"to possess another language is to possess another soul"

does this proverb actually exist in any language?
or did he just make it up as i think

mathilda, I imagine the author just made it up, as I have never seen it before. However, whoever the author is should be congratulated. I have never read a more wonderful (and true!) statement about languages. What a shame that TT no longer allows signatures!

he said "a french proverb goes..." but when googling almost any combination of above words in french you get 0 useful come outs.

personnally, i thought it was cheap, not brilliant.

"personnally, i thought it was cheap, not brilliant."

¿por qué? mathilda.

There's something almost identical in Turkish: "bir lisan, bir insan" = "one language, one person" ("for every language, another person" is a nicer interpretation).

It reminds me a little of an Irish (Gaelic) saying "tír gan teanga, tír gan anam" - "a country without a language is a country without a soul". Of course it's not the same thing, as it's talking about the effect of losing a language on a whole people, rather than the effect of having an extra language on an individual. But it shares the idea of the relationship between a language and a soul.

Although that phrase is often described as an "Irish proverb", I don't know if it's a genuine proverb that's been around for years, or something that was invented by the language revival movement in the early 20th century. I do know that I heard it repeated at tedious length by the teachers of my youth and never liked it.

A bit of Googling of the phrase Mathilda asked about shows is widely attributed to both Charlemagne and Emperor Charles V - a difference of a whole eight centuries! Maybe people associate it with Charles V because he's also known for the quotation about speaking something to his horse and something else to his wife or whatever it was - I guess he must have had a lot of souls.

For me both phrases seem rather trite, and probably too meaningless to be described as either true or false.

For shame, you who find it trite or cheap! Truly, nearly all of a culture (its soul) is embedded in its language. Once a person learns that language—not just the phrasebook version for travelers—that person also absorbs something of the culture not otherwise found—its soul—and impossible to find in any other way.

If you truly do not believe this, I feel sorry for you. I know that when speaking Spanish—my adopted tongue—I have quite a different world-view than when speaking English—my native tongue. If this isn't "possessing another soul", I don't know what it is! The same was true when I learned German as a youth. When speaking German, I actually saw things differently.

I guess "linguists" like mathilda have a more jaded outlook and find different languages just a way to converse with strangers. Those with that attitude just don't know what they're missing!!!!

mazgringo it is from a film and it sounded exactly like one of those pseudo- deep catchphrases which always pop up in movies and are meant for people to go "ooh that's so deep" (like, "this is not just popcorn time waste...")

also, there's cultural differences between you and me. you might be american (i can't look at your profile this morning for some reason), with a culture that is a lot more prone to fluffy lovey dovey discourse that uses words such as"soul" whose mere occurence make a european cringe.

Edited by: mathilda to add a little thingy

whose mere occurence make a european cringe.

except in outright cynical or otherwise bittered down contexts (for example when nabokov put the word "soul" in the mouth of a pedophile, it sounded just right /[sorry for making anyone gag now;) /])

Edited by: mathilda

i didn'T mean to cross that out i just don't know how to post innocent square brackets, not a link, or what i just got, and so i give up.

neither did i mean to touble post

Edited by: mathilda

mathilda, Well, it might be as you say, but that doesn't make it any less true! IMHO

Yes, there ARE two great cultural divides between you and me…and maybe three or four. One - you're obviously much younger than I am. Two - you're VERY european in outlook. Three - you write as a blasé citizen of the world Four - you're a women.

Sorry you couldn't see my profile, I don't understand that. One - I retired (not early) and have started two new commercial ventures in the ten years since. Two - when I speak English I'm definitely American in outlook, though I have been an expat for many years. I am a dual-citizen of the U.S and México, and when I speak Spanish I'm definitely Mexican in outlook. I truly have two souls. Three - being an old editor and tech writer, I tend to write clearly, generally transmitting information. I rarely venture into the esoteric regions of the "soul" as I did in my first post about your question. Four - I'm a man, and a man from a culture little know to you, since it's in your history rather than your past.

Yes, Americans probably do attach more "meaning" to the word "soul" than do Europeans, but watch out for we Mexicans, "soul" means even more to us! I'm more than surprised that ANYONE would ever accuse this old man of writing as if I were from "a culture that is a lot more prone to fluffy lovey dovey discourse". And if you don't believe that, just ask the author I'm editing at the moment. LOL

I certainly would never use the word "soul" as Nabokov did. That was an example of European decadence.

