A terrible thing has happened
First, I have to give you some background before I can tell you the terrible part.
The morning I'm writing this blog entry, I spent quite a bit of time with a post that had to be edited. The writer is a beautiful soul from China. I think of the writer as a woman, but I really don't know if that's so. In any case, she must use a computer robot translator which makes her thoughts in English unintelligible. It is also possible that the writer is translating herself, but is following Chinese grammar. She has a great vocabulary. Oh, dear, she writes a lot, and, seldom, can I make sense of it.
The grammar of the Chinese language just doesn't compute to the English-speaking mind's usual way of thinking. Our usual way of thinking must seem illogical to a native Chinese speaker. How much the language we learn from birth must influence us -- even stronger than influence -- it must mark us. I guess the structure of our native language must be strong in its influence us the same way our DNA does. How the Chinese speaker must see our thinking process as turned around and as impossible as theirs sometimes seems to us.
This morning I spent a lot of time, deleting sentence after sentence that I could not make any sense of. There were a very few phrases that were like oases in a desert, and I kept them. Almost all the wording was a lot like mathematical equations, only they were equations that didn't balance. I couldn't even figure out what the writer was trying to say. The words were English but the grammar and syntax were Chinese. Not the awful part yet, but we're getting close.
Sadly, I didn't keep any samples of this lady's garbled translations to show you. I just hadn't thought of keeping them. During the fifteen or so minutes I worked on revising a post from this lady in China on the morning in question, my mind was scrunched. It was a difficult puzzle. I felt like my brain waves had been rewired. My left and right side of my brain were scrambled.
I'm not to the terrible part quite yet.
My heart had responded to this Heavensubscriber from China who wanted to share her impressions with us -- this is something I wish everyone would do -- share their hearts and souls on the forum as this dear person has been doing. I cannot translate her English into English every day, of course, but I can at least honor her once in a while.
I mention my heart involvement here because I focused on this, her writing, before I got down to taking care of Godwriting and Heavenletters. Not what you would expect, is it? Well, I never said I was perfect.
Immediately after I finished interpreting the lady's English, of course, I went to the folder where I write down the Heavenletters I hear and so delight in. Usually I proof the Heavenletter that will be sent to Theophil first, give it a title if it doesn't already have one, and then I Godwrite.
Now we're getting to the terrible part.
I settled down, proofing the Heavenletter, when, all of a sudden, to my horror, as I am proofing the Heavenletter, what I was reading seemed screwy like the lady's Chinese translation into English! Everything seemed opposite, turned around, upside down, and I clutched my heart. Did God think in Chinese?!!
Heavenletters had always made perfect sense to me! Even when I didn't really understand their depth, they reached me. Now, suddenly, I understood how sometimes a reader could not make head nor tails of a Heavenletter, for, as I was reading this Heavenletter, the sentences seemed mixed-up, and I was adrift in the middle of a dark forest. Help! A precious Heavenletter had been embedded with the sing-song of a Chinese translation. This cannot be!
Here is the passage of the Heavenletter:
Your life writes itself as it goes along, and then it is to be erased and room made for more life, more new life, spontaneous life. Life is not to be revisited. It will revise itself. In any case, life, as viewed in the relative world, will not stay the same. Hop on one foot or hop on two, life is always moving merrily along. Life is merry. You may not be, and, yet, you can be regardless of what journeys life takes you on.
This must be a momentary experience, like when our eyes have been in bright light., and, when we look away, we still see the after-image of the bright light.
I am going to close my eyes for a while, drink some tea. Then, when I look at the Heavenletter, I'm sure it will be back to its old self again. It would be too terrible to contemplate otherwise.
Comments
Do you mean this passage seems mixed-up to you? It seems perfectly clear to me...
Yes, beloved Paula, that's what I mean! I think it was an affect from the strain of having focused in a different way. Somehow my brain waves had really been scrambled. They were out of sync and just weren't able to unscramble! Or, it was like my brain waves had turned into the lady's brain waves. Thank goodness, this morning, the rhythm of my own brain waves came back, and everything is back to normal back to normal back to normal!
Gloria, the passage makes sense to me too but I can also see how it would not make sense to most people. Maybe you were given a gift of temporarily knowing what it is like to be most people.
Maybe your difficulty with your Chinese friend may also give you more insight into what the translators for Heavenletters go thru daily, tho probably not to that extent most of the time. I would be interested in what Jochen might have to say about your post.
I didn't know Jochen was a chinese lady!
