“English is a language built mostly out of two others. Much of it was created out of the language of invaders who came to Britain around 450 ad from Anglia and Saxony (in what we’d now call northern Germany). About 600 years later the French invaded and brought their language with them, too; it was derived from Latin. The new French competed with Old English, and the outcome was a language—modern English—built out of both.
Often words with similar meanings from the two languages were both turned into English words, such as make (Saxon) and create (from French), or need (Saxon) and require (from French). So in English you can say almost anything with two kinds of words: short, simple ones with Saxon origins, or fancier ones that come from Latin.”
-Ward Farnsworth, “What Did Lincoln Know About Language That We Don’t?” Reason.com. June 22, 2020.
Tag: Latin
Emily Wilson on Translations and Language – Conversations with Tyler
“I think Homer is psychologically truthful and ethically helpful. The whole question about, ‘Is it literature’s job or poetry’s job to train a politician?’ — I’m not sure that’s quite the right way to see it. By inhabiting worldviews which aren’t our own, we can grow in some way, which doesn’t necessarily have to be, ‘I agree with x, y, z political gnomon that’s articulated in this line or that line of Homer.’…
I think we should stop selling classics as, ‘These are the societies that formed modern America, or that formed the Western canon’— which is a really bogus kind of argument — and instead start saying, ‘We should learn about ancient societies because they’re different from modern societies.’ That means that we can learn things by learning about alterity. We can learn about what would it be to be just as human as we are, and yet be living in a very, very different society…
…So I’m interested in whether all educators are somehow in that double bind of ‘Am I actually helping you find something out, or am I imposing my own vision on you?'”
—Emily Wilson in at interview with Tyler Cowen, “Emily Wilson on Translations and Language.” Conversations With Tyler. March 27, 2019
Emily Wilson is a treasure.
Book of Kells
“The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created in a Columban monastery in either Britain or Ireland and may have had contributions from various Columban institutions from both Britain and Ireland. It is believed to have been created c. 800 AD. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and represents the pinnacle of Insular illumination. It is also widely regarded as Ireland’s finest national treasure.”
—s.v. “Book of Kells,” Wikipedia.
Images of the Book of Kells have recently been rescanned.
cafebedouin.org 