Two - you're VERY european in outlook. Three - you write as a blasé citizen of the world

how do these two go together?

Four - you're a women.

aren't women supposed to be more fluffy dovey?

;)

I certainly would never use the word "soul" as Nabokov did. That was an example of European decadence.

as well as authorly genius...
but i'll remember that comment, since lolita is (meant as) an utterly american novel as it goes on, and it is details like these that show how, while nabokov liked to think of himself as an american, he always remained russian at heart.

you couldn't see my profile, I don't understand that.

the computer i'm on is idiotically slow

I am a dual-citizen of the U.S and México, and when I speak Spanish I'm definitely Mexican in outlook. I truly have two souls.

But if the new soul truly came from the new language, you wouldn't just be Mexican in outlook: you'd also be Spanish, Argentinian, and Guatemalan. Similarly your original soul wouldn't give you an American outlook: it would give you an American-British-Irish-Australian view of life - if such a thing exists. So why do you mention American in particular and Mexican in particular? Presumably because those are the cultures in which you have been immersed and that have shaped your outlook on life. While I'm not disputing that your experiences may have given you a broader outlook on life than if you had always lived in the same place, it seems to me that arises from the differences between Mexico and the USA, not specifically from the English and Spanish languages as the so-called proverb would suggest.

I think you're all putting too much into it. Yes, I agree the sentence sounds tacky, but I still think it's onto something. It just shouldn't be taken too literally. While a language doesn't give you another soul (I personally don't believe in souls in the first place) it does give you a new perspective. Each language has it's own logic and ways of structuring and analyzing the world. To learn a new language means to learn new concepts and new ways to think about things, so in that sense it does give you a new soul.

For the record: female, under 30, Europe

What alan said.

Which is part of the reason that the Irish saying he quoted earlier doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If there were no Irish, the only national language of Ireland would be English. It would then lack a culture (assuming that mazringo is right that soul is meant to equal culture here) to the same degree that the USA, Australia, and New Zealand lack cultures.

I don't so much cringe as curl my lip at this kind of thing.

Male, over 60 (ouch), USA.

There is more than one way to interpret this. To say possessing different languages means to possess different souls can be taken to mean that every language has a soul of its own (as has been discussed so far), but it could also mean that the speaker has a different personality in the different languages, which would be shaped by the language and the context in which the person had learned or used the language. I think that can be true, to some extent. There may not be a Spanish soul, let alone a Spanish soul that is the same throughout the Spanish-speaking world, but if mazgringo says he will sound and be perceived, and perhaps even feel, somewhat different when he speaks Spanish, why should we not believe that? I don't think anyone can be an entirely different person in another language, but slight differences may be there. And that may not have to do so much with the language itself as with the context in which the language was learned and used.

#18 -- That makes sense. There's something in Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Diaries about him and W.H. Auden feeling (at the time they were in Berlin) that while "table" suggested the tables in their parents' kitchens with overcooked vegetables on them and banal conversation around them, "Tisch" suggested a table in a Berlin café where one might pick up a likely German lad.

But of course an erotic charge is not intrinsic to the German language.

Edited by: VinnyD on December 28 to correct a punctuation error that everyone was too polite to point out.

No, that's true, and that's as far as individual words go, but if we accept that different countries have different cultures, this kind of thing must exist.

A person who grew up in a posh family will sound different from someone who grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood. We learn our first language by imitation of our parents, grandparents, neighbors, teachers. Once you get to the point in a foreign language where you are learning from the speakers of the language, rather than from grammar books, it's learning by imitation again, so the way you speak is as least to some extent -- I think -- influenced by who you are talking to in that language. If people in Spain behave and react somewhat differently from people from England in the same situation, that may leave an impression in the speech of an English learner of Spanish.

Edited -- to say that I don't mean this in a Sapir-Whorf kind of way. The person won't necessarily change his/her behavior, but may sound different.

Now this thread is getting close to the nitty-gritty, thanks to shilgia.

alan said,

"But if the new soul truly came from the new language, you wouldn't just be Mexican in outlook: you'd also be Spanish, Argentinian, and Guatemalan. Similarly your original soul wouldn't give you an American outlook: it would give you an American-British-Irish-Australian view of life - if such a thing exists. So why do you mention American in particular and Mexican in particular?"

Well, alan, IF you think that Spanish is the same in the countries you name, and English is the same in those countries, you are exactly right.

