I have never written a line in English, among the hundreds of thousands that have come out of my head, that was not a translation of a thought conceived in Portuguese. Not even in an email. And to imagine the battle fought by so many writers of the last century, who voluntarily adopted a new language to create literature… A writer for whom language is limited to a vehicle of expression is inconceivable. Language is ingrained in thought itself, which is constructed through it. The logical structure of thought is based only on the syntactic structure of the language in which it is shaped; the two are inseparable, and the former cannot flourish without the latter. Words in different languages follow one another and are organized in different ways; this is evidence not of a formal difference, but of a distinction between the genius of the men who develop them. Changing it, when one is already old, seems like a shock of tremendous proportions.
Tag: languages
Latin Syntactic Flexibility
The student who is resistant enough to overcome the terrible difficulties Latin presents will be rewarded with unlimited access to the true beauty of Latin syntactic flexibility, so intricate to the brain educated in modern Romance languages. This is one of the most notable distinguishing features of Portuguese as compared to other modern languages, making them seem harsh and prosaic. To appreciate the syntactic variety of the Latin constructions is, in fact, to appreciate the degree of creativity with which the author articulates the discourse, variegating and surprising. Without a doubt, it is a pleasure that justifies years of effort to learn Latin.
In Portuguese, the Beauty and Precision of the Speech…
In Portuguese, the beauty and precision of discourse, whether in prose or verse, is mainly due to the good choice of verbs. These, well-chosen, dispense with adverbs and avoid periphrases, only justifiable when the cadence demands. It is impressive to note the number of verbs in the language, something that requires careful and constant study by the serious artist, who will only master them perhaps after long years of effort. Flaubert, if he wrote in Portuguese, would probably devote his obsession to them, and not to nouns.
It Seems Certain That, One Day, Brazil Will Make…
It seems certain that, one day, Brazil will make the Brazilian language official, since time inevitably particularizes the language spoken in different lands, making idiomatic unity increasingly difficult. There are, in this, many plausible reasons and many mistakes. The first of these is the assumption that a language must have a “unity”, that is, it must be spoken in the same way unanimously. It is laughable to think that, if such a Brazilian language becomes official, it will not be susceptible to the same regional variations and the same evolutionary processes that all widely spoken languages have undergone and will undergo. One has to be very ignorant to suppose that some pens will guide the language spoken in the streets, when it is this that, ultimately, guides the grammars. Stupid measures like this latest orthographic agreement only make it more evident. On the other hand, it is understandable and even natural that a nation long for an authentic expression. But one must be very careful to distinguish to what extent this authenticity represents a necessary evolution, rather than a sudden break with the roots that allowed it to evolve.