the cassandra pages

Linguistic Detour

Via Bint Battuta, here is an article about the etymology of the word "cheese," in various European languages. Fascinating. And we even have two distinct linguistic strains: one deriving the Latin caseum (cheese) and the other from the Latin forma, or "form" (shape, mould.) Worth a look.

¡Hola!

"Taqueria Mexico dans la ville" a few blocks from our studio.

To live in Montreal is to swim in a sea of languages. I came here seven or eight years ago feeling my lack of French fluency very keenly. Gradually, it's improved -- through practice and immersion, helped by friendships and our deliberate choice to live in a French neighborhood -- to the point where I can read very well, manage to express myself in most situations, sustain fairly simple conversations, and converse with people who don't speak English. Best of all, I can finally follow the gist, at least, of most of what I hear. At first I thought being shy about speaking was the most isolating aspect, but I quickly realized, no, it was my failure to understand what was being said around me. In a way, it was like being deaf, and reminded me of my father-in-law's last years, when he so often simply tuned out of conversations he couldn't hear or understand, and as a result felt left out -- and he was, in fact, left out unless one of us acted as "translator" for him. I'm grateful to my bilingual friends here who've done that for me during meetings or other events when I was missing big chunks of important information.

But another aspect of Montreal reality is that many people are not merely bilingual, but trilingual, or even more. There are many immigrants and many blended families; people travel a lot too, and they're interested in other cultures, and want to be able to speak at least a little bit when they arrive; it seems like a cultural tendency, even a hobby, among many people in this city. I always laugh when I go to my dentist: in that office alone there are native speakers of French, Spanish, Romanian, and Farsi, which, when combined with my English, generally leads to a lively exchange rather than confusion, because they all find it fun to do that, and so do I.

Two of our best friends here are completely fluent in English, Spanish, and French, and I've been continually impressed and envious of the easy way they switch back and forth. They've been so generous in including us in family gatherings, sometimes with visitors from South America who speak no French or English. I've often wished I could converse a little in Spanish, a language I've never studied. Last year, when our bathroom was being re-done, the expert tile installer often brought his father, an entremely warm, nice man, to help -- but the older man spoke only Spanish. This sort of encounter happens all the time, and always feel like a missed opportunity when there's no language in common.

If I had been born here, I wonder if languages would have become more of a hobby for me, too. I studied French in school, then ancient Greek and German - but the later two were just for reading; speaking a language is different. I have some aptitude for hearing and repeating the nuances of sound -- maybe being musical helps. My problem, as an adult learner, has mainly been time. How I wish I knew the essential phrases and expressions and basic vocabulary in Arabic, Spanish, Italian, German, Farsi, Russian...not to mention Chinese and Japanese! Another potential avocation for a person with too many already!

Trudging...earlier today.

However, with an upcoming trip to points south, I am finally tackling task #1, and learning some basic Spanish. It's been decades since I seriously studied a language besides French, and I'm finding it fascinating and fun. French turns out to be a help, as well as a confusion - my brain rebels at similarities like "elle" and "ella." (I do feel a little bit like I'm trying to cram new puchases into an already-full closet.) To study and practice, I've been using the online beginner's course offered by "Babbel;" the computer environment offers not only drills in reading and writing, but the benefits of an oral language lab with speech recognition. It keeps track of mistakes and presents an individualized review of my least-internalized material.

I just wish -- as always -- that there were more hours in the day!

Grey Morning at Marie Reine du Monde

Standing atop the façade of Mary, Queen of the World, the line of saints looks down on the city, as I look down on them...

Life is feeling pretty chaotic right now, but we're managing...yesterday the workmen set off the fire alarm in the apartment, today they want the bathtub delivered but it can't be, not until Monday...flurries of phone calls...The silver lining, I guess, is that I'm learning a lot of new French words. Bride de carrelage, par example = "tile flange." Who knew?

Today I went to the apartment early to talk to the workcrew and try to see if there was anything we could do about the delay. I met Benoit and Simon, and we talked, mostly in French -- and I was happy that I was able to understand them and make myself understood. It's getting better. Osmosis!

