Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
15 September 2013
14 February 2013
11 December 2012
Inward Digestion
Yesterday a phrase was running through my head: "to read, mark, and inwardly digest". I recognized that it is a perfectly Cranmerian phrase, but knew not where I had last heard or read it. A cursory search reveals that it comes from the collect for Advent II:
The question does arise: why should a phrase from the Advent II collect come to mind, quite without my conscious awareness of its origin, the day after the second Sunday in Advent? I can only suggest that this is one of the most important justifications for being well-read: that we should have inwardly digested meaningful turns of phrase. How can a English-speaking man claim to partake in Western Civilization without a thorough knowledge of the Authorised Version, of the Book of Common Prayer, of Shakespeare? (One might continue this litany, but the further towards the present one goes, the more contentious the listing.)
On a related point, I stumbled across (or acrost, as some are wont to say) an article on epigraphs today. It quite rightly recognizes that, in the use of epigraphs, we place ourselves in a living tradition of thought, a conversation with the quick and the dead.
BLESSED lord, which hast caused all holy Scriptures to bee written for our learnyng; graunte us that we maye in suche wise heare them, read, marke, learne, and inwardly digeste them; that by pacience, and coumfort of thy holy woorde, we may embrace, and ever holde fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast geven us in our saviour Jesus Christe.Now, that's all well and good, but, regrettably, I had not heard this collect in either of my churches this past Sunday. (Pity the poor ELCA, which has quite obviously given up any pretensions to beautiful language in its published liturgies. The Episcopalians should know better, I think.) The Revised Common Lectionary collect for Advent II is an insipid affair:
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.There's no comparison: Cranmer's has an immediacy, not to mention a memorable quality, that the newer one utterly lacks.
The question does arise: why should a phrase from the Advent II collect come to mind, quite without my conscious awareness of its origin, the day after the second Sunday in Advent? I can only suggest that this is one of the most important justifications for being well-read: that we should have inwardly digested meaningful turns of phrase. How can a English-speaking man claim to partake in Western Civilization without a thorough knowledge of the Authorised Version, of the Book of Common Prayer, of Shakespeare? (One might continue this litany, but the further towards the present one goes, the more contentious the listing.)
On a related point, I stumbled across (or acrost, as some are wont to say) an article on epigraphs today. It quite rightly recognizes that, in the use of epigraphs, we place ourselves in a living tradition of thought, a conversation with the quick and the dead.
10 November 2012
30 June 2012
Scandinavia; Return
Two days ago I returned from the temperate summer of Europe to this uninhabitable (ten months of the year, anyway) climate. I am not yet sure whether I would advise two-and-a-half weeks in Europe to anyone. It was, for the most part, a wonderful experience, but I have hardly begun to process it. Real travel, the kind that necessitates closer inspection of a society and people than one can get from the train window, requires a good deal of careful observation. I am not altogether certain that I was worthy of the task. But let us dispense with such quibbles. Allow me to describe Scandinavia, in my deficient manner.
Copenhagen did not make an ideal first impression, as the train station is directly across from Tivoli Gardens. (I have, once or twice, seen people quite literally "falling-down drunk" before, but that was always on a college campus, where one, unfortunately, has come to expect such a thing.) Having read about Tivoli as a child, I pictured it as more of a city park with some attractions; in fact it is simply an amusement park, and I find such places to be tacky and loud, even in the best of circumstances. I suspect the atmosphere in the city owed much to the time of year, for it was right around St. John's Eve that we were there. (I did, in fact, observe that odd Danish custom of burning an effigy of a witch on a bonfire. The men in charge of lighting our particular bonfire were incompetent, and resorted to spraying the feeble flames with lighter fluid. I don't know whether the Danes have a custom of keeping burn-unit nurses on hand at such events.) Roskilde and Hillerød were both far more pleasant, and both have remarkable historic instruments. The 1610 Compenius at Frederiksborg Castle, in Hillerød, is especially stunning.
It appears that the Danish language is, in fact, a conspiracy perpetuated by the entire nation, for nearly every Dane speaks flawless English. Danish has but two phonemes, the glottal stop and the schwa, and these bear no relation to orthography. How anyone manages to speak, much less understand, the language is a most vexing matter.
