Love of language
Yesterday's blog is a hard act to follow!
What I love most about this Godwriting™ blog are the responses. Do you read the responses? They outdo the blog entries. Your comments take my breath away. Be sure to read the comments to yesterday's blog.
How I love the poetry of the Chinese language. I love that even names are pictures.
Yingxuan, 贾颖绚, Heaven's new translator, posted a comment yesterday. She wrote:
My little boy's nick name is HEHE, in Chinese is 河河, its meaning is a river, just like a love river and joy river flowing into people's inner heart little by little, and in Chinese 银河（The Galaxy） is just a Heaven river.
Do you see what I mean about the word pictures?
I can only be grateful for where I was born and my whole life, yet I could have been happy to have been born into the poetry and pictures of the Chinese language. That's what poetry is -- word pictures -- isn't it? My students used to call me The Poetry Teacher! And I especially love the most poetic Heavenletters™! Here is one I never forget:
Years ago, when I learned a little linquistics. I remember something like this:
"We think according to our language. Our language influences how we think. Grammar and syntax and all that are not just rules. They format our thinking."
Now I just found this on Google:
We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/boroditsky09/boroditsky09_index.html
As I remember, the Turkish language does not have pronouns. Engin, our Turkish translator, will have to help us with this. Is it all pronouns that Turkish does not have, Engin?
When I first studied French in school, I had naively thought that it was only the words that would be different in a different language. It had never occurred to me that there was more to another language than its vocabulary.
Actually, all Heavenletter translating angels, perhaps you would tell us some of the differences in the structure of your language, will you?
Comments
Well, this is not an easy question you make, Gloria. But the above entry made me wonder whether it's the language that influences people or the people who influence the language. More than by the grammar, I think that our thoughts are influenced by the mental images and the cultural baggage attached to the words. Having lived in two countries, I can say that the Finnish language is very complicated to learn, but very simple in its expression, whilst Italian is rather easy to learn but very rich in nuances and mental images. The Finns love silence, and when they say one thing, that is it, that's exactly what they mean. The Italians love the sound of their own voice and they can speak for hours about nothing. I've been often accused of not doing my part in the conversation, but as a Finn, I am still waiting for my turn to speak (after 30 years).
I think English is somewhere in between these two. It's rather simple yet very rich in expressing things. With one English word you can express something that in Italian may need two or three words. Often, I have to compromise while translating, and give one interpretation to a word that may have many possible interpretations. But it's easier for me as Italian is not my mother tongue, and I haven't got all the cultural baggage attached to it.
What I find difficult to translate at times are the expressions that refer to American tradition, which I know is not very well known to Italians, like some nursery rhymes, or when God speaks of Humpty Dumpty, and I can only hope that the readers know what He's talking about...
Now that is interesting, dear Paula -- it is easier for you to translate because, as you say, you don't have the cultural baggage of your native Finnish. This is a surprise to me. I would have thought that our native language would be the easiest to translate. I love the differences you describe between the Finnish and Italian languages.
Paula, you may be the only person in the world to perceive the qualities of each language as you do. You may be the only person to know both languages to the extent you do.
How would you describe English, Paula?
I don't know other languages as intimately as you and One do.
I see Italian as so lyrical and expressive. I think of it as very close to the heart.
I really do see French as romantic!
Yiddish is a very homey language.
The tone of voice in which a language is spoken seems to have a common character. In Israel, the sound of Hebrew sounded a little strict. Afrikaans in South Africa seemed to have a sharpness to it.
Although English for me is the language I know and can express so many nuances in, compared to other languages, it sounds flat.
Do you remember that movie with Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Named Wanda? Without understanding one word, she would swoon when she heard the hero speaking Russian!
Gloria, I clearly understand what you mean about the delightful comments here. Reading your daily blog and listening to the thoughts of the folk who stop by here, is a real pleasure.
I love Chinese! The characters have a story. Each character has such depth of meaning and there are so many subtleties. I'm really keen on teaching myself Chinese. So, is it going to be Chinese or Tamil (the other language I have a yearning to understand)?
Seeing comes before language. We see and we know. With thoughts and words we create understanding in the world, of what we already know. The thing is, we sometimes get so caught up in trying to understand, we forget that we already know.
Language, like the land and the rest of the environment, shape the culture and people as a collective. As an outside observer, one would say that there are characteristics common to these people and this culture. An insider, one who lives with and as part of the people of any land, would see that we really are all the same, regardless of the language we speak and where we happen to be. Our struggles and joys are the same all over the world.
You already speak so many languages fluently: English, Spanish, Romanian, and Afrikaans! Did I leave something out? It is so easy for you, Senor, to learn languages, especially when you are living in the country where the language is used! You are a natural!
Yes, English may be a little 'flat', like you say, Gloria. But it's simple in structure and easier to learn than most other languages. Italian is like singing, though when I first came here, I thought that people were always quarrelling. Finnish is more like slow waves in a lake.
I remember reading the autobiography of a Palestinian lady who lives in Finland. She made me laugh when she told about all the blunder she made thinking that, like in her Arabic language, the vowels were not important in Finnish. It was hilarious to read about her mistakes, because the vowels make all the difference in Finnish. For example, 'tuli' means 'fire', but 'tuuli' means 'wind'.
I always wanted to learn Chinese, just like you One, but I gave up, because it is like painting pictures. You don't just learn words but you need to learn whole images. Maybe one day I'll have time to do it. But I think that the best way to learn a language is to live for a while in the country.