An attempt at some kennings "en français"

What follows is a list of some my attempts at kennings in French. It's not a form that should work in a romance language but it was helpful for our feminist theology group last night and made us think about language for God and faith in different ways. I'm not sure the resutls are really French - what would the Académie française say about such neologising! Of course because of the way French works the kennings are the other way around to in English or German. These are all loosely inspired by Jesus in the gospels.

Pêcheur d'homme et de femmes
fouetteur d'injustice
Raconteur de paraboles
Quitteur de tombeau
Chemineur de route
parleur de vérité
ballayeur de poussière
metteur de lumière
prometteur de l'Esprit
assureur de paix
maudisseur de figuiers stériles
pasteur de brébis perdu
aube pascal
levure de farine
ensemenceur de champs
lecteur de la synagogûe
chasseur de vendeurs
prieur de Gethsemané
rompeur de pain
verseur de vin

You can find some kennings in English here and here on my blog.

Language and Tucholsky

Departure
"What about the language problem?" asked the princess when we were sitting in the train to Helsingör. "You've been there before. Is your Swedish good?"
"I get by like this," I said, "First I speak German, and if they don't understand that, English, and if they don't understand that, Platt, and if that doesn't work either, then I stick an "as" ending onto German words, and I find they understand that quite well." This was all we needed. She thought it absolutely wonderful, and immediately incorporated it into her lingusitic paraphenalia.
"So it's Sweden next. What do you think will happenas to us now in Sweden?"
Whatever happens on a holiday ... You, I hope."
...
"What shall we do now?" I asked, when we'd washed. All we could see of Stockholm from our hotel window was four chimneys agaisnt a blue sky.
"I think," the Princess said "we should first get an interpreter - your Swedish is excellent, quite excellent ... but it must be ancient Swedish, and the people here are so uneducated. So we should take an itnerpreter out into the countryside and find a very cheap little cottage, and we'll stay there very quietly."
From Michael Hofmann's translation of Schloss Gripsholm by Kurt Tucholsky

Any book, any writing, is always about language to some extent, and Gripsholm is full of linguistic play - Tucholsky was after all a satirist. There are some wonderful bits where Lydia, the princess, speaks in her native Platt as they set off on holiday from Berlin. Friends who speak this northern German dialect assure me that they can get by with it quite well in Denmark. Well these days in Scandanavia things are rather different to in the early 1930s and people take one look at us and start speaking English. I have to admit to struggling rather - it seems wrong to rely on English and I find myself suddenly quite fluently speaking the 5 and a half phrases of Dutch I have internalised over the years.
What I am enjoying though is the sliding spelling and pronunciation of words on street signs, in written form I understand more than I expected to. Of course it's also quite fun making up completely wrong translations, just to pass the time of day. Swedes, Danes and Norwegians seem to be able to speak to one another and understand each other fine - perhaps it's just like different dialects of English.

Aufwiedersehen Copenhagen or should that be bonvenon?

We have a glorious final evening in Copenhagen for our wedding anniversary - it was perfect sitting next to the water, eating a delicious meal, listening to a free concert outside the opera opposite. It was great.
Now though we have moved on from Denmark but we hope very much to return for a longer visit than just this taster visit. However, as we leave the Universal Congress of the Esperanto Society will be holding its meeting in the city. No work for me at a meeting like that, I imagine they don't need interpreters.

Listen, Build, Engage, Share … an article written for a Danish web portal

Sometimes we only write because other people ask us to write. So thanks to Christian Cohr Arffmann for asking me to write. Now my jottings have been translated into Danish. Perhaps I will get around to writing the four other particles I thought about as I was writing this. It's not very edgy, but perhaps that's what you get when you ask a church bureaucrat to write. Oh dear is that really what I am? aie!
Anyway here it is ... and you can read the Danish here.