For a complete contrast, tomorrow evening and all day Saturday I'll be talking about and teaching contemplation/meditation at the cathedral's annual Lenten retreat. I think I'm the one who'll benefit the most!

 

Cardamom/Kakula

For the language nuts out there, a fascinating post on the linguistic origins of an Arabic word for cardamom, kakula. This is from bint battuta, who is based in Bahrain and has recently started blogging again. I'm so glad!

Metro Stories

This is my contribution to the Language/Place Blog Carnival, hosted this month by Jean at tasting rhubarb.

I grew up in the homogeneous, English-speaking rural northeastern U.S., but where I live now, in Montreal, the languages of the world constantly swirl around me. In buses, on the streets, and in the metro I catch snatches of conversations; mainly in French but often not, and sometimes with the speakers switching easily back and forth between two or three languages.When I first moved here, with my thirty-years-rusty schoolgirl French, I found this fluency amazing and completely intimidating, especially among young people who seemed not only to be comfortable in many languages but to have traveled to all parts of the globe. It also made me a bit pissed off: how could they be so good at this and so young? "If I had grown up here..." I'd find myself saying in my head.

But once in a while, the tables are turned, and I overhear a conversation that shows some unexpected naivete (not often among the French or global immigrants, I must add.)

So: it's late one night on a crowded Green Line metro car running between McGill and Berri/UQAM. The first speaker is a tall Quebecer, anglophone, pale reddish complexion, sandy hair and beard, 20-ish; looks rather straight. His friend: same age, also Caucasian and anglophone but with dreadlocks and loose clothes, affecting a worldly hippie look.

Sandy hair -- So I'm going to meet her in Ottawa this weekend. She's Asian.

Dreads -- Really? From where?

--She's Chinese.

--No kidding! Did you know I'm studying Chinese?

--No...what's that like? (nervous laughter) Maybe you can teach me something to say to her.

--Right...well, it's interesting. Very complex. Umm, you could say "Ni hao!" to her. That means "hello."

--(more nervous laughter. He clears his throat and tries:) "Knee How."

--(laughs) A little more like this: "Ni-HOW." See, in Chinese you have all these inflections. That's where the voice has to go up, or down, or stay flat. (He demonstrates and explains that the word he's saying has four different meaning depending on the inflection.

--Wow, I never knew that about Chinese!

--Yeah. And then you have the characters to learn.

--What do you mean, 'characters'?

--(surprised pause, then stares at his feet before answering) Well, Chinese isn't written in letters like English or French. It has symbols that are made up of strokes, and they form, well, sort of pictures that represent words or things or ideas. It's hard to explain.

--Oh, kinda like the Inuit!

--The Inn-you -- Who are they?

--(astonished look, quickly wiped off the face so as to appear polite - these are Canadians, after all) They're our native northern people here in Quebec.

--(looks confused) Oh...

 

 

Your Crown is Stuck in Traffic

In the waiting room, reading. Listening, sort of, to the French news on the television. I had arrived ten minutes early, the first patient, but it was now twenty minutes past nine. The Iranian dental assistant had come in just before the hour, clicking her usual high heels on the floor, and then the surgeon himself, greeting me warmly and taking the book out of my hand --what are we reading today? Saramago. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Is it good? -- before disappearing into the  inner reaches of the office. At twenty past, Manon, the receptionist, looked up at me, bird-like, over her high counter. I'm sorry it's so late, she said, in her French-accented English that I find so endearing. But your crown is stuck in traffic. I laughed. I've already called the delivery person twice, she went on, he's trying his best to get here. It shouldn't be much longer.

It's fine, I said, glancing again at my watch, I'm enjoying my book. I had reached an important point -- where Ricardo lays his hand on the arm of Lydia, the hotel chambermaid, for several moments too long, and she leaves the room, the teacups on the breakfast tray trembling along with her hands -- when the office door opened and a young man came in, carrying two small white cardboard boxes. Each had type on its sides, inscribed along a curve with a tooth at each end: "We Deliver Smiles."

