Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages

"There are four tongues worthy of the world’s use", says the Talmud: “Greek for song, Latin for war, Syriac for lamentation, and Hebrew for ordinary speech.” Other authorities have been no less decided in their judgement on what different languages are good for. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, King of Spain, Archduke of Austria, and master of several European tongues, professed to speaking “Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.” A nation’s language, so we are often told, reflects its culture, psyche and modes of thought. Peoples in tropical climes are so laid-back it’s no wonder they let most of their consonants fall by the wayside. And one only needs to compare the mellow sounds of Portuguese with the harshness of Spanish to understand the quintessential difference between these two neighbouring cultures. The grammar of some languages is simply not logical enough to express complex ideas. German, on the other hand, is an ideal vehicle for formulating the most precise philosophical profundities, as it is a particularly orderly language, which is why the Germans have such an orderly mind. (But can one not hear the goose-step in its gauche humorless sounds?) Some languages don’t even have a future tense, so their speakers naturally have no grasp of the future. The Babylonians would have been hard pressed to understand Crime and Punishment, because their language used one and the same word to describe both of these concepts. The craggy fjords are audible in the precipitous intonation of Norwegian, and you can hear the dark l’s of Russian in Tchaikovsky’s lugubrious tunes. French is not only a Romance language, but the language of romance, par excellence. English is an adaptable, even promiscuous language, and Italian – ah, Italian!