After less than three days in Denmark, it was on to Sweden. Stockholm appears to be a very pleasant city, if one can judge a place by its smell. Every city has a smell, you know. Many American cities stink chiefly of polluted air, be it from factories or from our all-too-beloved automobiles. Vienna's smell, as I remember it, has an earthiness — perhaps that is the Wienerwald — atop which is a mixture of other, more acidic, smells: cigarettes, the Danube... I cannot identify all the components. Czech and German and Danish cities have their own smells. Stockholm is perhaps the nicest-smelling city, for more than anything else one smells Lake Mälaren. Perhaps it is different at other times of the year, or when the wind is from other directions. Unlike the Germans (who, as far as I saw, are utterly incapable of dressing up), the citizens of Stockholm dress well. The city is particularly expensive, though I suppose it was the height of tourist season this past week.
Uppsala, though it perhaps does not smell as nice, was far more agreeable to my tastes, being far less busy and with far fewer tourists. The city is dominated by the Domkyrka. (A note on Swedish orthography, which is at least a bit more sane than Danish: it appears that, after nasal consonants, "k" becomes an unvoiced post-alveolar fricative, that is, "sh". Thus, domkyrka comes out something like "domshirkah", as I am not in the mood to look up the IPA exactly.) In most respects it is a college town, which is perhaps what appealed to me, besides the cathedral. The Church of Sweden, though now it is just as empty on Sundays as any other European church, at least had the good sense not to dispense with all high-church frippery. (Apparently this is due largely to Laurentius and Olaus Petri.) The dom-museum in Uppsala has an impressive collection of vestments, altar-ware, and other historical churchy artifacts.
Perhaps appropriately, the very last place to visit was Leufsta Bruk, a tiny village at what feels like the end of the world. Leufsta Bruk is a surreal place: here, in the taiga of northern Uppland, is a perfectly preserved eighteenth-century settlement, with manor house, workers' quarters, and a church. It is the church that is of primary interest, for it houses a virtually unaltered 1720s Cahman organ.
Is it worth even attempting to describe what makes certain instruments so much better than others? I fear it is not. I could not have understood it myself before hearing, and playing, a historic instrument. Suffice it to say that, on historic instruments, the music makes sense in a way that it does not make sense on modern instruments. Sweelinck, and Buxtehude, and Bach, and all the great geniuses of organ composition, knew their instruments and wrote accordingly for them: everything, from touch to phrasing to registration, just seems to work on a historic instrument. There are difficulties, of course. Historic pedalboards are all flat, of course; that is not really a problem. (My teacher at Notre Dame notes that a curved AGO pedalboard conduces to "cookie-cutter interpretations", and I think he's right.) But historic pedalboards are also not standardized. Most have considerably shorter compasses, and many are wider — that is, the space between pedal notes is wider — which can be quite disorienting. The winding of certain instruments is downright difficult. These problems (and several others) notwithstanding, it is very much worth it to play historic music on historic instruments.
Copenhagen did not make an ideal first impression, as the train station is directly across from Tivoli Gardens. (I have, once or twice, seen people quite literally "falling-down drunk" before, but that was always on a college campus, where one, unfortunately, has come to expect such a thing.) Having read about Tivoli as a child, I pictured it as more of a city park with some attractions; in fact it is simply an amusement park, and I find such places to be tacky and loud, even in the best of circumstances. I suspect the atmosphere in the city owed much to the time of year, for it was right around St. John's Eve that we were there. (I did, in fact, observe that odd Danish custom of burning an effigy of a witch on a bonfire. The men in charge of lighting our particular bonfire were incompetent, and resorted to spraying the feeble flames with lighter fluid. I don't know whether the Danes have a custom of keeping burn-unit nurses on hand at such events.) Roskilde and Hillerød were both far more pleasant, and both have remarkable historic instruments. The 1610 Compenius at Frederiksborg Castle, in Hillerød, is especially stunning.
It appears that the Danish language is, in fact, a conspiracy perpetuated by the entire nation, for nearly every Dane speaks flawless English. Danish has but two phonemes, the glottal stop and the schwa, and these bear no relation to orthography. How anyone manages to speak, much less understand, the language is a most vexing matter.
