Divinely great but confusing

A few days ago, as I was driving along the main road to Acco and passing a neighboring Arab village, I noticed a message painted on the exterior of a house in clear white English letters: God is great.  My initial reaction was not theological but linguistic.  In other words, I wondered which God the houseowner meant.

To explain, if the letters had been in Arabic and read Allah Akbar, I would have known the sign was referring to the Moslem God. Likewise, the sign saying Dieu est grand in France would be referring to the Catholic God although the same sign in Algeria would probably refer to Allah. However, back to our allah akbar, in Iraq, it is not clear whether the Shiite or Sunni master is the subject of the sign.

For that matter, a German Gott ist groß is no less ambivalent as Germany is historically a mixture of Protestant and Catholic provinces. By contrasts, in the American south, that sign in English would most probably refer to the Baptist or other Protestant diety. Likewise, in Spain or South America, Dios es grande is directed at the Catholic commander-in-chief.

The Hebrew version possesses another question.  While there is no dispute among Jews about the identity of the Chief Engineer (we focus our disputes on what exactly he wants us to do), the expression Elohim Gadol has two twists. For some, it imbibes the omnipotence of God.  However, the term is also used in slang to express a complete lack of control.  For example, if asked whether the contractor will finish the job on time, someone could answer Elohim gadol, the English equivalent being God knows.

So, upon seeing that sign, I responded in a typical Israel way: Yes, but.  That is I did not formally disagree but immediately complicated the issue.  Theology can be so confusing.

Of Mice and Men Linguistically

The Canard Enchaîné (to which I am a proud subscriber) edition of December 11, 2013 published an article entitled “Do you speak franglish.”  This article was in response to an article in the Parisien of December 9, 2013 decrying the large scale entry of English expressions into French.  The gist of the Canard Enchaîné article was to question why, since English has no problem with French borrowings, the French should have a problem with the English language imports.  Among the cited examples of Frenchisms in English are matinee, je ne sais quoi, deluxe, cul-de-sac, petite (size), and bra.

This issue is not new.  I am reminded me of the Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which correctly noted that the upper class spoke a Russian that was strongly French, to the point of barely being able to have a conversion in pure Russian, like many Israeli Russians today.  To the best of my knowledge, this weakness in their native tongue did not seem to bother the vast majority of Russians, poor and rich alike.  In Israel when the Technion was founded, German was the mother language of most of the professors and was almost declared the language of teaching, not Hebrew.  Today in Germany, many job interviews are conducted in English, which I somehow find shocking given how important national pride is often connected with language. So, the matter of the acceptability of linguistic mercantilism, i.e. not allowing imports, is far from straight-forward.

It appears that countries that are secure in their cultural identity have no problem allowing foreign words to enrich their lives.  The expression it is no skin off my back would seem to apply.  By contrast, more insecure cultures, including the French in my opinion as they insist too much on their superiority, fret over the loss of linguistic “purity”.  In response to the Parisien article, the “language of Molière” disappeared long before Macdo and en direct live arrived in France.  Is modern French any less expressive than 17^th century French?  Is modern English less rich than Shakespearean English?  They are clearly different and include words from much wider sources.  However, each language is clearly distinct from each other in form and identity. 

It takes a confident person to accept and embrace change and novelty.   Likewise, it takes a confident culture to accept that foreign words can enrich the existing vocabulary, even if a native word already exists.  As English has proven, there is no problem being able to use tiredness and fatigue.  Neither word has become extinct due to its competition.  France has been struggling with the domination of English for some now.  I believe that while English will not disappear, nor will French, albeit a bit a franglished.  Vive la difference.

Being First Does Matter

As Nike would like to remind us, almost nobody remembers the second person to walk on the moon (Buzz Aldrin). Clearly, being the first to achieve something does have its privileges. Here is short list of those winners and what they received:

The English came up with the first stamp, allowing the UK to be only country whose postal stamps do not state the country of issue.  They also invented the first way and technology to calculate latitude (pre-GPS), i.e. comparing noon in London with the local noon. This required an accurate clock, not a simple endeavor at the time, to keep London time.  Consequently, all time zones are related to GMT, which is located in England.   By the way, there was no daylight saving time to confuse the issue then.

The United States created the first operational telephone system, meaning that the international prefix (1) refers to the United States.  Even more brashly, it also created the Internet, giving American sites the privilege of adding only .com, not com.fr, com.de, etc.  I suppose the British would say having the time zone is more practical.

In more intellectual matters, other European powers, former and current, have created the standards.  Cooking terms are in French because nobody else invested so much effort in codifying the culinary processes.  Philosophy would be much poorer and require fewer letters if Germans had not invented the right word for each complex concept.   Has anybody ever head of an opera translated into Italian?  I would agree that Italian is a wonderful language for song, certainly sweeter than German or English. 

Other cultures also have their achievements. Japan also has its claim to fame:  The sun rises there.  Although you can’t eat or send the sun, it is an illuminating asset from the Japanese point of view.  The Chinese invented thousands of items centuries before the Europeans ever even though of them, such as gun powder and noodles.  However, alas, as is typical of the last few centuries, the West brazenly stole their ideas, improved them, and used them against the Chinese.  As the expression goes, might makes right apparently.

So, the first country to invent time travel or telepathy will have its privileges too, maybe, since sometimes, as Nike says, just win.