My appointment began and proceeded smoothly; we laughed and talked as usual in-between ratchetings and filings and tap tap taps on the red film that showed what needed to be adjusted in my bite to accommodate the new tooth. There was a CD playing in the background: first Mozart, then Arabic music, the faintly African rhythms. What is this? I finally asked, when the reedy nasal sound of a Turkish ney broke into a woman's voice in full aria-flight, and I couldn't keep from laughing. He asked the assistant to turn the volume up and laughed too; we both sang snatches along with the singer. It's an obscure disk from France, he said. Some crazy guy who's combined Mozart with middle eastern and African music, but it somehow works. It does something different to your brain - you know, if music is supposed to free our minds to imagine places and scenes, this takes me somewhere entirely new. I feel like I'm in... a souk somewhere. While with western music I'm often bored, I love it but I've heard it so much, it's predictable. And your brain is used to it so it doesn't take you anywhere, I said. That's why I like performing contemporary music, I have to think harder.

We spoke of his daughter, who I'd met recently, she's torn between the violin and chemistry; and about books, and politics; I told him about our recent trip to the U.S. He told me he'd hurt his back at the gym, overdoing it. Listen he said, laughing again --the Requiem with Arabic drumming - fou fou fou. Then at one point I said --I've started painting again. Good for you! he said. How does it feel? It feels good, I said, shrugging. It's different than before. I have no idea now exactly what I want to be doing or where I'm going with it, but that's OK. I'm experimenting. Enjoying it.

It doesn't matter, he said, nodding, and pressing the glued crown into its final destination with his thumb. At this point it's the journey and the process that are more important than the result. He paused, and then grinned. We know that, he added, widening his eyes behind his round glasses, because now we're mature.

Complain, Carp, Grouse, Crab and Beef...

I told J., after a discussion of the differences between "complaining" and "criticizing", that I was going to look up the etymology of "complain." That turned out to be even more fascinating than I'd expected.

Remembering the French verb complaindre, I assumed that our English word had come from that, and that complaindre had a Latin root.  That was right; the word came into English in the late 14th century, from the Old French verb (12th c) meaning "to lament" which did come  from the Latin complangere, which meant "to beat the breast." I was confused by the "com" in this word; the dictionary I consulted said in this case it's used here less in the sense of "with" or "together" than as an intensive prefix. The Latin verb plangere means "to strike or beat the breast," and "plaga", a noun from this word, means a stroke or wound and is probably the origin of "plague." And of course, in a less specific sense than the-plague-as-illness, the things that plague us are those we tend to complain about...the first recorded uses of "plague" meaning "bother or annoy" date from the 1590s.

I was familiar with the word "complaint" being used to mean "lament" from its common occurrence in Renaissance church music - during penitential seasons we sing many motets with texts like, "O Lord, hear the voice of my complaint," which doesn't mean "I'm upset about all the things that are wrong in my life," but rather, "I lament my sins and weaknesses." 

That sense of the word lasted only until the 17th century, giving way to the modern meaning of the word. Its popularity in the language (and human behavior) seems particularly evident in the long and colorful list of synonyms and related expressions: 

moan, whine, kvetch, beef, bellyache, chide, yammer, carp, grouse, rail, crab, quarrel, nag, gripe, bespeak, bitch, and kick.

Not surprisingly, some of these also have very interesting origins as synonyms for "complain." To look at just a few of them, I've heard some of my British friends use the word "whinge," unfamiliar to me, which is related to "whine." Whine/whinge come from the Old English hwinan  which is the whizzing or whistling sound that arrows make through the air.  hwinsian is the whining of dogs, thought to have come from the Old Norse hvina "to whiz," and German wiehern "to neigh". The use of "whine" meaning "to complain feebly" began in the 16th century.

To "beef" about something was a slang term that originated in the 1880s. The origin is uncertain, but it's thought that it might come from a common complaint by U.S. soldiers in the late 19th century about the quantity or quality of beef rations.

"Grouse" is British army slang from the same period, first mentioned by Rudyard Kipling, and did not have to do with the lack of game birds in the military diet! Etymologists think it might have come the word "groucer", in the Norman French dialect, which came from the Old French groucier "to murmur, grumble." 