The future of the church is not behind us. That may sound obvious, but often in western Europe our vision for how the church should be is modelled on how things were in the past. Yet globally today’s church is youthful, it’s growing and it's engaged with people in their daily struggles for life, existence and meaning. Millions of people in today’s world continue to be inspired and transformed by the words and story of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s difficult to know how many Bibles are being printed in China today; nearly impossible to count how many meals Christians serve to the world's hungry each day. That should be reason to hope and give real energy for the future. We need to listen to stories of hope and change and allow ourselves to be fed by them.
In rural Tanzania a young Anglican community worker, employed by a Lutheran agency, encourages people in civil society to take action to safeguard their right to water. Working with local mosques and churches is an important part of that advocacy and education. To make a change in people's daily lives in a meaningful way, building bridges across denominations, across religions and engaging with civil society is essential.
Across the world working for transformation, development or education means tapping into the extraordinary network of professionalism, creativity and community that is the church. Not many other organisations have the inbuilt capacity for national and international advocacy while maintaining strong local involvement.
Sometimes in western Europe the picture looks different. Of course some parts of the church will not continue in their present form. There are institutions that will not survive, buildings that will be closed. There is pain and grief when things die. There are also real worries: will there be churches committed and able to take the agenda of social justice and peace into the future? It can be a frustrating and very challenging time for institutions, desperate to hold on to and assert their identity.
Nevertheless, I believe that what is emerging is a complex picture of new ways of belonging to church and practising faith. People will shop around for a community which "fits" their needs at a particular time in their faith journey. At the same time there is enormous gospel creativity, new forms of church - not so based on denominations - are emerging. People want to bear witness to the gospel that inspires them, be involved in practical service with the suffering and dispossessed, using church buildings in new ways, discovering both a new monasticism and a new ecumenism - look at the exciting development in the harbour of Hamburg, where 18 churches decided that instead of building their own places of worship, they would pool their resources in one ecumenical centre. Others like the Moot project in Britain live out their faith in small groups in the heart of vulnerable communities - daring to live alongside and share with those whom society would rather forget about or scapegoat.
So are we dreaming the right dream for the future? Do we want something big and powerful when the future of the church - at least here in western Europe - may lie in something smaller but much more transformational. Worldwide most Christian churches exist in the context of being minorities. This needs to inform how we dream and hope. We need to let those biblical kingdom visions of yeast, seeds and hidden treasure inform our theology of hope more clearly.
One thing I believe I discern in the current situation of the church globally is that many Christians are learning that there are people working for peace, justice, health and service from all parts of the church.
The World Council of Churches recently held an International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Jamaica. At the gathering in Kingston extraordinary stories were told, a common spirit for peace with justice was discovered and celebrated as we read the Ecumenical Call to Just Peace. The stories of the encounters and experiences of Christians and churches working for social justice and to overcome violence will go on being told.
The Quaker theologian Grace Jantzen repeatedly points to how Christian theology needs to focus more on that which is "natal" rather than that which is "mortal". Human beings are made for life. Are our churches able to do that?
We need to be challenged by social media and networking in the way we build the future. We need to find ways for our stories of life, hope and inspiration to go "viral". But we can be encouraged by social media, which focus on four key words: Listen, Build, Engage, Share. That’s not a bad starting point in charting a path for the future of the church.

The Ecumenical Call to Just Peace: http://www.overcomingviolence.org/fileadmin/dov/files/iepc/resources/ECJustPeace_English.pdf

Whatever langwij you speak, may your words be words of peace

Every day I go past "Di Jamiekan Langwij Yuunit" several times on my way between the various places I need to get too. It always makes me smile and I'm a bit sad that the WCC's langwij yuunit hasn't managed to link up with them. Last night I stayed behind in the tent to offer moral, though I admit not much practical, support to the great colleagues and stewards who had to work very hard to take down all of the equipment following the great musical we had last night. Listening to the local Jamaican stewards I realised that the local language is very beautiful but that often I'm only pretending to understand. I'm pleased to say that this is mutual, my rather horrid RP (received pronunciation) English seems to be just as difficult for many Jamaicans. Anyway by the time I leave on Friday I really hope to have got my Jamaican vowels practised to perfection. Peace mon, yeah mon!

