Language Purity?

Let's go down history lane... and rattle off a list of famous stories and novels;

• The Three Musketeers
• The Count of Monte Christo
• Les Misérables
• The Stranger
• The Beauty and the Beast
• The Metamorphosis
• The Penal Colony
• Grimm's Fairy Tales (Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel)
• Faust
• 1001 Arabian Nights (Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves)
• War and Peace
• King Arthur
• Robin Hood
• Don Quixote
• Divine Comedy
• The Odyssey
• The Little Mermaid
• The Ugly Duckling

What do these stories have in common? They were originally written in a language other than English. Yet, they are well known, revered, and loved by millions worldwide, despite their translation in many other languages, including that of English. More amazingly, the Bible, containing God's word, was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. Does that make the KJV 'blasphemy' just because it was written in English?

So, why the talk of preserving language 'purity' when it comes to subtitling ASL video entries? Something for your hands to keep busy. :) Subtitling ASL video entries do not mar the language's 'purity' anymore than English would ruin the classic Snow White fairy tale. (Written in German, BTW.) Subtitling can only help broaden your audience and contributes to the overall human discourse going on in the Internet and elsewhere. At any rate, it does appear that the subtitling issue has died down; I'm always fashionably late to these kind of debates, anyway!

FWIW, that's my contribution to the subtitling debate. My take; the ASL video entries are yours. Do with them what you want. Add subtitles or not. Widen or limit your audience. Go unplugged, or polish your video entries. But claiming language purity in refusing to subtitle your ASL video entries is really just a strawman argument.