"to possess another language is to possess another soul"

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.