Occitan - the sound of the south, linguistic discoveries while wine tasting

In the window of the cave coopérative in Cessenon yesterday there was a poster for Occitan lessons - come and discover or rediscover how to speak, read, write, sing and laugh in the local language. You can find out more here. Occitan is really the sound of the south and we had quite an introduction to it listening to one of the wine growers we visited this week. Proudly Occitan and Mediterranean even in the grapes he planted and made his wine from and the methods used to ferment the wine.
Occitan in its written form traditionally tells of troubadours and ladies with unicorns, courtly love. It also often speaks of the Cathars, the religious sect wiped out following the Albigensian crusades. It's great to see Occitan going through a revival these days - for decades it was considered "dirty" to speak regional languages, now though you can even take Occitan as a baccalaureat subject.
Walking around Causses we came across a memorial to Jacques Vanière, not a writer in Occitan but a Latinist poet and Jesuit priest. The tiniest of villages yet this celebration of culture, language and poetry was at the centre.
Going around the villages in the countryside here, I am continually struck by the incredibly long and rich cultural and religious history. Human beings have been living, singing and versifying for millennia in this part of the world, so much of the languages from long ago is lost so it's good that there is renewed interest and commitment to Occitan. All the place names as you enter the towns and villages are in Occitan as well as in French.

Spanish is the first mother tongue of Christians world wide

One of the things that happens to you in any job is that you pick up random facts and one of the great things about blogging is that you can bore other people with them!
In the session presenting the Atlas of global Christianity yesterday there was a fascinating slide on the languages of Christianity and the shifts in those languages since the 1910 Edinburgh conference. So in 2010 Spanish is the most spoken mother tongue of Christians worldwide.
It so happens that here in the press room at Edinburgh 2010 we have a great Spanish writer Manuel Lopez, who has just launched a really great newspaper for his church in Spain. It looks great - not churchy at all - and makes me wish I understood more Spanish and could really enjoy reading it.
To find out more go to Puert A bierta.

Open Bible projects in Portuguese and English as well as German

This week I discovered that there is not only a German creative commons Bible project but also one in English and in Portuguese.
There's a good discussion over on Peter Kirk's Gentle Wisdom about some of the challenges and philosophy of producing an open source Bible translation. I still think it's a great idea. As with any Bible translation though the real issue will be keeping the momentum going, coordinating the project in the different langauges and moving forwards. Anyway it's also opened up the world of free software, social coding and Github to me. Oh dear so much to know and just not enough time ...

To learn to speak, learn to listen ... at feminist theology

Claudine Haenni Dale spoke to our theme of "trouver sa voix trouver sa voie" at our feminist theology group last night. Claudine is in training to be a lay reader in the Anglican Church and is a human rights lawyer who has specialised in work on the prevention of torture and victims rights.
She chose two texts - the call of Samuel and Moses' response to God's call - to speak personally about her own quite recent journey of faith and the different emotions and sensitivities about speaking on behalf of others, finding her voice as a woman, pitching the message to the audience.
How do you, as a woman with a concern for the legal rights of non-combat people and a responsibility to communicate that to the military, find your voice when speaking to a group of 200 16-18 year old soldiers in central America? How do you speak and listen to those you visit in prison?
Claudine spoke movingly and with great humour and humanity about finding her own voice, the conversion experience of finding her way back to faith (her "way") through being invited to sing in the church choir, her choice of Anglicanism as the right place for her faith.
As we find our voices do we do it - when learning the local language say - in order to blend in so as not to be noticed? Or in so as to be able to use that voice in whatever language to plead a cause, our own or the cause of others? Claudine moved around alot in her youth, learning different languages in order to not get noticed - at least not stand out because she didn't speak the local langauge.
Yet how do we ever dare to speak of faith, in particular as women who have often been excluded from this role for many centuries in most of the Christian churches? Do recent converts have to right to speak in front of others? Does the fact that women preach and lead in some churches today mean that what is said is listened to less?