Yeap Dear Gloria It makes perfect sence. I had to get used to the English sentence structure, as The Dutch Language has a complete different structure. Maybe that is why it made sence to me. Emily you Naughty but very funny Girl. I end with love to all Jack
This makes us realize that a so-called universal human language ( a linguistic one based on vocabulary, grammar and syntax) is an utopia, would it be english, french, swahili or esperanto. With hundreds of families of languages, thousands of language, ten of thousands of dialects, billions of speakers, how can we expect to reach the world with one language? Creoles and pidgin are meant to meet basic needs of communication. They can hardly be a representation of the inner culture of a language.
And languages are patterns of thoughts. They are sorts of cultural mazeways which have to be learned. The Inuit people have 6 different words to express "snow" each expressing different states of nature in accordance to their cosmology. Many so-called primitive languages have no way of expressing the past and the future. Everything is perceived as accomplished or in the process of being accomplished.
The sense of "self identity" in the Western World is very different from the one in China or Japan. In tradional Japanese culture, individuals don't have an 'individual identity" in the sense that we perceive. They have a "collective identity" and no personal opinions. They don't know what a personal opinion means. It simply has no sense for them. Also in Japan, women have their own language and vocabulary which is different from the men's. You can imagine how Japanese people react when a male westerner learns Japanese through his Japanese girlfriend!
Closer to us, when we french try to speak German, it seems like if, especially in the subordinate sentences, we were "thinking and construction sentences backward", almost from right to left.
When you travel around the world, you just realize that even English, the most extended "world language" is very limited to big urban "international area and activites". And more than often, the communication is restricted to "how much? Ten rupiahs!
The first passage mentioned above is not of the lady's, but of Jochen's, just read it and you will see.
Normand, very interesting your overview.
Next life, Emilia. Time warp.
I'm certain there is a universal language among the One of us. And practically speaking, I'm glad we have the English language as a universal crutch.
Beloved Jochen, sorry for my error. I will fix it. I wondered how pulled that translation off so magnificently and haven't been able to do it again! Beloved Emilia, thank you for pointing it out.
Dear Jochen, you might have to prepare to speak Mandarin in the decades to come!
Yes, in this lifetime! The ten or so languages that Jochen knows are not enough! He loves languages. What are you learning now, beloved Jochen?
Please, dear one, I know my own language very well, I have a certain feeling for the English language but have never formally studied it (you would be disappointed hearing me speak), and there is a smattering of several other languages. Yes, if I were young or had even a little time now, I would love to study several languages in depth, that's what my love of languages really amounts to. But I'm still confident I'll unvover the universal language...
The Mandarin thing – I don't know, Normand. It might be obsolete by then.
Dear Jochen, living close to China and travelling in the most prosperous cities in the world (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, etc.) and looking how America and Europe can hardly get through recession, looking also how Australia (especially Western Australia) is getting richer because of China, I learned that the companies (especially the mining ones like Rio Tinto) are training their personal how to deal with Chinese culture and language extensively. And young Chinese businessmen are very "aggressive", economically speaking. One of my Chinese friend from Malaysia told me that Chinese are ruthless in business! America is hardly manufacturing anything anymore. Mandarin might be more than folklore. Let the future talk.
Sometimes it's good to take a walk away from words. I do this on Thursdays. Today I showed a friend how to prepare seitan without saying a single word and enjoyed it so much.
...what I was reading seemed screwy
Everything seemed opposite, turned around, upside down
...the sentences seemed mixed-up, and I was adrift in the middle of a dark forest.
Yes Gloria, I have had this experience as well. Sometimes I look at something and the words make no sense to me, it's like I'm reading a different language and I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is trying to say!
And sometimes this has even happened when listening to someone speak! I will be looking at them and listening and all of a sudden, what they are saying feels like a foreign language and not english at all. The words sound garbled, I see their lips moving but the words are not sounding like words I know....
So I have to walk away and leave it until another time and hope it makes sense at that point. It's very strange LOL.
One, oh, to be in silence!
Dorothy, that is interesting.
I had a reverse situation once. I was at the Sufi House, and Effendi was talking to me in Turkish, and I understood what he was saying!
That's what I meant to say, Normand. How far is ruthlessness going to take you? What gain is worth the trouble? Those are questions that wern't asked on a broad scale until fairly recently. The world is changing faster than we realize, and the new order of the world is being born somewhere else.
A "new order of the world", a nice thing to see, like a new menu for all, except for those who will be ordering "à la carte".
Ruthlessness is always on the standard menu and "à la carte". The Western world did teach it well to the rest of the world. "What goes up must come down, spinning wheels…"