On Languages and Blogging
"It is a sign of a deeply disturbed civilization where Tree huggers and Whale huggers in their weirdness are acceptable... while no one embraces the last speakers of a language." -Werner Herzog
Found here which looks at whether we should preserve languages and whether a world with monolithic language usage would be a bad thing? More on this later.
Mooncalf left an astute comment on my last entry wherein I had a mini-rant about Danish lifestyle blogs being smug and self-satisfied. She linked two blog entries, both of which reacts to the Martha Stewart-ness of some blogs. I really enjoyed reading the entries and I have taken some of their points to heart. I think it is important to remember that all blogs are edited in one way or another. We all have messy tables, bad days, sweaters that do not fit, unread books and frozen pizzas. I tend to shy away from confessional blogging (and I'm also notoriously private for someone who has blogged continuously for almost nine years), but I do attempt to create a fairly realistic picture of my life whilst leaving out things I would feel uncomfortable sharing.
So, bearing all this in mind, please ask me a question.
And, going back to the idea of language, notions of identity etc etc, I found this little tidbit in one of my commonplace books:
"As there is no selfhood without some other, a national canon -- whether attached to land or language -- is constituted in such a way that its identity has both intra- and intercultural aspects. In other words, it is mediated by the memory of the other and its development always involves at least two cultures. The court of Louis XIV, English Classicism, or the Weimar Klassik defined itself with reference to Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Thus, it is possible to argue that national canons reveal an interacting with other creeds. They are intercultural manifestations, conflictual as well as mutually complementary, configurations that are, in relation to each other, not only powerfully reciprocal but also strongly oppositional." -Mihály Szegedy-Maszák
I think that pretty much reveals my stance on whether we should preserve* languages or not.
(* I'm not of a prescriptive bend, mind.)
Whit?
I had to laugh when I saw this little news story: Company seeks Glaswegian interpreter.
Today Translations spokesman, Mick Thorburn said: "Over the last few months we've had clients asking us for Glaswegian translators.
(..)
"Usually, the role would involve translating documents but in this case its more likely to be assisting foreign visitors to the city whose 'business English' is not good enough to understand the local dialect."
(..)
He added: "We're not necessarily looking for people who are particularly skilled in linguistics, just candidates who can help out clients who may struggle with native Glaswegian."
I remember arriving in Glasgow and not being able to understand most of what was being said around me. While getting some Glaswegian colleagues helped (although I have never found a use for the phrase "that fake bake is pure dead brilliant, hen"), I struggled until I twigged that Glaswegian is basically akin to my Danish uncles attempting to speak English. There is a certain flatness to Glaswegian intonation that is very, very similar to mid-Zealandic intonation and some words spoken with a broad Glaswegian accent sound more like their Danish counterpart than the actual standard English word: home becomes hame which sounds quite like a slurred mid-Zealandic hjem. For a girl who has tried to escape rural Denmark for most of her life, all this feels a bit like a cosmic joke.
Thanks to my friend Lise, I spent most of my lunch reading about the 16th best football team in the word ever. The most recent incarnation is through to next year's World Cup which bodes well for the amount of (tense) knitting I'll get done. Huzzah!
Fa’en!
My partner, David, doesn't really speak Danish. He knows a few, carefully selected, words like tak (thank you), hej (hi), ja/nej (yes/no), tillykke med fødselsdagen (happy birthday), and the good, old chestnut undskyld (sorry). He's also very fond of exclaiming kylling (chicken) whenever we make it across to Denmark. He says it makes him look special. I say exclaiming "chicken" in public places makes him look very special indeed.
For fa'en is David's favourite Danish expression, though. He says that swearing in Danish means you don't really swear. Hmm. When I came across this youtube clip explaining the Norwegian swearword Faen, I knew David would get a kick out of it. He did and so will you, I promise.
Afterwards, go to this Metafilter thread for commentary and an insight into Scandinavian neighbourly "love":
"After living in Finland, I just can't take Swedes seriously."
"I mean, Norwegian is, without a doubt, the wussiest of all Nordic languages. Icelandic and Finnish are the two hardest languages, then comes Danish due to its awesome gutturalness, then Swedish, then Norwegian."
"I lived in Iceland where national sports involved remarking on how the Finns are always drunk and how Danish sounds like Icelandic spoken by a retarded sheep. I do firmly believe that both of these are true."
On Speeches and Speech Acts?
So Obama is betting on the word's enduring power as a reformer of American life. Historically he has good reason for, from the beginning, words and texts have constructed American realities, not the other way round. The spell cast on Americans by the mantle of words goes all the way back to the first Great Awakening in the 1740s when flocks thrilled to Methodist preachers such as George Whitefield. Evangelical passion remains a brilliant strand in the weave of American discourse, but when it made way for the reasoning of the enlightenment deists and unitarians who made the revolution, another element of American speech-power sounded loud and clear: the reverence for classical oratory.
The Republican bet is that all this is a thing of the past; that, self-evidently, we live in the age of images, and words are just the add-ons to the beguilement of the eye; that all we have are soundbites. Obama's is the more stunning gamble; that so far from the digital age killing off the reign of the word, it has actually given logos a whole new lease of life.
Simon Schama on Barack Obama's acceptance speech, August 28, 2008.
Unsurprisingly my brain went 'ping!' when I realised Schama was trying to make a point about the performative and transformative powers of language. Always nice to be thrown some discourse analysis over breakfast. Even more unsurprising: the comments to the piece are almost all uniformly refusing to take up Schama's gauntlet.
Brief Interlude on Language
Watching the Austrian cellar abuse scandal unfold, I could not help but wonder one thing. How had the imprisoned children's linguistic skills developed? I learned from the BBC that some of the children communicated with each other in ways that did not adhere to standard German linguistic structures. The Austrian news story is horrifying, of course, and I feel slightly guilty that I find its language acquisition aspect so intriguing. It also led me to briefly reacquaint myself with the legend of Kaspar Hauser and the idea of universal grammar. I should get out more.
Speaking of which, I just finished knitting my first major project (I'm going to be self-indulgent enough to post a picture once I know the recipient has received it). The cherry trees outside are beginning to bloom. And while I am still struggling with stamina and energy, I do think I am getting better ever so slowly.
Words, Language and Politics, oh my!
The other day I was watching an interview with Peter Carey on BBC News following the Australian apology to Aborigines. I suspect BBC anticipated an in-depth interview about Australian identity and a smart post-colonial take on Australian history. Instead they got themselves a cagey author who was possibly the worst interviewee I have seen in a long time. Carey didn't answer his questions, he rejected the interviewer's research, he contradicted himself constantly and, let's be frank, he came across as insufferable and self-indulgent. An absolute train-wreck of an interview.
In the wake of Peter Carey being interviewed, I sat wondering about writers and language. I always thought that if you were the Peter Carey sort of writer - i.e. acclaimed, award-winning, Booker darling, taught in universities - you would have a natural affinity for language whether spoken or written. You would effortlessly construct arguments using precise, yet beautiful language. Or am I sorely mistaken? Are writers like Peter Carey (and Martin Amis and Graham Swift and Alan Hollinghurst etc) like me? When speaking, I am still an able communicator but I feel most at ease with language when I am typing away.
Gosh, maybe writers are really just like you and me! But with an agent and a publishing deal and a NYC penthouse, of course.
In unrelated news: I do not miss living in a country which expels people without a trial. I have been asked to highlight a Facebook group for Danes protesting the lack of trial. Go join. Or write indignant letters to your local MP.