We returned to the call of Samuel in order to speak, in order to receive the call, the vocation he was counselled by Eli to listen. If we learn to listen to both words and what is left unsaid we will begin to find authentic voice and perhaps also our authentic way. In terms of faith this does not necessarily mean that we always have to find words to preach, things to say; it does mean we need to listen to God in ourselves and in others and bear witness to what God is showing us, doing for us and giving us.
I'm sure that as the week progresses I shall return to some of these thoughts but as we spoke last night I realised what a privilege it is to be part of this group where we both listen and speak. It is a space of liberation and grace.

The language collector - save the world's languages

There is a good article by Mark Turin in the latest CAM magazine called the Language Collector which charts the challenges of trying to record and collect some of the world's languages before they disappear. He tells of his work in Nepal where he has been learning Thangmi - a language which was until recently not only endangered but also almost undescribed. You can read the full article on page 24 of the magazine (pdf here).
Turin is part of the World Oral Literature Project which has a website with links to good resources, lectures and further reading on how to protect and collect the disappearing langauges and oral literature of the world. Turin will also be making a contribution to the Cambridge ideas series on youtube from mid April, something to lok out for.
In the CAM article he gives a good defence of calling the oral narratives of languages and cultures "literature". Great literature does not have to be either written or printed to be great or literary. In oral cultures the reliance is on human beings speaking the language and learning the literature across the generations, the people their tongues and memories are themselves the living literature ... but if there are no people speaking the language any more then the story will be lost and the narrative of literature will not go on.

Interpreting ...

I seem to have been doing alot of interpreting over the past ten days. For the most part it has been enjoyable and fun. It always has its hairy moments though, mostly to do with adrenaline and the knowledge that if you fail it will be hugely public - and in my case almost always in front of one or all of my superiors, oh joy! (Mention the words Mohammad Yunus to me and although I admire him greatly I will go pale - not one of my interpreting triumphs - I had problems sleeping for a week afterwards.)
Another problem is people who seem to think that because you're in the room with them multi-tasking (interpreting uses up alot of the brain's capacity) you could maybe give them a glass of water, tie up their shoe laces or maybe have a side conversation with them. None of these things help concentration ... :-)
Then there is the very different skill needed in doing simultaneous interpretation compared with consecutive interpretation. Because most of what I do is short bursts of an hour's interpretation with whispering equipment I tend to have to switch between the two. Consecutive interpretation uses your memory and recall - and ability to take notes (not easy when you are holding onto a microphone I found this week!) - at press conferences journalists tend to ask questions really quickly before the simultaneous interpretation has finished so you switch languages and switch skills. Just keep your nerve and be assertive with people trying to ask too many questions at once! The important thing is not to think about it too much and just surf the adrenaline. Interpreting means you don't really need to go in for high risk sports to get kicks - well that's my excuse anyway!
I always feel the interpreting has been useful if people respond in both languages and you can feel some understanding and relationship developing. In the next post you can find links to some of the things written at one of the things I interpreted for this week.

My language is best, my way is best ...

Nick Baines has been writing about the not so slow death of foreign language learning in the UK, also noting the fact that there is a growing lack of English mother tongue interpreters at the EU. Every day in my job I hear people saying how expensive it is to translate and how everything would be much cheaper if we did it in English. I've written before about how I don't believe that one size fits all where language is concerned. I strongly believe that the risk for English speakers is never going beyond their own way of thinking, expressing things, doing things.