After less than three days in Denmark, it was on to Sweden. Stockholm appears to be a very pleasant city, if one can judge a place by its smell. Every city has a smell, you know. Many American cities stink chiefly of polluted air, be it from factories or from our all-too-beloved automobiles. Vienna's smell, as I remember it, has an earthiness — perhaps that is the Wienerwald — atop which is a mixture of other, more acidic, smells: cigarettes, the Danube... I cannot identify all the components. Czech and German and Danish cities have their own smells. Stockholm is perhaps the nicest-smelling city, for more than anything else one smells Lake Mälaren. Perhaps it is different at other times of the year, or when the wind is from other directions. Unlike the Germans (who, as far as I saw, are utterly incapable of dressing up), the citizens of Stockholm dress well. The city is particularly expensive, though I suppose it was the height of tourist season this past week.
Uppsala, though it perhaps does not smell as nice, was far more agreeable to my tastes, being far less busy and with far fewer tourists. The city is dominated by the Domkyrka. (A note on Swedish orthography, which is at least a bit more sane than Danish: it appears that, after nasal consonants, "k" becomes an unvoiced post-alveolar fricative, that is, "sh". Thus, domkyrka comes out something like "domshirkah", as I am not in the mood to look up the IPA exactly.) In most respects it is a college town, which is perhaps what appealed to me, besides the cathedral. The Church of Sweden, though now it is just as empty on Sundays as any other European church, at least had the good sense not to dispense with all high-church frippery. (Apparently this is due largely to Laurentius and Olaus Petri.) The dom-museum in Uppsala has an impressive collection of vestments, altar-ware, and other historical churchy artifacts.
Perhaps appropriately, the very last place to visit was Leufsta Bruk, a tiny village at what feels like the end of the world. Leufsta Bruk is a surreal place: here, in the taiga of northern Uppland, is a perfectly preserved eighteenth-century settlement, with manor house, workers' quarters, and a church. It is the church that is of primary interest, for it houses a virtually unaltered 1720s Cahman organ.
Is it worth even attempting to describe what makes certain instruments so much better than others? I fear it is not. I could not have understood it myself before hearing, and playing, a historic instrument. Suffice it to say that, on historic instruments, the music makes sense in a way that it does not make sense on modern instruments. Sweelinck, and Buxtehude, and Bach, and all the great geniuses of organ composition, knew their instruments and wrote accordingly for them: everything, from touch to phrasing to registration, just seems to work on a historic instrument. There are difficulties, of course. Historic pedalboards are all flat, of course; that is not really a problem. (My teacher at Notre Dame notes that a curved AGO pedalboard conduces to "cookie-cutter interpretations", and I think he's right.) But historic pedalboards are also not standardized. Most have considerably shorter compasses, and many are wider — that is, the space between pedal notes is wider — which can be quite disorienting. The winding of certain instruments is downright difficult. These problems (and several others) notwithstanding, it is very much worth it to play historic music on historic instruments.
18 June 2012
Broken German
Perhaps the first thing any tourist must overcome is the fear of being seen as an utter fool. (I use the word "tourist" in the sense of a person who wishes to visit a foreign culture — not just hang around with other insufferable Americans at a resort; if there were a lower genus than "tourist" I should assign such cultural troglodytes to it.) Irredisregardless of how well one knows the language and mores, one will make mistakes. Foolish mistakes. In a larger city, like Vienna, they are at least accustomed to having ignorant tourists frolicking about, but in the hinterland the things we do can come across as genuinely peculiar.
The chief barrier to communication is, of course, the language. While I have taken a German course in college and spent ten weeks previously in Vienna, my German is still, one might say understatedly, inelegant. My vocabulary is limited, yes, but far more limited is my knowledge of German grammar and syntax. The greatest problem posed by the German language to the amateur speaker is not (only) the word order but mostly the articles. German, as you may know, has three genders, with corresponding articles. It also has declensions, and while some nouns are declined, it is mostly the articles that bear the brunt of this process. It is thus difficult to even represent the sort of mistakes the English speaker is likely to make in his forays into German. There are two options for the ignoramus who would nonetheless have himself understood: (1) omit articles entirely. I suspect this comes across a bit like cave-man language. Or (2) attempt articles with the knowledge that most of them are incorrect. This was my strategy, and, though my sins against the German language were many, it seemed I got my point across. A good many conversations have been conducted in both broken German (on my part) and broken English, for while English is spoken by some Germans, they learn it a bit like Americans learn Spanish: for a few years in school, perhaps, then to be mostly forgotten. It is work, maintaining a language.
