by beatriceotto | Apr 20, 2018 | language & translation
A fascinating insight into how we fold our perceptions of time into language, or language influences such perceptions. It made me realise that my assumptions about time, how I engage with and experience it, may have been strongly shaped by the languages I grew up...
by beatriceotto | Apr 20, 2018 | language & translation
Another angle on language and how it shapes or at least influences our perception of time. Here Adam Nicolson discusses the anchoring of tense in many languages, while others allow things to happen in a more imprecise location in time. ‘The sky is the great...
by beatriceotto | Mar 12, 2018 | language & translation, metaphors, poetry mojo
A fine and subtle way to depict a look which appears to express more than the person looking is capable of feeling. And I’ve always been struck when I come across commonplace proverbs and phrases in their original setting, and see how readily they are used by...
by beatriceotto | Jan 19, 2018 | language & translation
Although ignorant of Russian, I am interested in how cultures see other cultures, and languages see other languages, even if those perceptions are inaccurate. Was this just a finely poetic notion in Woolf’s head, or was it based on something she knew or had...
by beatriceotto | Oct 9, 2017 | language & translation, metaphors
What a way to convey the invigorating presence of foreign words in a language. Even if imperfectly grafted, they add something of value, providing the same ‘rank zest’ that a wipe of garlic brings to a salad bowl. ‘There are, through this random...
by beatriceotto | Jun 23, 2017 | language & translation, metaphors
Having just returned from Budapest, I was happy to rediscover this galloping description of the way it can sound to a foreign – or at least English – ear, with its agreeing vowels and harmonies. And he’s captured the rhythm perfectly – that...
by beatriceotto | Jun 15, 2017 | a quote to note, language & translation
There are some marvelous characters in The Shadow of the Wind, several of them highly opinionated and articulate orators, who express uncompromising views in lapidary language. I liked this round dismissal of languages being dead, the failure being instead our dormant...
by beatriceotto | Feb 26, 2017 | a quote to note, language & translation, print & publish
There’s such a zest to this account of the Armenian approach to dealing with invaders: translate everything you can get your hands on, regardless of your relationship with other nations or cultures. As for Mashtots, inventor of the Armenian alphabet, he should...
by beatriceotto | Dec 7, 2016 | a quote to note, language & translation
Such a fresh image to describe how a foreign language makes you feel. Here, a refreshing, fragrant black tea chucked into a teapot. Doesn’t it make you want to invite some Armenians for tea and let them talk? ‘There was some fine water boiling in a pewter...
