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‘English’
Click to listen to English.mp3 (1562Kb)
Non-native speaker
Accent: Swedish
Author: Calvino
Date: 1/14/2009

Description of what is on the sound file:
A little thing I wrote a while back, when I was tired as death of writing in English and longed back to the secure embrace of my mother tongue. Anglophiles will have to take it with a grain of salt. :)

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Transcript of sound file:
I have recently discovered how much I prefer writing in Swedish to writing in English.

This is no less than natural, of course, since Swedish is my first language and English is, at best, a foreign language that I happen to have a rather good grasp on. But there are deeper reasons at work. Reasons profound, almost metaphysical.

English does, quite honestly, disgust me. It is a vulgar tongue, fit for vulgar men only. It is a base creole of Old English and French, lacking all the handsome ruggedness of the old Germanic vocabulary as well as the flair of antiquity that only a true Romance language can muster. It is spoken monotone, with a certain drone, sometimes interrupted by shrill screams. It nominally has vowels, but they all reduce to the same lazy 'schwa'. I'm not even going to go into all the consonants.

To be certain, the English language has fostered its share of great men of letters. I presently can recall only Shakespeare, but I'm sure there must be others. However, it is arguable whether fostered is the right word to use, unless we by foster mean something akin to what old Josef Fritzl did to his (grand)children. That something good might nevertheless have emerged from conditions such as these, is simply proof of the unconquerability of the human spirit.

If I persist in tormenting myself by writing in this accursed tongue, it is only because it has somehow — inexplicably — become a Lingua Franca for all humanity. Every would-be man of letters must endeavor — this is my firm belief — in making his voice heard to all of mankind. If this means that I must sully myself with the Saxon tongue, then so be it. I just hope that someday, people will acknowledge my sacrifice, and shed a tear for a man of so young an age, lost irredeemably in the claws of English.

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Translation:
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