The chief barrier to communication is, of course, the language. While I have taken a German course in college and spent ten weeks previously in Vienna, my German is still, one might say understatedly, inelegant. My vocabulary is limited, yes, but far more limited is my knowledge of German grammar and syntax. The greatest problem posed by the German language to the amateur speaker is not (only) the word order but mostly the articles. German, as you may know, has three genders, with corresponding articles. It also has declensions, and while some nouns are declined, it is mostly the articles that bear the brunt of this process. It is thus difficult to even represent the sort of mistakes the English speaker is likely to make in his forays into German. There are two options for the ignoramus who would nonetheless have himself understood: (1) omit articles entirely. I suspect this comes across a bit like cave-man language. Or (2) attempt articles with the knowledge that most of them are incorrect. This was my strategy, and, though my sins against the German language were many, it seemed I got my point across. A good many conversations have been conducted in both broken German (on my part) and broken English, for while English is spoken by some Germans, they learn it a bit like Americans learn Spanish: for a few years in school, perhaps, then to be mostly forgotten. It is work, maintaining a language.
17 May 2012
W.H. Auden on Liturgical Reform
I have, of late, been feeling mighty contrary, especially in matters liturgical. This mood was prompted, in part, by reports that suggest I am not alone in my reactionary tastes. When complaining about artless, ugly, and unnecessary liturgical reforms one need not look far to find kindred cantankerous spirits, though few of them appear to be involved in the bodies that decide such things. (One can at least take some comfort in being right, I suppose.) I present here one such spirit, W.H. Auden, whose work I generally enjoy. This letter (dated November 26th, but without a year; it was written while Auden resided at St. Mark's Place in New York) was apparently prompted by alterations to the Episcopalian liturgy.
Dear Father Allen:
Have you gone stark raving mad? Aside from its introduction of a lesson and psalm from the O.T., which seems to me admirable since few people go any more to Mattins or Evensong, the new 'liturgy' is appalling.
Our Church has had the singular good-fortune of having its Prayer-Book composed and its Bible translated at exactly the right time, i.e., late enough for the language to be intelligible to any English-speaking person in this century (any child of six can be told what 'the quick and the dead' means) and early enough, i.e., when people still had an instinctive feeling for the formal and the ceremonious which is essential in liturgical language.
This feeling has been, alas, as we all know, almost totally lost. (To identify the ceremonious with 'the undemocratic' is sheer contemporary cant.) The poor Roman Catholics, obliged to start from scratch, have produced an English Mass which is a cacophonous monstrosity (the German version is quite good, but German has a certain natural sonority): But why should we imitate them?
I implore you by the bowels of Christ to stick to Cranmer and King James. Preaching, of course, is another matter: there the language must be contemporary. But one of the great functions of the liturgy is to keep us in touch with the past and the dead.
And what, by the way, has happened to the altar cloths? If they have been sold to give money to the poor, I will gladly accept their disappearance: I will not accept it on any liturgical or doctrinal grounds.
With best wishes,
[signed]
W.H. Auden
04 May 2012
Admirable Words, Vol. V
- Athwart
- Bint
- Conniption
- Encarnadine (a rarer, but better, spelling than Incarnadine)
- Esplanade
- Glebe
- Lagniappe
- Malinger
- Palanquin
- Termagant
30 January 2012
06 October 2011
29 June 2011
09 February 2011
07 February 2011
On Translating Borges
For what amounts to years, now, I have been attempting to translate a lecture given by Jorge Luis Borges on the Book of Job. (He's got some interesting ideas about it, as it so happens.) Every time I near completion, however, I find myself dissatisfied with the result. It is invariably either unfaithful to the original or awkward-sounding in English. (One will note that often Borges used Spanish words to unusual effect. But the English-speaking reader is not aware of this and will likely attribute it to poor translation.) Consider, if you will, the opening paragraph — insofar as an oral lecture can be divided into paragraphs:
What is one to do? Part of the problem is that spoken sentences can be far longer than their written counterparts before becoming excessive; one can nest parentheticals (as I am wont to do) without too badly breaking up the flow of a spoken idea, but when written this becomes tiresome after a while, unless you read lots of James and must therefore enjoy endless sentences.
