Language, Language!
One dyadic station shopping head elects. Victor Mair is the Sherlock Holmes of Chinglish, but this time he’s faced with a devilishly clever challenge to his investigative skills.
Related: “Do not puke. Do not wash the baby ass. In the sink.”
Here’s the beginning ofJoyce’s Finnegans Wake:
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passen-core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
And here, thanks to Adam Roberts, is the same passage — translated into Latin:
flumenflue, transitum Eva et Adam, declinationem ab litore ad flectere lauri, commodius ab nobis facit Houuthi vicus de castro et recirculus ad circumstant.
Tristram Eques, violator Francorum amat, ab super brevis mare transierat core iterum venit ab Aquilone Armoricam erant hinc et longum invalidi isthmus Europa Minora vetui pugnam penisolate bellum: et habebant summo fabri saxa a flumine Oconeus affansebat se ad Laurens Comitatu scriptor gorgios dum irent Doublinum eorum mendicabulum omni tempore: neque avoice ex incendit; rugiebam misie misie ad tauf-tauf tuartpeatricus* nondum erat, quanquam venissii post, quam ad puerscade finisanus a coelum isaaci: non tamen, quamquam omnia aequa in vanessia, erant soror sestheri irascaris duunus nathetjoe. Gerrae modios e scriptor Jhemus aut braseum habuit braciatam ad lucem et inter Sen et rugiens, et usque ad angulum perveniret ad videndum quasisignaculum, regginbruus fuit aqua super faciem suam.
Yes, Adam, who is now certifiably insane, has translated ALL of Finnegans Wake into Latin. That post contains a link to the Amazon UK edition, but if you’re in the USA you can buy a digital copy for less than two bucks.
John Bishop’s 1986 book Joyce’s Book of the Dark just might be my favorite work of literary criticism ever, in part because I simply cannot imagine knowing what Bishop knows and understanding what he understands. His account is certainly more readable than the Wake itself — though it is jam-packed with quotations from the text — and it might actually be more worth reading than Joyce’s hilarious monster. Taken as a whole it constitutes a profound meditation on the mysteries of language, consciousness, and what happens to us while we’re sleeping.
A larger version of the image above, one of the book’s marvelous charts, may be found here. I love Bishop’s charts. The best ones trace the ramifying histories of two Indo-European roots, ar and men. Those are big-ass images because they’d be useless otherwise. Zoom in and have fun.
The “language” tag on my Pinboard page has many interesting entries.
STATUS BOARD
- Work: Another draft of my work-in-progress back to my editor, Ginny Smith. Ginny has done so much to make the book better.
- Music: Spending a lot of time in the string quartet repertoire. I know Bartok’s are supposed to be great, but I find them far harder to appreciate than Shostakovich’s.
- Reading: Just finished Deirdre McCloskey’s enormous Bourgeois era trilogy and … I’ll need some time to reflect on it. It certainly complicates my own instinctive disdain for many elements of the liberal-capitalist order, but I think she keeps a heavy thumb on the other scale.
- Food and Drink: I celebrated sending off my draft by … going to Chipotle. Hey, it’s close to my house, and I was tired.