Quot linguæ, tot homines

[Update of a post from January 2012]

[And, a rhyming version: 

   Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales.
   Karl Vossler's version:  "So viel Sprachen einer kann, so viel mal ist er ein Mensch."
(Replace Mensch by Mann, and you get a rhyming version of that.]

A venerable Latin tag, but I don’t really buy it.  If you spread yourself too thin, you run aground in the shallows:  there is no intellectual depth in maintaining a brain-deck of file-cards à la  book = Buch = livre = libro = kitâb …;  and the question, “How many languages do you speak?”  always makes me grind my teeth. (“No more than one at a time,” I sometimes growl.)  Pursuing multilingualism as a fetish  smacks of calculating-savants, quiz-winners, and that ilk.  Antiquity had its Mithridates of Pontus;  the ottocento, its Cardinal Mezzofanti:  but these polyglots were by no means philologists.

Nonetheless:

There is a quiditas, a je-ne-sais-quoi, a haeccéité  or quintessence, in each linguistic culture, sui generis and untranslatable.   To steep yourself deeply in these, particularly in a language with a long and intricate written history, like Latin or Arabic, or (at somewhat shallower time-depth, but overtaking those in later laps) English, German, or French.  Both at work and in my free time, I use other languages (a different mix depending on the context)  nearly as much as I use English, and am the better for it.   But the point is to go deep, one culture at a time, and not to display some multilingual multitasking like simultaneous tournament chess.   I know many people employed as linguists  who have never read through an entire book in the language that they work with, beyond Harry Potter in translation.  That seems sad.

Anyhow, here is a review, from this morning’s New York Times, of a book on multilingualism, Babel No More, which makes a useful distinction between multilinguals and hyperpolyglots.

(And for a beautiful and elaborate painted depiction of that ancient toppled tower, along with some entertaining philology, click here.)

[Update 18 March 2012] More ammo, from a staff writer of Science:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?scp=2&sq=bhattacharjee&st=cse

A propos:

Hugo Schuchardt, best known as a Romance philologist, but who studied a remarkable range of languages, not excluding Basque and Berber, and indeed Arabic (which he traveled to Egypt to master) nonetheless wrote:

Wir glauben nicht an den Segen der Zweisprachigkeit;  wenn man mit Recht gesagt hat, qu’une population qui parle deux langues, a deux cordes à son arc, so hat man vergessen hinzuzufügen, daß keine dieser Sehnen  sehr straff ist.

-- Romanisches und Keltisches (1886), repr. in Leo Spitzer, ed., Hugo Schuchardt-Brevier (1921; 2^nd edn. 1928), p. 363

Note that this assessment did not, however, prevent him from pioneering the study of the neither-this-or-that Mischsprachen known as creoles;  he even put in a good word for those culturally decidedly slack-stringed confections -- not foam-born but test-tube-engendered -- the artificial entities Esperanto and Volapük.

[Update Oct 2014]
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/more-languages-better-brain/381193/

[Update Dec 2019]

The cool eye  and tart tongue  of Rebecca West  opines, in her Balkan travelogue:

…one of those strange polyglots  who seem to have been brought up in some alley  where several civilizations  pour out their ash-cans, since only bits and pieces have come their way, never the real meat.
-- Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), p.707

.

Ruined-Tower tableau

The spider spun her web

athwart the ruined vault

and bats and owls  nestled in those chambers

-- Washington Irving ,“The Legend of the Two Discreet Statues”, in The Alhambra (1832)

An Extra Special Christmas

            The Murphy Brothers were seldom in funds, and could not afford to buy gifts.   They just did the best that they could.

            One year  Joey had managed to scrape together some change  and buy a beer-mug for his brother.   But since it was only a single mug and not a pair, the present proved impractical, and Murphy left it in the box:  until the following Christmas, having nothing else to give, he rewrapped it, and gave it to Joey, placing it under the lone coleus that served them as a tree.

            In this manner the relic passed from one brother to the other, and then from the other brother back, down the years, on each Christmas day:  as the brothers grew slowly older, and the coleus grew dim, and went at last to its reward.   And in time, that practice lapsed,  and the object was put away on a high shelf, until such time as the mug might someday somehow find its mate.

            And then one Christmas,  it snowed and it snowed.

            It was cold in their office-apartment, since the heat had been shut off.  And so they went out to the city streets to gather kindling, though fireplace they had none.  For it was the birthday of the baby Jesus, and it was meet, that they should gather wood.  And yet they found no twig nor stick of it. 

            
 And so they went sorrowing home.

            Yet were astonished, as they opened the door, to be rocked back on their heels by a summer breeze, which blew out from a roomful of snow.

            And there amidmost, stood a towering spruce.   Beneath it, three presents, wrapped in red:  and the fruit of this tree was permitted to them.

            They sat awhile together, and discussed these strange developments.   Where could all this have come from?   Neither of them knew.

            They wondered what might be in the packages.  At length they decided they would have to find out.  Joey motioned for Murphy to begin.

            And so, curiosity overcoming him, Murphy untied the ribbon, and carefully unfolded the paper, and lifted the lid of the box.  Then both brothers leaned forward, and wondering, looked in.

            It was the Gift of Poverty.

            Then both brothers rejoiced, amazed, and embraced.  For this was a wondrous gift indeed:  formerly, they had merely been poor.

            With keen anticipation, Murphy unwrapped the second present.

            It was the Gift of Chastity.

            The brothers sighed, and crossed themselves.   “Thanks be to God,”  they said.  For the solace of connubial bliss had always been denied them, owing to their detective vows;  yet now, their very abstention, might be a sacrament.

 Then gazed together at the final package,  neither one daring to move.