As a result of Nick's article I've also discovered that the issue of Ecumenical Review on language issues which I guest edited at the end of 2008 is now available online. Here's an excerpt from my editorial:

Language is a central element of human identity and essential to communication. Language has been a part of religious history: issues of whether the Bible or liturgy should be translated into the vernacular also play an important role in religion, public worship and prayer.

The issue of language is also central to an ecumenical movement whose scope encompasses the "whole inhabited world". Speaking at the World Council of Churches' most recent assembly in Porto Alegre in 2006, the Korean theologian Namsoon Kang reflected on how at ecumenical gatherings, ranks are established not by money but by language, with the first class passengers being those who speak English as their native language, and those travelling economy being those whose native language belongs to none of the WCC's four working languages. The choice of language is absolutely the issue of power, she stated: "Language is not just a means of communication. It is about standardization of thinking, worldview, value-system, culture and even one's attitude to other people around. The choice of language is about power: power of decision-making, power of knowledge-production, power to express oneself. Language is power to express who one is, power to persuade; it is power to convey one's values and opinion."

The global dominance of English often leads to the lack of recognition even of the existence of the worldviews, spiritual expression and philosophical viewpoint represented by other languages.

As we lose the ability or even the opportunity to learn other languages we are also losing the ability to see the world and life in different ways and that means we are cutting ourselves off from potential solutions to all sorts of things. Sadly, we don't even realise it. We might also always believe we are right and that our way is the only way. After all we don't listen to people who don't speak the same language we do ...

Frustration

Le Monde Education of February 10 has a really excellent supplement about language learning and teaching in France and in general. There are some interesting articles on learning by heart on teh different ways the brain reacts to "mother tongue" and foreign tongue, meaning that foreign tongue learning takes place in different circuits of the brain.

My frustration - can I find a link to it anywhere? No. Amazingly there is an internet address on the front page www.lemonde.fr-education.fr but it doesn't work.
What a shame.

Wielding the language axe and banishing words

So while I was blogging about the logos Language Log was busy pointing to (in a rather non-committal sort of way) the Lake Superior State University's annual list of banished words.

Word "czars" at Lake Superior State University "unfriended" 15 words and phrases and declared them "shovel-ready" for inclusion on the university's 35th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

"The list this year is a 'teachable moment' conducted free of 'tweets,'" said a Word Banishment spokesman who was "chillaxin'" for the holidays. "'In these economic times', purging our language of 'toxic assets' is a 'stimulus' effort that's 'too big to fail.'"

Germany has a Wort and Unwort des Jahres in a similar way to the American Dialect Society's vote on Words of the Year in various categories. Interestingly Austria has different Wort and Unwort des Jahres to Germany and I really rather like "Analogkäse" - a truly splendid Unwort.

So which words do you want to unfriend?
As a reviser and editor of course I have to own up to banishing words with my red pen all day long. Such is life.

Word of the day: "chillen"

"And God chilled out" is the title of the brilliant German twitter Bible which the folk at evangelisch.de have published in hard copy book form in time for the Frankfurt book fair. I am so looking forward to reading it.
Earlier this year evangelisch.de succeeded in a world record attempt of getting the whole of the Bible tweeted in 10 days from the beginning of the Protestant Kirchentag to Pentecost Monday. They managed it with a day to spare. Such a great project and I even managed to tweet a couple of passages in German myself.
The idea is of course not to replace the Bible but to deepen people's encounter with it through giving some passages new meaning in their tweeted version. It's of course not a translation but a poetic interpretation of the Bible. The title is brilliant too - "and God chilled out" for the end of the creation story when God rests. I love the way words get borrowed from one language to another, someitmes changing their meaning.
So when are we going to see an English version of the Bible in twitter? I was talking to a religious publisher in the Netherlands the other day and they are very interested in the idea. The other thing that's great about it is the use of it to build community - of course the many people who took part in the project will also want to buy the book! Twitter is a really interesting tool for building a sense of being part of things together with people at an event.

