Tag Archives: language

Into Culture: Lingua Communis III

At the start of this month I began reading ‘Babel: an arcane history’ by R.F. Kuang. This book is a fictional history set in Oxford in the early 19th century. It follows the story of a young Chinese orphan, later known as Robin Swift, who is adopted by a linguistic professor who works for Babel: ‘Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation’. It is also a work of fantasy as the centre of Babel’s work is ‘silver-working’. In the reality of the book, silver holds magical properties when used by translators and the British Empire is powered by it. 

Silver is used by etching pairs of words that are translations of each other; one English, the other another language. The magic is derived from what gets lost in translation. The first example given is the pairing of karabos, in Greek, and caravel; both mean ‘ship’ but karabos also means crab or beetle. When the silver bar with these two words etched on them are put on boats the fishermen catch more fish due to the magic association of crabs/sea creature… you really need to read the book to fully grasp how this ‘works’.

Babel is a great story full of intrigue and excitement but what has struck me is its exploration of language across cultural divides and the role translation has played in empire. This is something that I am continually reflecting on in my role, particularly when trying to create spaces for many nations and tongues to come together in worship. I did this at our recent international Christmas event where we shared Christmas traditions from around the world. I wanted to make the event as accessible as possible to those who did not speak English and so began work on translating the service booklets to help guide those of different languages through our time together. Although we had limited, non-English speakers, those who came appreciated the effort we had put in to producing as many variety of translations as possible. 

The process of creating these translations brought up fascinating conversations with those who were helping me along the way. This was particularly the case when I was trying to get a metric translation of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘Hark the Herald Angel Sings’. I wanted to have a moment when everyone was singing to the same tune but in their own language. I had experienced this when worshipping with my Urdu speaking friends at their Christmas service. They had Urdu words being sung to the traditional tunes for these two songs. I then found versions in various other languages, e.g. French (for D.R.C.), Arabic, Farsi, etc. This raised an important question: in choosing the words, was it more important to get the meaning close or the meter right?

This question reminded me of the reflections I have had about writing theology within the structure of metric poetry. There is the same tension when selecting words and phrases to express a theological/spiritual truth when there are restrictions on syllables and rhymes. Babel explores this tension and pitches the alternative arguments really well.

But this is not necessarily the thing that I want to explore this month.

Here is a quote from the leading professor, Professor Playfair, in the fictional institute of Babel as he introduces the first year students to their work and studies.

“It is often argued that the greatest tragedy of the Old Testament was not man’s exile from the Garden of Eden, but the fall of the Tower of Babel. For Adam and Eve, though cast from grace, could still speak and comprehend the language of angels. But when men in their hubris decided to build a path to heaven, God confounded their understanding. He divided and confused them and scattered them about the face of the earth.

What was lost at Babel was not merely human unity, but the original language – something primordial and innate, perfectly understandable and lacking nothing in form or content. Biblical scholars call it the Adamic language. Some think it is Hebrew. Some think it is a real and ancient language that has been lost to time. Some think it is a new, artificial language that we ought to invent. Some think French fulfils this role, some think English, once it’s finished robbing and morphing, might.”

R.F. Kuang, ‘Babel: An Arcane History’ (London:Harper Collins, 2022) p.107

Later in the story Robin, the main protagonist, is with his guardian, Professor Lovell, discussing this idea. Professor Lovell believes this notion is ‘poppycock’ but not before he recalls the account in Herodotus’ ‘The Histories’ (Part 1, Book 2, paragraph 2) where the historian tells a story of the Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus I. In order to assess the innateness of speech in humans, Psammetichus I performed an experiment on two infants who were placed in a remote place by a shepherd who was not allowed to speak in their presence. After two years, the children began to speak and they repeated the word becos, which turned out to be the Phrygian word for bread. This proved, in Psammetichus’ mind, that Phyrgian was the innate language of humanity.

This story, according to the fictional character of Professor Lovell, is totally fabricated and similar experiments done elsewhere would provide different results. I agree with this view but it is interesting to ponder the nature of language and what is the truth in the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel. Is there an Adamic language? What are the implications of the limits of translation in diplomacy and ultimate unity across linguistic divides? Robin Swift extrapolates from Professor Playfair’s concept of an Adamic language.

