English is a mutt language. It seems like it just sort of *happened,* and all the logical and orthographical consistency & coherence to it is put and kept there by sheer force of will. (If we all close our eyes and imagine really hard that "i before e except after c" to be true, then perhaps it makes our language real and rational and not just a weird jumble of things people said and the eccentric ways they decided to spell them.
(Which then got arbitrarily made official and unchanging because we seem a lot cooler and more respectable if we have one solid thing that can be called a "language" and "nation" and "heritage" and such.
French conquerors, British barbarians, and an assortment of vikings all got together and babbled for a while, thus the European lovemass of linguistic incest spat out an under-developed latin/greek/germanic/celtic mass, which we've spent centuries polishing and putting in dictionaries.
This "mutt" quality becomes especially visible and remarkable when compared to Arabic. Good gosh does this language MAKE SENSE. It's a well-organized, supremely logical system, even with the thousands of years of colloquial wear and tear and the way the language is uncomfortably split between formal and street language. It's the foundations that matter -- and it has those! While English doesn't.
Every verb has a form and a shape and a root, and there aren't huge separate sets of vocabulary that seem to operate according to entirely different sets of rules (like Latin and Germanic stuff in English, for example.) Once you know how the system works, you can take any word apart and figure out what's going on, and sounding it out isn't a problem. (Unlike though and enough, for example.)
It's kind of refreshing actually. But at the same time, this doesn't mean I prefer it, or that if I could've chosen my native language I'd have picked the admirably logical and consistent Arabic. Not at all. (For one thing, the radical split between formal and colloquial language (they're essentially two different languages) does horrible things for a culture of reading.) (Imagine having to look really really hard to find a single modern novel or poem that wasn't essentially written in Shakespeare-speak.)
I enjoy and am amazed by the profound depth, beauty, and coherence of the system of the Arabic language, but the primary reason I much prefer English -- and am deeply glad that this is the language my brain was raised in & through is because of that "mutt" quality. For one thing, I think that chaotic mass of mixed traditions and cultures and irrational ways of spelling is a much truer vision of the world. We impose our own order.
Thus as a language and thus as a way of thinking and being
in the world (cause pretty much all of my conscious thoughts and words
are filtered through this language), it's helpful for adapting -- and
it's also a heck of a lot more fun.
And while it might be easier to think of a purebred, consistent system like Arabic as being "beautiful" in a way, and it is, I think that mixed, chaotic, perhaps even broken systems like English are beautiful in perhaps an even more profound way. I think in a very clearly *human* way as well.
In English it's clear to see that there is a long tradition of doing w/e the heck you want, saying and writing things however feels right or seems appropriate or hilarious in the moment. Have fun with it. That history of language fun and language experimentation is an inspiring reminder to not get hung up on comma use or spelling.
Arabic grammar nazis have some good arguments. They've got something solid to stand for and on. English grammar nazis? Don't make me laugh.
No comments:
Post a Comment