to have some contexts to be identified as the “only one”. If only one, then no choices. That is why, we call “the Earth“, “the Sun", and "the Moon”, because these are the only ones, no alternatives. Once we understand the difference, let us start the tour to walk through the three civilisations.
A God and the God
The first is the Western Civilisation. My first opportunity to realise how important it is, the difference between “a” and “the”, was through studying theology. Theology means religious studies. Some religions say, "the God”. Some regions say, "a God”. When we say, "the God”, which means the God is unique, and only one. When we say "a God”, we expect there are other gods, so we have a choice of Gods. If you do not like one, you can ignore one, and choose another one. If there is the only one God, “the God”, we do not have any choices. No matter how good or bad, whatever righteous or evil happen to us, it is governed by the same. This is very difficult to understand, how come two extremes can be carried by the same? Yes, this challenge shaped the Western Civilisation.
A Buddha and the Buddha
The second is the Eastern Civilisation, The word “Buddha”, in India, sanskrit, it is “a” Buddha, which means anyone who attained a certain state. Thus, a Buddha is a human. However, when it is translated to a language, which has no “a” and “the”, it was interpreted as “the” Buddha. If it is “the” Buddha, no matter how we put effort, we cannot become the next Buddha If so, it is logical to worship, instead of trying to become the next one. The nature of the Buddhism has been totally changed, because of the lack of “a” and “the” in some languages. This shaped the Eastern Civilisation.
The Internet
The last is about the Modern Civilisation, "the Internet". Why not "an Internet”, but "the Internet”? Because, no matter where we access, from Africa to Taiwan, the Internet is the same network. Is this a natural consequence? No.
At the beginning of the history of the internet, there were four networks of four universities, these were running independently, not inter-connected. And then, someone started believing strongly that all the networks could be all connected up as one, should exist as the one, started calling as “the Internet".
Imagine if each network is not connected, closed to each other, by country to country. And how much human being are benefitted by having “the Internet”, instead of having “an Internet". This is the collective effort by believing Networks should not be closed to each other and calling it as “the Internet” . And This is particularly important when there are strong orientation to close their network in certain countries.
Closing
I hope these three examples give us a glimpse of how important the difference between “a” and “the”. And how important to keep our awareness of the difference. English is the great language, systematically embedded this awareness, and it is our great pleasure learning it.
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