Well – since in the Bible, God split mankind apart. And I wonder if – if the purpose of translation, then, is to bring mankind back together. If we translate to – I don’t know, bring about that paradise again, on earth, between nations.

To which Professor Playfair enigmatically responds.

Well, of course. Such is the project of empire – and why, therefore, we translate at the pleasure of the Crown.

I have been pondering the concept of a lingua communis since April last year. This is not some lexical holy grail as is pondered by Professor Playfair in Babel but rather the search for an intercultural process of understanding. At the heart of my reflections is a desire to find a meaningful, tangible and, hopefully, effective approach to unity across difference. Language will play a significant role, even if it only is at the start of any process. There is, however, profound limitations on linguistics and translations, as I am exploring further in my reading of Babel. 

The biblical solution to the tragedy of the Tower of Babel is not some man-made process of linguistic homogeny but rather a spiritual antidote which in many ways bypasses the lexical limitations. It is telling, in the narrative of Kuang’s Babel, that Professor Playfair’s assumed response to the punishment by God for humanity’s hubris is more hubris; thinking that we can translate our way out of the ‘curse of God’ (Kuang, ‘Babel’, p.108).

At Pentecost, God gives the solution to the confusion of Babel. The Holy Spirit enables all to understand other languages. What this looked and felt may feel lost to history but I believe that the same Holy Spirit is alive and active today. The process for unity of heart and mind must start, not in my attempts to translate my way out of the ‘curse of God’, but to humble myself in his presence and to seek understanding that transcends linguistic differences.

Our experience at the International Christmas event at Bradford Cathedral was that there was something uniting about singing together even though we did so in different languages. There is something profound about music being a form of universal language. As I regularly sit in choral evensong, listening to the anthem and encouraging the congregation to engage in it, it is often the music rather than the words that I point them to.

There remains an area of future research for me. It is the area of cultural unity. I have always been profoundly aware of the impact of a lack of shared socio-cultural narratives. Read any of my posts over the years I have been writing and you will find them shot through with this ‘Hauerwasian’ problem. As I prepare my talk on racial justice for the upcoming Anglican Network of intercultural Churches Conference, I return to this intellectual landscape again and again.

I encourage you to read Babel… I just need to find time to finish it!

Into Culture: Into Pakistan V

I have given up on trying to sort my internal body clock and I lie in my bed attempting instead to consolidate my reflections. Putting aside the theological/missiological questions that have emerged during my conversations with Pakistani Christians, I return to my personal navigation in a foreign culture.

I am finding the lack of language a serious barrier. I walk around silently, loitering in the corners, creepily waiting to be approached. When someone does engage me in conversation, speaking beautiful English, I feel the need to respond in kind; in embarrassingly limited Urdu. I thus present as aloof. When I do speak English with them their understanding is not as full as I first believe and they look at me with such awkwardness and, worst of all, some form of humiliating deference. I just want to say “sorry” all the time.

I find social interactions challenging in my own culture with my own language and it takes me a huge effort to overcome that. I often overcompensate and feel as though I make people feel uncomfortable. I have no gauge as to the tone of conversations and have had so many painful experiences of misreading situations that, as I think of them now, my stomach scrunches up as though it were trying to hide itself further inside of me.

I have decided to make something of the day and attend some local classes for trainee clergy. I arrive, in my mind, just in time for Morning Prayer. No one is here. Pakistani’s, like other nationalities, do not have the same interest in time keeping as us Northern Europeans do. I sit on the opposite side of where I sat last time because, unknown to me, that time I sat on the women’s side. No one said anything, no one pointed this out to me. Why would they? Why wouldn’t they? Thinking back, I assume they were all laughing at my cultural naivety. Today I will do better.

The students who are leading prayers whisper together and look in my direction. I try to ignore them. When one stands up, he speaks in English to introduce the service. I shrink inside. Stupid English man can’t cope… I think about the practice I have adopted back home of saying “welcome” in any different languages that I know of spoken by guests. Is this what they feel? I am trying to make them feel welcomed and cross the barrier but here, on the receiving end, I feel an imposition.