The chief problem, I suppose, is that Borges's style is deliberately obscure. In a review of five new Borges anthologies, Martin Schifino (interesting surname, that) explains this well:
A pesar de la hospitalidad que siento en ustedes me considero un poco intruso. Pero hay dos razones que me hacen mitigar esa impresión. Una de las razones es que yo he sido criado dentro de la fe cristiana y la cultura occidental; la cristiandad, más allá de nuestras convicciones o de nuestras dudas personales, es una malgama de dos naciones que me parecen esenciales para el mundo occidental. Esas son: Israel (el cristianismo procede de Israel) y Grecia. Más allá de las vicisitudes de nuestra sangre, de nuestra múltiple sangre, ya que tenemos dos padres, cuatro abuelos, etc. — en progresión geométrica — y ya que Roma fue una suerte de extensión del helenismo, creo que todos, por el mero hecho de pertener a la cultura occidental, somos hebreos y griegos. De modo que algún derecho me asiste hoy al hablar sobre el Libro de Job, aunque ignore la lengua hebrea y aunque no he podido leer el texto original y los comentarios Rabínicos.And here is my attempt at a translation:
Despite the hospitality I sense in all of you, I consider myself rather intrusive. But there are two reasons that mitigate this impression of mine. One of them is that I have been raised in the Christian faith and in western culture; Christianity, notwithstanding our personal beliefs or doubts, is an amalgam of two nations that seem to me essential to the western world. They are: Israel (Christianity arose out of Israel) and Greece. Regardless of the vicissitudes of our blood, out of our multiple heritages, since we have two parents, four grandparents, etc. — in a geometrical progression — and since Rome was a sort of extension of Hellenism, I believe that all of us, by the mere fact of belonging to western culture, are Hebrews and Greeks. As a result, I have a certain right to speak today about the Book of Job, though I know no Hebrew and though I have not been able to read the original text nor its Rabbinical commentaries.
What is one to do? Part of the problem is that spoken sentences can be far longer than their written counterparts before becoming excessive; one can nest parentheticals (as I am wont to do) without too badly breaking up the flow of a spoken idea, but when written this becomes tiresome after a while, unless you read lots of James and must therefore enjoy endless sentences.
The chief problem, I suppose, is that Borges's style is deliberately obscure. In a review of five new Borges anthologies, Martin Schifino (interesting surname, that) explains this well:
[Alfred] MacAdam describes Borges's early style as "tortuous" and his vocabulary as "rarefied". [Suzanne] Levine calls the writing of his essays "radical" and even "bizarre to those who read him in Spanish today". Both are right in general. But it is a matter of detail in which way Borges "replays the Latinate prose of the Baroque era", and perhaps the best way to convey this might not be to "improvise a rococo English" – an intention declared, but fortunately never carried out, by Levine. The baroque influence can be felt, sure enough, in Borges's inkhorn terms, but his rhetorical habits are much closer to home: plain Edwardian. He sounds a little like Kipling, and a lot like Chesterton. His essays are full of Chestertonian throat-clearing and oratorical flourishes. Part of the challenge for translators may be to make new an existing manner that has fallen out of favour. In any case, more resources from the English tradition will need mining if Borges's big voice is to be fully energized.The best way to translate Borges, then? Read more Chesterton. Borges was famously fond of him, anyway.
12 June 2010
Catafalque:
About an hour ago, prompted by a friend, I was perusing a sermon on the inter-net for my edification when, all of a sudden, the word CATAFALQUE appeared to me. This was curious, because that word was nowhere to be found on the page, nor did I see any adjacent words that could easily be jumbled and arranged to spell it. (Nonetheless that is my theory, that I saw enough constituënt letters of the word that my brain somehow assembled it.) What was more curious is that, though I had probably seen the word somewhere before, I could not define it. Upon looking up "catafalque", I was intrigued to find that it is a synonym of "bier", or "hearse". One does wonder whether this is some sort of omen. In any case, it is an interesting word.
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