|
 |
Is This Truth? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7026 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 41 25 September 2006 at 11:14am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
I agree with alex.
I think that if all you do concerns languages (i.e. learn them, talk about them, live and breathe them, etc) then you might be a one-dimensional individual. Whilst I enjoy learning languages, I definitely do not consider them to be the be all and end all. As far as I know, I've only got one go at life so I plan on learning as much as possible about as many things as possible before it's time to go to the great library in the sky (where, hopefully, I can carry on learning things!). Languages just happens to be one of those things. Edited by patuco on 25 September 2006 at 11:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6901 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 18 of 41 25 September 2006 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
I agree. It's good to have a range of hobbies and interests, although I must admit that languages take up a fair amount of my free time! I do try and make the languages relevant with regards to my other interests when I can. My interest in Greek mythology and desire to read some of the classics in their original language are a major factor behind my wish to study Ancient and/or Modern Greek.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| IbanezFire Senior Member United States Joined 6705 days ago 119 posts - 124 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Russian | Message 19 of 41 25 September 2006 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, it is Nietzsche.
Afterall isn't this somewhat true? Learning just the language doesn't really help form ideas.
I agree with this partially. A human life is limited in time and one can only take in certain content they feel relevant to their life and what they enjoy learning. Edited by IbanezFire on 25 September 2006 at 3:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6776 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 20 of 41 25 September 2006 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Every language you learn gives you access to new ways of forming ideas, plus a whole new world of otherwise inaccessible culture.
I think there is nothing wrong with having esteem and taking pride in whatever accomplishments you have achieved, as long as you don't go overboard with it. Second, Nietzche's above statement could be made with regard to any field of human activity, be it sports, art, or technology. There is nothing in that statement that applies specifically to learning languages. You could theoretically say that excellency in any field is dangerous as it may lead one to pride and use up valuable time better spent elsewhere. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 21 of 41 25 September 2006 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
^ And if we were afraid to pursue excellence in any field, we would resign ourselves to mediocrity in every field.
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| el topo Diglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6771 days ago 66 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Dutch | Message 22 of 41 26 September 2006 at 4:19am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
Nietzsche was no doubt a great philosopher, but unfortunitely for him he'd lived before what was called a linguistic turn in philosophy. In the previous century language came into focus in almost all philosophical investigations on both sides of the English Channel as well as in America. Now it's not only ideas that are scrutinized in philosophy, but also their very expression in the language. The language itself is one of the primary topics in philosophy. Just take Derrida and Wittgenstein.
I am not saying that knowing foreign languages is absolutely necessary for being a successful philosopher now, but it is a big plus as it opens your horizons by seeing how different ideas are expressed in different languages. Another thing is a problem of translation, also a very important philosophical topic. Nietzsche was certainly wrong. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Captlemuel Groupie United States Joined 6733 days ago 58 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Mandarin | Message 23 of 41 26 September 2006 at 4:27am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
This sentence needs to be reread very carefully: ‘Learning Many Languages - learning many languages fills the memory with words instead of facts and ideas, while the memory is a receptacle which in the case of each [language] can take only a certain limited content.’ Some of you are saying that Nietzsche says or implies that our memory has a limit, that it can become full. That is not at all what he is saying. He is saying (conveying) that each language has a content limit (which is determined by its lexis, and by the rules governing the organization of its words into phrases, clauses, and sentences, each language having only so many words--a finite number of words, and only so many rules--a finite number of rules). The content of each language is what has a limit, not the mind, is what he is saying. In other words, if a mind took in or assimilated the entire content of a language--its lexis and its grammar--such mind would have taken in or assimilated a finite thing, namely, the language. Facts and ideas, on the other hand, are practically infinite.
This sentence--‘The two nations which produced the greatest stylists, the Greeks and the French, learned no foreign languages’--is, I think, the key sentence in the whole paragraph: it is the thesis. Here is the paragraph a little altered: The two nations which produced the greatest stylists, the Greeks and the French, learned no foreign languages. Learning languages is the axe that is laid at the roots of a feeling for the nuances of one's own mother tongue: it incurably injures and destroys any such feeling. Learning many languages fills the memory with words instead of facts and ideas, [and to be a great writer, one that is ‘full of matter’, one needs facts and ideas]--the memory is a receptacle which in the case of each [language] can take only a certain limited content. The learning of many languages is harmful insofar as it invites belief that one is in possession of complete accomplishments, and in fact also lends one a certain seductive esteem in social intercourse. It is also harmful indirectly in that it stands in the way of the acquisition of thorough knowledge and any ambition to deserve the respect of others by honest means. The learning of many languages is, to be sure, a necessary evil. Commerce between men, for example, is ever more cosmopolitan, so that an efficient merchant in London must make himself understood, in speech and writing, in eight languages. It is an evil, however, for which mankind will sooner or later be compelled to find a cure. And at some distant future there will be a new language for all - first as a commercial language, then as the language of intellectual intercourse in general - just as surely as there will one day be air travel. To what other end has the science of language studied the laws of language for the past hundred and determined what is necessary, valuable and successful in each individual language! I think when Nietzsche wrote that paragraph he had in mind, more than anything else, the subject of prose style and thoughts about the indefatigable laboring required in one’s mother tongue to become a truly great prose stylist (and a truly great writer-which a great prose stylist may not be). That paragraph is not directed to toddlers being raised in a home in which more than one language is spoken by cultivated individuals, a home in which toddlers will acquire (as Nabokov did) without effort more than one tongue; it is directed to persons past puberty, perhaps would-be writers who are monoglots, who might think that the path to supreme writing is through the acquisition of languages foreign to them--which kind of thinking is, in fact, fallacious. Nietzsche was, or rather is, by common consensus, the greatest German prose stylist of all time, and, by common consensus, a truly great writer. Nietzsche obviously knew well that if an aspiring author was to become a Supreme writer, he must have a perfect familiarity with his native language. Such perfect familiarity, Nietzsche must have known, is not acquired in a couple of years; he must have known that it is acquired over the course of a great many years--decades, through the incessant, incessant studying of language in action in great books, and in action in life. Edmund Burke remained a student of English his entire life. Nabokov says he could read English before he could read Russian. Nabokov, great prose stylist and polyglot, is the exception, not the rule. I acknowledge that he had a great ear: his word-music is, indeed, beautiful. But too intense an enthusiasm for his work often leads people to praise the beauty of his style without observing the means by which it is made beautiful. No truly great prose stylist depends on adjectives to get rhythm in his sentences and to achieve beauty of expression. Nabokov is totally dependent on adjectives—totally. He uses them to an extreme excess, and in many cases his use of them makes for verbosity. From Lolita, for example: ‘Speaking of sharp turns: we almost ran over a meddlesome suburban dog (one of those who lie in wait for cars) as we swerved into Lawn Street.’ ‘Suburban’ is superfluous because the use of Lawn Street, as well as some matter mentioned before the mention of the street name, tells us that they are in suburbia. Humbert's driver did not almost run over a dog in the country, a meddlesome dog that came from suburbia to get in the way—a suburban dog... Despite what this criticism may imply, (I confess) I’m quite fond of Nabokov, and I think he is certainly worth studying. Edited by Captlemuel on 02 February 2007 at 3:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Captlemuel Groupie United States Joined 6733 days ago 58 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Mandarin | Message 24 of 41 26 September 2006 at 4:38am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
And we should all remember that we are judging Nietzsche on the basis of a very poor translation--a questionable transcription of a poor translation! Edited by Captlemuel on 26 September 2006 at 7:33am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