The reality is, however, that although there are many underlying similarities in the cultures, due to the common language, there are many more distinct features to the cultures of each individual country that are due to the particular version of the common language (not necessarily so "common" in many instances) spoken in that country.

I doubt that many would argue that the Spanish-speaking cultures have the same "worldview" (soul) as the English-speaking cultures. In many instances, common "sayings" can't even be translated…the cultural divide and the language divide is just too great. The differences, absolutely reflected in the spoken language, are too numerous to discuss in depth, but I'll give a couple of examples.

In Spanish there are two different "states of being", in English only one!

The two cultures perceive time differently, and this is reflected in the way it is spoken of in the two languages.

And a couple of thoughts on the differences in "worldview" within the two language families.

The Spanish of Spain is closer to the original castellano, very courtly, heavy use of the more complex grammatical aspects of the language such as compound verbs, etc. The Spanish of México is very direct (a Spaniard would say blunt), with little use of complex grammar or compound verbs. This gives the two "Spanish" cultures quite a different "worldview".

I wouldn't know exactly how to characterize the differences in spoken "standard", i.e., television network newscaster, U.S. English and "standard", i.e., BBC newscaster, British English, but they are sufficiently different to cause a different "worldview" within the cultures where they are spoken.

This could be a very interesting discussion. Some of the other SiT regulars should chime in…if the "new, improved" TT hasn't driven them off!!

Male, over 70 and getting younger everyday, U.S.A. & México

mazgringo, I realise that there are differences in the versions of Spanish (and English) used in different countries. However in normal usage English is regarded as a language, not a set of languages, and so is Spanish. I have been interpreting the original saying as referring to language in that normal sense.

I think you are now saying that different cultures can be reflected in different versions or dialects of the same language. The original phrase would thus become something like "to possess another dialect is to possess another soul". So that a native English speaker from Ireland, like myself, could acquire a second soul by living in England for a while and becoming comfortable with English English, and a third by moving to the US and becoming fluent in American English. Maybe so, but I wonder if that was really the intention behind the original saying. Personally I feel that if I have a soul at all, it's something rather more fundamental, not something that could be changed just by learning to talk about cookies instead of biscuits.

Once again, just to be clear: I am not in any way denying the existence of differences between cultures. I am just not convinced that there is any necessary link between those differences and different languages.

the differences in spoken "standard", i.e., television network newscaster, U.S. English and "standard", i.e., BBC newscaster, British English, but they are
sufficiently different to cause a different "worldview"

I'm rather sceptical about this. Of course I'd expect the average BBC newscaster and the average US newcaster to have different worldviews. And obviously they speak different dialects. But to say that the relatively minor dialect differences cause the difference in worldview seems to me to be a huge leap - a leap that I'd need a lot of persuasion to take.

there are many more distinct features to the cultures of each individual country that are due to the particular version of the common language

I have similar trouble with this. I don't doubt that there are differences between Spanish and Mexican culture. But which of these differences, other than trivial ones, are actually caused by the difference between peninsular and Mexican Spanish?

alan, You may be completely correct, and I may be wrong about the cultural differences being reflected in the dialectical differences.

BUT, I notice that you don't argue against the difference in languages reflecting the "worldview" of the different cultures which use them. To me, that's a given. One will never completely understand any culture until one speaks the language of that culture! Maybe "worldview" is a better word with less semantic freight than "soul", but for me "soul" says it all.

I just thought of a really good example of the foregoing.

If asked (in English) if you speak someone's language, we would say, "I get by." or "Enough to get by." or (and I don't know whether this is just old-fashioned or British) "I get along." Now, try to translate that into Spanish…it not only doesn't translate, it's even difficult to explain. Semantically, it carries somewhat (in other uses) of something sneaky, i.e., "I can get by the sentries." or "He found a way to get by the regulations."

But, if asked in Spanish if you speak Spanish, the correct response (if true, of course) is, "Me defiendo." Now that translates perfectly, but with a great cultural difference or "worldview". "Me defiendo." translates literally as, "I defend myself." This is a much more direct, confrontational meaning. No sneakiness involved at all.

If that doesn't demonstrate a rather large difference in "worldview" between the Spanish-speaking cultures and the English-speaking cultures, I don't know what does!

I dream in Urdu sometimes but live in an Australian dialect English environment.If that isn't an expression of the soul and an indication of the power of having a some mastery over a second language then , what is?