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James Joyce | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| hydrohphoenix Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6778 days ago 16 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French | Message 1 of 8 26 March 2006 at 4:06pm | IP Logged |
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Has anyone here read any of James Joyce's works? I'm particularly interested in those that have read Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake as they are full of multi-lingual puns and uses at least a dozen foreign languages. Have any polyglots read the novels? If so, I would love to hear how your language skills allowed you to appreciate it more. Also, which languages did you recognize?
Since I already posted this in the culture room and no one responded, I am trying here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6680 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 2 of 8 28 March 2006 at 9:44pm | IP Logged |
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This is more of an aside rather than an answer, but Finnigans Wake attracted my interest because a fellow student told me that (at least according to a rumor) that Joyce spent so long writing it (15 years?) because he wanted people to take a long time to read it. Upon looking at the first page, I understood why.
I can't seem to find out how many languages were "used" in it, it seems I've heard upwards to a dozen or so, but I wouldn't be authoritive on that, it's sheer guesswork. One professor at my university once described it as "trying to tell every story in every language at the same time" or something similar to that. Edited by Journeyer on 28 March 2006 at 9:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6827 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 29 March 2006 at 5:08am | IP Logged |
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I've always meant to read Finnegan's Wake since I want to know the whole story behind the "three quarks for Muster Mark" line, but I've not got round to it yet.
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| Polyphemes Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie Virgin Islands Joined 6101 days ago 48 posts - 60 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch*, English, French, Italian, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Bulgarian, Greek | Message 4 of 8 20 September 2007 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
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Hi,
I, for one, read large parts of Ulysses... And indeed they were full of multilingual puns. I like this one (please consider I write from memory): -Moi, je suis socialist. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire a mon pere. -Il croit? -Lui, oui. I also don't know how to write accents as this is not a computer I'm familiar with. Joyce also uses some German, though I don't recall exactly what, where and when. Furthermore, Irish and Hebrew are mentioned in the "Ithaca"-chapter, where Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom demonstrate to each other some of their knowledge in those respective languages - Stephen being Irish and Bloom being a Jew. Haines gives off some speech to the milk-woman in the first chapter but Joyce does not write this down. For the moment I can't think of any other language he mentions in the book. But then again, I am rather tired and if I find time, I will research this more thoroughly. -Ah, I just remember. In one chapter in the middle of the book, Stephen speaks Italian with some artsy friend - forgot his name. Though not much has been written down. As for Finnegan's Wake - I don't know, never read it. Good night. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 8 21 September 2007 at 4:24am | IP Logged |
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There are some Latin and (Ancient) Greek quotes in Ulysses, but I can't give an estimate of the number of languages represented, because apart from a few peeks due this thread I haven't read the book since the seventies.
The same applies to Finnegan's Wake. However after rereading just 5 or 6 pages it seems to me that it is firmly based on, but not identical with English. Rather he plays with the 'sound' (or maybe even spirit) of dialects (not last those of Ireland) plus Middle English and produces his own gibberish, almost as when a comedian who doesn't speak a certain language can make a convincing travesty of it. This even applies to the relatively few non-English or maybe-not-English elements, such as "Sdense! Corpo di Barraggio" in the very beginning (pseudo-Italian), but with an allusion to the English "barrage" a little later in the text. Edited by Iversen on 21 September 2007 at 4:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6256 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 6 of 8 24 September 2007 at 8:02am | IP Logged |
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He studied French, Italian and English at University College Dublin, and also spent time in Zurich, so I assume he spoke German too. I believe he also wrote to Ibsen in good Norwegian. Add in Latin and Greek, which he presumably spoke if they're in Ulysses, and you get seven languages, eight if he also spoke Irish.
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| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6386 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 7 of 8 26 September 2007 at 1:18am | IP Logged |
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He learned Irish pretty well I've read but as a second language, English was his native tongue. He did not write in it other than for a few lines of dialouge and greetings here and there. I once read a story of his in which he threw in a few words of Yiddish as well (they were correct and pretty idiomatic), highly doubt he could speak it though so he probably picked up some phrases from casual contact or a textbook (dunno if any were available in Ireland back then, in America maybe) . He was a professor of French (I think), and definetely Latin and Greek for a while.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 8 of 8 01 October 2007 at 4:22am | IP Logged |
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Before writing Finnegan's Wake he mentioned in a letter that he had come to the "end of English", which partly explains why the book is such a linguistic mish-mash.
His daughter Lucia spoke Trieste's dialect of Italian. Some say that the constant changes of languages and environments contributed to her becoming mentally ill later in life. Edited by William Camden on 01 October 2007 at 5:49am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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