Language No Bar

Language gives a snub to borders in a way that is denied to any other human invention. There are no controls or checks to prevent words from crossing boundaries, there are no duties to be paid when phrases migrate from one culture to another. In the basic and simplest sense of the phrase, language is a free market. Among world languages, English has some claim to providing the freest market of them all, not only because it is compounded from a variety of sources but also because it has made itself open to linguistic influences from around the globe.

It is interesting to see how the different languages have come to be deployed in different fields. French is traditionally the language of diplomacy, of détente and démarche, but it is just as traditionally the language of sex and romance (billet doux; cinque à sept, describing the time late in the day when lovers traditionally meet). When we buy a house and sign a mortgage, let's keep in mind that the word derives from Old French mort(death) + gage (pledge).

Latin, functional and precise, provides us with many of the abbreviations we still use (e.g., i.e., etc.) as well as a number of legal terms. From Spanish come a handful of "masculine" terms like macho and cojones. At times it is difficult to avoid the feeling that an entire culture may be contained within an expression that remains tantalizingly elusive even when translated. One thinks of the sombre northern European quality of the German Weltschmerz or the way an entire (Mediterranean) quality of life seems to be embodied in the Italian dolce far niente (literally, sweet doing nothing)!!