Language and justice

Canon John Gibaut made a plea from the podium on Monday morning asking English mother tongue speakers to "slow down" and try to avoid using colloquialisms. Nevertheless we have still had only two feisty francophones who have spoken from the floor and only two papers in a language other than English (Spanish) from the podium. I would say that 80% of those speaking from the floor were English mother tongue. They feel more at ease making short and longer comments and even in the group work I am occasionally surprised by how difficult it is for those of another language to break in to the conversations.
At the excellent Africa regional meeting over the weekend, the issue of language was also raised.
It is of course usual for international conferences of all kinds to be in English and yet I feel that there is a need to be rather more proactive in terms of saying things like non-anglophones will be given priority at the microphones.
The real contrast to the use of language in the plenary sessions came at evening prayer where several Asian languages were used for extemporary prayers and readings, a glimpse not of Babel but of Pentecost.

Word of the day - trabant , or should that be sputnik?

Dr B has been writing over on Holy Disorder about the return of the Trabbi and he's also written some notes about the medieaval meaning of trabant which was a foot soldier or personal guard. These days when Trabant doesn't refer to a piece of ostalgie it means a satelite. Not surprising really as the GDR Trabant car was launched at around the same time as the success of the Soviet Sputnik programme - another word for satelite.

(Meanwhile I am left wondering how and why Dr B even manages to get footnotes onto his blog - surely we have too many footnotes in our lives as it is?)

What will you be doing for the European Day of Languages?

September 26 is the European Day of Languages. The Council of Europe which launched the day in 2001 has a EDL websites which has some fun features: a language fun section including language "treasures" list of words which are wonderful in various languages but difficult to translate. Apparently the word that has been most submitted to this section is the Portuguese word "soudade" meaning longing, missing - the only real translation for that is I suspect the German word "Sehnsucht". Anyway go to the site for a quiz and for other ideas about how to celebrate the day.

Linking to a time for everything ...

We've just got our copy of le lien - the link for the wonderful Protestant bookshop in Paris Un temps pour tout - a time for everything. The few pages in le lien always have something in them that I want to read. This time it's Claude Hagège's Dictionnaire amoureux des langues. It wounds wonderful and I'm looking forward to getting a copy and reading it - even if it is 729 pages long!
It makes my other choice Claude Lanzmann's autobiographical Le lièvre de patagonie sound like an easy read at only 558 pages!
Anyway what are you reading this summer and what is your favourite bookshop?

Today is international mother tongue day

February 21 is International Mother Tongue Day. I have spent the day editing text in my mother tongue (English) while speaking in what I call my father tongue (German). Tomorrow I shall go back to the place where I speak my language of prayer (French). The World Association of Christian Communication have put out a statement to mark the day:

A mother tongue is the language a mother teaches her child. It is the umbilical cord linking that child to the community in which she or he grows up. As such, it is a verbal skin of identity, shaping the sounds used to express feelings, meanings, and relationships. While mother tongue education and multilingualism are increasingly promoted around the world, languages are disappearing. UNESCO’s Atlas on Endangered Languages points out that “the past three hundred years have seen a dramatic increase in the death and disappearance of languages leading to the situation today in which 3,000 or more languages that are still spoken are endangered, seriously endangered, or dying.”

And according to the Living Tongues Institute, “Every two weeks the last fluent speaker of a language passes on and with him/her goes literally hundreds of generations of traditional knowledge encoded in these ancestral tongues. Nearly half of the world’s languages are likely to vanish in the next 100 years.” The globalization of the world’s economies and the rapid growth of digital communications have speeded up that process.

Mother tongues of cultural minorities have always faced challenges. Doreen Spence, a Cree elder, laments the repression of her mother tongue at church-run residential schools in Canada as an assault on her culture, heritage and way of life: “The essence of Mother Tongue is critical: It is the essence of who we are. It is our identity. It is the way we express our Spirit. It is synonymous with our Culture and Traditions."

Go here to read the statement in full - it's also available in French