cunning linguist

I was recently given a bottle of beer from the Faroe Islands.



Look, I know the Faroes have the enormous seabird population you'd expect of a bunch of islands in the middle of the ocean, and I understand that seabirds will therefore have a sizeable place in the Faroese psyche, but that thing on the label is quite blatantly not a gull. It's a sheep.

The front label weirdness is, however, dwarfed by the quote on the back of the bottle.



It seems to rhyme doesn't it? I never knew John Lennon spoke Faroese. But even if he didn't and it's a translated quote, how utterly bizarre is it to quote him on beer?

Most tantalising is the question it raises, what quote is it?

Faroese, as it happens, is a North-Germanic language, part of the same family as Danish, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian and Nor. Full respect to the people for keeping their language alive with a population of only a few thousand and centuries of pressure to change to the language of their Danish colonisers.

But it doesn't help me with the Lennon quote thing. No online translator I know gives Faroese to English.

I do love online translators. It's a great idea, and a valiant effort has been made in making them, but languages just aren't the mechanistic blueprints that devices like Babel Fish imply.

Languages are nuanced, they are the product of the cultures that invented and speak them, they do not simply overlay one another. There are several areas that illustrate this clearly.

Swearing tells you a lot about the taboos of a society. There are no swearwords in Japanese. The culture puts so much emphasis on social correctness and politeness that swearing is simply impossible. Whereas there are certain forms of address in some Australian Aboriginal languages where it is impossible not to be swearing.

Welsh had its swearing purged as the church brought its influence and became all but the custodian of the written language. You have to do elaborate constructions, but even then it's usually biblical and translates as 'you ugly devil from hell'.

Their word 'cont', clearly from the same root as 'cunt' is a friendly word for women, such as your mum might call the woman next door. My mum shouting over the fence, 'hey you cunt, how's it going' would create an altogether different atmosphere.

Another area of evidence is where a language has nicked words from another language. A concept is so sudden and new, it hasn't been in the culture so the language needs a swift off-the-peg word. It amuses me no end that the English have had to pinch words for chic, joie de vivre, and zeitgeist, being the frumpy miserable stick-in-the-mud neophobes that we are.

Online translators can actually help to give you a feel for how different languages are constructed. The best way to illustate this is to take a piece of writing you know well and understand, translate it into a language, then back into English.

You always get some accurate stuff, some comedy gobbledegook, and then a few bits that really show nature the language/culture.

Let's take the first and last verses of Ace Of Spades.

If you like to gamble I tell you I'm your man,
You win some, lose some, all the same to me,
The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say,
I don't share your greed, the only card I need is
The Ace Of Spades

Pushing up the ante, I know you've got to see me,
Read them and weep, the dead man's hand again,
I see it in your eyes, take one look and die,
The only thing you see, you know it's gonna be,
The Ace Of Spades

Put it into French and back again and it's really quite similar, as you'd expect from us both being Roman occupied lands, and then England becoming part of the Norman empire.

(Killer fact time: To this day, an Act of Parliament only becomes law in the UK once it's had 'Royal Assent'. This entails the monarch's representative standing up in the House of Lords and declaring in Old Norman French that the monarch approves of the law; 'le roy le veult' if we've got a king, or 'la reine le veult' if we've got a queen. We're still partially the unfree subjects of the Norman empire).

Anyway, from centuries of colonial despotism to Motorhead:

If you like to play me you say that I am your man,
you gain some, lose some, all the same one with me,
the pleasure must play, it does not make any difference what you say,
I do not share your avarice, the only chart that I have need is
the ace of the thimbles

Raising the ante one, I know you have to see me,
read them and cry, the hand of the man still died,
I see it in your eyes, take a glance and stamps,
the only thing which you see, you know that it will be,
the ace of the thimbles

German has, as one might expect, a greater air of precision in the language:

If you may play me explain to you the fact that I am your man
wins you some, loses some, all same to me,
who pleasures are,
it plays differentiates between none that you to say,
I divides not its having craze, the only one map,
which is I Karo As

Ante pushing up, white I, you, me see to have,
it read and, the dead hand of the man again,
I sees it in your eyes, takes a view and a cube,
the only thing, which you see, you knows to cry that it will be,
Karo As

Italian gives us:

If appreciate to play them you say that he is your man,
you gain some, you lose some, all the same ones to me,
the pleasure you must play,
it not fairies difference that what you say,
I not shared yours greed, the only card I have need of are
the ace of the staples

Pushing towards the high the ante, know have got to see it,
that you read to them and that you cry,
the hand of the out of order man still,
I you see it in your eyes, you take to a look and dice,
the only thing you see, you sapete that is going to be,
the ace of the staples

What it would be in Faroese is, as yet, unknown.