Hello, paranoia, my old friend. I appreciate that you are trying to protect me and that you were invited to take your place inside my head after I realised that people don’t always mean what they say and that anyone, even trusted friends, can be hypocrites. They can pretend to be kind but they will soon disown you or abandon you when someone easier, more charismatic, less problematic comes along. I have tried to listen to you but, today you seem to have a lot to say.

I am now sat in an English language class. It is strangely comforting to hear my own language. Although I am perfectly happy to be in a place and just listen to people talk to each other in Urdu with me not following a single word, it is nice to relax a little and be part of the community for a bit. I am embarrassed afresh as the exercises they are doing are at quite an advance level and I doubt many of us Brits would be able to do them. They begin to read ‘The Fir Tree’ by Hand Christian Anderson. Even those who seem to be struggling with English read it well, the teacher correcting mispronunciation. No one, however, notes my presence. When I make eye contact, people avert their eyes. I remember Mowgli in ‘The Jungle Book’ and remember that I am not one of them.

I haven’t had breakfast yet but they’re all going straight into Urdu class. Obviously, I need this class more than English but I am also unsure as to what is expected of me, so I go for food. The Urdu teacher asks where I am going.

“Naashtaa (breakfast). I am sorry.”

“Will you come back after breakfast?”

I don’t know. I imagine walking into the class halfway through and feel the eyes already burning into my soul.

“What are you doing here, Ned? You’re not learning anything, and you don’t understand a single word they are saying. At any moment they will ask you questions in Urdu and you’ll stutter and look pathetic.”

I say “yes” but have no intention of doing so. I hate my cowardice and leave.

Breakfast is sausage. The other guest has an egg on his plate. The hospitality team have clearly learnt.

As I eat I think about this blog and feel the self-enforced pressure to write something for today. I note my paranoid voice still wittering on in my head and then the voice that always drowns him out.

“I am a bad person.”

I call him, Neddyplod.

He is the voice of my younger self who was always so lost and confused as a child. The vulnerable boy who, no matter how much he tried, never quite fitted in. He has remained buried for many years, decades even, but, recently, since I discovered him on a walk, he has found some courage to be vocal. I am simultaneously grateful for his ‘bravery’ and yet burdened by his wounds. He carries so many accidental cuts and bruises from others who would be horrified to know what they did to him. He knew, even from the earliest days that they did not intend to hurt him but he had no language to express or ask for different treatment.

Here, in this new place, I am becoming Neddyplod again.

Writing this makes me cry. This is too raw. I need to write this, but does anyone need to read it?

“Attention seeking again, Ned, Neddyplod, whoever you are. You are going to post this though, aren’t you? Why? Because you want the affirmation. You want the prestige of being ‘brave’. You want to justify that ache inside you that craves what you missed out on as a child: acceptance.”

I am now thinking about plot structure. I am reading John Yorke’s excellent book, ‘Into the Woods’ which explores the nature of stories and how and why they work. All good stories have a ‘midpoint’.

…the midpoint is the moment something profoundly significant occurs…A new ‘truth’ dawns on our hero for the first time; the protagonist has captured the treasure or found the ‘elixir’ to heal their flaw. But there’s an important caveat… At this stage in the story they don’t quite know how to handle it correctly.

John Yorke, ‘Into the Woods: how stories work and why we tell them’(London: Penguin Books, 2014)p.37 and 58

I am at the midpoint of my trip and, although real life never fits story structure, might there be some treasure today?

Mowgli. A ‘man-cub’ brought up in the wolf pack as their own. He tries to pretend that he is not a human but a part of the pack but the book tracks his acceptance that he is different from the other animals and belongs elsewhere. The only trouble is that when he returns to humankind they do not accept him either. He is caught between. The story concludes with him making peace with his solitary existence as not neither one or the other but both.

In this place where I am different I am being made more aware of how different I am at home. Here, where there are clearer demarcations of difference (language, custom, clothes), I am tempted to long for home but, then, there’s the rub. There, where those differences are not present, I am still not the same. Where do I flee to?

I am tempted to say ‘my people’ are not here but nor are they there but, maybe, ‘my people’ are, somehow both.

I am comforted by Mowgli’s dislocation; his successes of adaptation; even his final torment at the in between place. This might be my elixir. I just don’t quite know how to handle it yet.