Blackmail!
Gotta catch you all!
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2008
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- 7w8
Her description of English seems to match my hunch about what sort of language English is, but I'm not certain about the other two.
As a matter of fact, what Nin is describing here are rather cultural biases at the times where she lived.
English is not "cold" nor analytical. It is a very blurry and confusing language, it lacks accuracy and precision, especially compared to, let's say, German or French.
For instance, thanks to the French Grammar (which is derived from Latin more than any other Romance language, since it has retained most of the original cases), the verbs and tenses are able to convey exact informations about how an action occured, when, why, and how. This is not possible in English, or at least, not with that accuracy.
For instance, a sentence like "Il aurait fallu qu'ils eussent fait" is not really possible to translate in English. Not only because of the impersonal or passive pronouns -also a great difference-, but also because it describes the possibility of an action that should have occured if...
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Hence, I'd gladly agree when thealchemist said that French is a much more methodical language ("mathematical" also fits). While on the other hand, English seems tailored for poetry and rendering vague, soft or subtle nuances of emotions or impressions.
I have always had the vague feeling that English was a somewhat "cold" language compared to the Romance languages, though I can't really say why it should seem colder even when expressing emotions, since it can clearly evoke them.
Depends of what you define as "cold". Analytical French is much more colder than analytical English.
Heinrich Heine once said French was the language of politeness, politics and diplomacy, especially compared to his native German, and I fear he was just right about it.
Thus if you think being polite and sometimes somewhat hypocritical is a "warm" attitude, then... yes. But I do not think any other Romance languages are like this, and able to convey double-speak as easily.