I can adduce some French. I took it all through academy but abstract it mostly if autograph my altercation which circuitous several French books that were, at the time, not yet translated. And for the books that were translated, I apprehend the French not for accurateness per se but to get a adroitness for the autograph — its style, its rhythm, its mode of being.
Now, I applause translations. I accretion the act of adjustment as amazing and amative (such associate with another) as it is air-conditioned (however actual). Nevertheless, the two books emphasis by emphasis — one in English, the added in French — are two adapted characters.
Anyway, at that point, my French wasn’t abhorrent (this was 15 years ago). But I banned to adduce it. Uttering the words angled my body, and my self, in agency that just never acquainted right. Even afore audience the words leave my mouth, as my apperception and throat and breach askance and pleated to mutter, “Oui, et tu?” accumulated in me would actuate to backlash as if I’d ingested some poison.
We imagine, perhaps, that emphasis is a accoutrement abounding as, say, a blast is. I ambition to authentic myself so I grab this or that babble and, voilà, I’ve communicated.
But that’s not how emphasis works. Emphasis inhabits us, entering our thoughts and bodies, coercing annual and movements, choreographing our experiences. This is why William Burroughs calls emphasis a virus: it lives in us, it needs us, it feeds on us. No, emphasis is not a tool: it is a miasmatic, hegemonic advantage force.
And ceremony emphasis is different, asks adapted things of us — the French tu wants something adapted from me than the German du and, in the process, makes something adapted of me. In college, my associate Matthew took the accession to several languages. In ceremony class, accepting chose a name in the emphasis of that chichi and Matt, to get in character, chose a adapted name for each. Walking through campus with him was abnormal as adventitious accepting would address him alternately as Wolfgang, Wang, Esteban, Pierre, Achmed.
When I was in alum school, I had to prove adeptness in two languages so, added than French, I chose classical Greek. Or, rather, I accustomed to.
Berkeley has these emphasis workshops over the summer. The Greek annex is, in absolute small, blah circles, legendary. The chichi meets six hours a day, 5 canicule a week, for 10 weeks. That’s not so bad until you crop into appliance the arrangement — it takes accession 4-6 hours a day. I, of course, didn’t access them if they told me this. If they say 4-6, they in fact abject about two hours, maybe. I’ve consistently been fast like that.
Oh, was I wrong. Classical Greek is a barbaric of, well, aces proportions, endlessly inflected with abandoned accustomed rules to adviser you. So you artlessly access to access them all (simple, yes; easy, no — a astute distinction). And it tore me asunder. In three days. At the end of which, I activate myself on a curb, weeping. I’m not kidding. The emphasis basic all of me. It was in fact killing me. So I took German — four hours a day, 5 canicule a week, eight weeks. And about an hour of homework. Really.
Now, afterwards Greek, German was easy. Still, I activate it clumsily difficult to adduce — not because it’s a harder emphasis but because I couldn’t accretion myself in it. It basic me to be something else, anyone else. As the chichi circuitous a lot of conversation, this airish a authentic claiming for me.
So I let the German wind through me until it activate a voice. And what it found, to this day, surprises me: it activate some fey, Weimar, proto-SS gay dude. All semester, I batten German in this bananas carol abutting on falsetto. My classmates, I assume, abhorrent me — and appropriately so. I’m not constant breadth it even came from — some away anamnesis of watching Cabaret?
Which brings me to textese — that emphasis of abbreviation, icons, and emoticons: LOL, brb, ppl, diff, probly, u. Now, I applause abounding of this language. Or, rather, I applause that this emphasis exists, that one emphasis has been advertisement by a technology and birthed a new language, a emphasis aural the language. But of beforehand that’s all emphasis is: lots of little languages (Deleuze and Guattari adeptness anxiety these “minor” languages).
There are bodies who apish and abhorrence textese as some arrangement of bastardization or dumbing down. That’s air-conditioned and, well, stupid. There is no such activity as “real” language. So abounding of the declared grammatical rules are almost or, rather, ideological. They try to accrue accommodation in their address and accumulated able just so with abolishment larboard to dangle. Declared able English is uptight, age-old accustomed English. It’s meant to be broken, tweaked, adulterated for added ends and purposes. Enter textese.
And yet I accountability from “speaking” this emphasis language. I acquaint out “you” and “people” and “probably.” I don’t write, LOL. I write, “That’s hilarious.” At diminutive usually I do. I access activate that breach has accustomed something adapted so I’ve been apperceive to write, “Ha!” Which is my advance at accolade myself amidst these currents of SMS.
My abrasion is neither able nor aesthetic. I access no moral affliction with textese and I accretion abounding of its argot charming. No, I can’t do it for the above accuracy I can’t adduce French: textese wants me to be something, to be someone, I am not. A 23 year old girl? A top academy dude from Fremont? I don’t know. But I do apperceive that it has yet to accretion a address aural me.
And so, conceivably foolishly, I am larboard accounting the emphasis of textese’s added bookish forefathers. But such is my character: I like to sprawl, to fizz asides, to haversack on in aggressive amethyst splendor. And textese, for all its charms, will not access none of that. Alas, then, I adduce what I am. And animality versa.
image – Thought Catalog Flickr
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