And while we're in the animal kingdom, "carp" has nothing to do with the fish; the word was already used to mean "complain" in the early 13th century and probably came from the Old Norse karpa "to brag," influenced by the Latin carpere "to slander, revile," lit. "to pluck" (carpe diem="sieze the day") Together, these words somehow mutated toward a meaning closer to "find fault with."

As for "crab" in its use as a noun meaning a sour person, or a verb meaning to complain, it was probably a combination of the temperament of the animal "crab" (from Germanic roots for scratch, claw; the first mention of the constellation known as the Crab appears in English around 1000 A.D.) and the sourness of the fruit (a Scandinavian word for wild apple trees, crabbe, 13th century). The use of the word to refer to a complaining, sour person dates from the 1570s.

All of which is way more than I expected to learn when I offered to look up "complain"!

Fa-sin-eh-ting!

How to do (and not do) an American accent: lessons for Brits from a famous acting/speech coach. Living in Montreal, where many English-speakers are either truly British or have a British accent, I'm more aware than ever of my American way of speech but hard put to identify exactly what I do that gives it away: here's the start of an explanation, amusingly delivered. Repeat after me: fleece, creep, speak...

Rescue, in a different language

Dolphin saves stranded whales.

Why are we still so surprised by stories like this? As a child I remember being astounded by researchers announcing that it was "possible" that some animals "communicated." Being out in the woods had shown me clearly that birds spoke to each other, and also that I could speak to them, whether in words or with unspoken calm, a quiet heart, and positive intention. I remain convinced, more than 50 years later, that we have barely scratched the surface of the possibilities of communication, even within our own species. I wonder if any of you have stories about this subject - it's the sort of thing people don't talk about much for fear of being thought of as nuts, but many of us have experienced odd moments of closeness or communication with other species, or witnessed animals clearly communicating with each other.

Menu du Jour: Clash, or Fusion?

There is a very low level of optimism about relations between Islam and the Western world, according to a poll and a new report issued by the World Economic Forum. In mid-2007, about a thousand respondents in 21 countries were surveyed about their impressions of understanding, respect, and dialog between Islam and the West, and whether things feel like they're getting worse or better. Not surprisingly, most respondents were not optimistic.

But what did surprise me was that people in the United States, Canada, Israel, and the Muslim countries all said they felt more interaction would be beneficial, while people in Europe said they did not want greater contact.

This seems to line up with the findings of the recent Bouchard-Taylor Commission on "Reasonable Accomodation" of minorities in Quebec. The people who are the most exercised about immigrants, especially religious minorities (read: Muslims) are the French, especially the rural French, who fear losing their traditional culture and language. The immigrants themselves objected to the very term: "We want to be accepted, not accommodated," they said over and over again at the many public hearings. And - again, it's no surprise - acceptance is greatest in the areas with the most contact between cultures and religions, such as cities like Montreal, Toronto, and New York.

But rather than belabor a point that's been made here before, I simple want to say that this is an area where blogging can do a great deal: to illuminate language, culture, stories of personal experience, of displacement and change, to create greater curiosity and less fear of the unknown. I intend to try to do more of that here in the coming months, and I'd like to especially invite readers from diverse backgrounds, countries, and cultures to make yourselves known and become part of the discussion here. You will find a warm welcome and respect, and interest in what you have to say, and I'll be asking some specific questions from time to time to try to get the conversation moving.

For starters, it would be great to hear from readers: how many of you consider yourselves "ethnic" in some way? Were you or your parents born in a different country from where you are now living? Did you grow up speaking a language other than English in the home, or did you study another language intentionally? Is it important to you to maintain or discover your own cultural roots?

(I don't mean at all to exclude English-speakers and North Americans from answering these questions - if you don't know it already, I, for one, feel like an "ethnic American" for the first time in my life, since I now live in a foreign country - French-speaking Quebec. I've also been married for nearly thirty years to a Syrian-Armenian American, which has broadened and changed my whole perspective on personal identity.) 

So - welcome to new commenters and familiar ones who may not have talked about this aspect of your life before: it would be great to hear from you. Let's do our bit for opening at least this channel of exchange and dialog, and reversing that negativity.