            But yet at last   with terrible trembling fingers,   almost sobbing with expectancy:   as when the bridegroom, as yet untried,  on the wedding night, fumbles at the bodice of his spotless bride, -- managed somehow to unloose the wrapping  (even as the maiden, on that sweet night, bids farewell to her maidenhead, and unloosens her chestnut hair):   and there lay--

            The Gift of Obedience.

            This gift had quite eluded them,  back in reform-school days.  Since that time, the Murphy brothers had always been resigned to their lot in life; but now they did embrace it, as the very will of God.

             “We should drink to this!” cried Murphy, indicating (and just noticing) a vat of ale;  and went to the high shelf, to bring the old package down. 

            And took out -- lo! -- twin goblets of crystal,  and filled them  each  to the brim.

            “This is the best Christmas ever,”  Joey said.

[Notice:  A hymn appropriate to this offering, may be witnessed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2YPsfwSPGg&NR=1 ]

~

For further Murphy mystical mystery

-- a story that will haunt your dreams:

Murphy and the Magic Pawnshop

 Also available for your Nook

Further parables from this pen, may be savored here. 
.

The Brightening, though Frozen Solstice (December, 2019)

This time each year,  the sun doth wend,

signaling days-dying’s end.

Henceforth  throughout  the grateful lands

our daily dose of light  expands.

Thus do we, cheered  by this faint grace,

take heart for Winter’s chill embrace.

And though the brisk winds  scourge the earth,

look forward to  our Spring rebirth.

Christi dedico in nomine;
Gratias agimus, Domine.

1-wd poem

Caledonia!

For years    that word

was a poem in my ear.

-- Hamlin Garland, A Son of the Middle Border (1917)

Mystical Animal tableau

tame storks    who stalked

majestically

among the beasts

-- James Michener, Poland (1983), p. 108

*Another* Day that will Live in Infamy

Historians have long wondered, how, as late as December 1941, with a world war raging, and a litany of Japanese grievances against the U.S., the officers and sailors at our principal Pacific naval base  were all sitting around with their thumbs up their butts, the ships berthed cheek-by-jowl, an impossibly alluring target.

A secondary puzzle was, did FDR have any advance intel that such an attack was likely, but ignored it?   (Let us set aside the conspiracy-theory that he knew but let it happen.) If so, he would take a seat beside Stalin, who likewise had been remarkably lackadaisical with respect to Nazi Germany, which had been waging blitzkrieg, but from whom he felt safe, owing to the piece of paper known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.  Stalin actually did have warning, from Japan-based master-spy Richard Sorge, and quite precise warning at that:    “Der Krieg wird am 22. Juni beginnen, ” a message sent on 15 June.   This was ignored.

Toleja so ...

A lesser-known possibility is that Washington did receive warning of an impending sneak-attack, and indeed from Sorge’s circle.   A Comintern memoirist who had repeated contact with Sorge  writes:

Kurz vor ihrem Hochgehen in Tokio   gab die Gruppe “Ramsay” [i.e., Sorge] noch eine hochbedeutsame Meldung  an zwei Adressaten durch:  Moskau und Washingtron.  Gewiß gelangte sie auf auf den Schreibtisch Stalins, vermutlich nicht auf den Schreibtisch Präsident Roosevelts:  die Meldung, daß die Japaner  ohne Kriegserklärung  auf den wichtigsten Flottenstützpunkt der USA im Pazifik, Pearl Harbor, für Anfang Dezember  unter strengster Geheimhaltung  vorbereiterten.
-- Ruth von Mayenburg, Hotel Lux (1978), p. 144

She goes on to state that Sorge’s Yugoslav coworker Branko Vukelić tipped off an American friend as to the impending attack, to no avail.

In any event, the lesson of 7 December was not promptly learned, for on 8 December, in the Philippines, another branch of the service was likewise caught with its breeches down.   Let Professor Wiki tell it:

Even though tracked by radar and with three U.S. pursuit squadrons in the air, when Japanese bombers of the 11th Kōkūkantai attacked Clark Field at 12:40 pm, they achieved tactical surprise. Two squadrons of B-17s were dispersed on the ground. Most of the P-40s of the 20th PS were preparing to taxi and were struck by the first wave of 27 Japanese twin-engine Mitsubishi G3M "Nell" bombers; only four of the 20th PS P-40Bs managed to take off as the bombs were falling.

A second bomber attack (26 Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombers) followed closely, then escorting Zero fighters strafed the field for 30 minutes, destroying 12 of the 17 American heavy bombers present and seriously damaging three others. Two damaged B-17s were made flyable and taken to Mindanao, where one was destroyed in a ground collision.

A near-simultaneous attack on the auxiliary field at Iba to the northwest by 54 "Betty" bombers was also successful: all but four of the 3rd Pursuit Squadron's P-40s, short on fuel and caught in their landing pattern, were destroyed No formal investigation took place regarding this failure as occurred in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. The Far East Air Force lost fully half its planes in the 45-minute attack, and was all but destroyed over the next few days, including a number of the surviving B-17s lost to takeoff crashes of other planes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines_Campaign_(1941%E2%80%9342)

Thus, not only December seventh, but December eighth,  is draped in crape.

Evolutions des chevaliers polonais

with maneuvers as graceful  

as the unfolding of a petaled flower

-- James Michener, Poland (1983), p. 93

Feu le roi (mort assassiné, 1934)

the   strange, soft   sound

of a whole      city

                       weeping …

[From: Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), p. 616]

Yaitse, 1936: Tableaux

When I awoke       and saw the sun

a pale-green blaze     in the treetops

~

watching water     clear as air

comb straight      the green weeds on the piers

[From: Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), p. 425]