A Digression

I'll get back to the "Classical History with Good Irrigation! Yay!" (or CHGIY! for short) later. Right now, I want to talk about language.

Specifically, the English language. Now, a lot of people are down on the English language. "It's irregular" they cry. "It's always changing!" To these people I say "Fie! Fie upon you, you base varlets! May your tongues fall from your heads, speaking such affrontery upon our noble tongue!" Not nessecarily because I believe it, mind you, but because I can. I like English, see. Not as some pure, noble language, whose purity must be defended (Heh. "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
- James D. Nicoll
If you've liked this quote, check out James' blog, at http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll/, which is filled with more pithy oberservations, tales of James' misadventures, and, of course, stories about his cats. The last bit, because every blog has stories about the owner's cats. Even if they don't have cats. It's a quantum thing. Shrodiner's Post.)

Anyway. My enjoyment of English is a more personal thing. I can see why some people don't like it. Although, seriously, folks, complaining about English's irregularity and so forth is not smart. The Language Gods might here you, and give us a language that's really irregular. According to a linguistics class I took, we're only middle of the road when it comes to irregularity. Can you imagine if it got worse?
English is my native language. I know it best. In fact, it's basically fair to say that it's the only language I know. I have a few years of pre-university French, but I dropped that when I was allowed to (something I regret, now), and I took a year and a half of Latin, but that's fading now too.
But English is not inherently a bad language, either. Frankly, if it was, we couldn't put together poems like this:

REQUIEM
Robert Louis Stevenson

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

See? Every word in that poem is modern English. The only one that might give someone trouble is "grave", and it's quite clear from context. I challenge you, English detractors. A language that could generate that is not a bad language. Simple, concise, short. But it burns its message into my mind every time I read it.

It's interesting to think about languages and reading. To my mind, there are two kinds of books that people like. Some good books are written about something interesting. Other books are written interestingly. And it's the latter that don't nessecarily translate well. Let's take two of my favorite writers in English: Shakespeare and Tolkien. Both of them, I suspect, lose something in translation. Because, to my view, both of their excellence comes, in large part, from a masterful command of the language. Take Tolkien. He knew how to write in style. Say what you will about his sense of pacing, his treatment of characters, his ability to grab the reader. If you tell me he didn't write with style, I will laugh, then explain how you must have been high to have missed it. Take the Council of Elrond. In that chapter, Tolkien had a whole bunch of characters (something like 20 or so) all together in the room, each with something to say. Yet, he doesn't do a whole lot of "Elrond said '...' ", or "Gandalf spoke up '...' " Each character is defined, subtly, by the style of their speech. You can tell Elrond from Gandalf from Aragorn from Boromir from Bilbo from Frodo. That's command of the language. Of course, Tolkien also had a decent plot, IMO. The concepts explored by it are good.
Shakespeare, OTOH, in my opinion, never really had much in the way of plots. Oh, they weren't bad plots. Most are pretty iconic. Everyone knows what you mean when you call something a "Romeo and Juliet story". But he didn't come up with them. I think The Tempest is the only play he didn't crib the plot for from somewhere. But his plays are still works of genius. It's not the plot. The pacing is good, and suspense is good. But, basically, it's the language, man, the language. I'm going to quote a lot of it, just because I love it so much.

WESTMORELAND
O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING HENRY V
What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Damn. Gets me every time. There was a dude who could write. It makes me very sad that, in a few hundred more years, we English speakers probably won't understand him anymore. It'll be like Chaucer: everybody's heard of him, knows he's supposed to be hot stuff. But we don't read him, because his English was different enough to make it a barrier. And if that happens to old Billy S, I think our language will be the poorer for it.

And yet, I really can't do anything about it. The language moves on, and not our piety, or wit, will move it back half a year. Speaking of which, I hope Shakespear gets as good a translator as Omar Khayyam did. I dunno about the original poems, as I can't read Persian. But

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

Is damn good poetry all by itself.
Anyway, enough rambling on English. I'm going to bed.