There is something almost sublimely foolish about the quasi-ambition to save a language from its own living users… oops, sorry, speakers, writes Ivaylo Noizi Tsvetkov.
If you are wondering why everyone has been writing in "shlyokavitsa" in recent days—it is because nationalist opportunism is quite transparently trying to instrumentalize linguistic puritanism, residual chest-thumping patriotism and group anxiety for its own political benefit. How? By pushing it through parliament on first reading.
Because of this opportunism—beyond the storm of memes and jokes—there is a danger that one day you could be fined because you said or wrote "update" instead of "modernization." Or "hashtag" instead of "grille-sticking."
If someone is going to care for the language, let them allow it to be alive
Yes, it is funny, but no, it is not. To me, there is something almost sublimely foolish about the quasi-ambition to save a language from its own living users (oops, sorry, speakers). It implies a particular kind of political cynicism: selling the masses on the belief that the language was somehow perfect at some point, but that since then it has gradually been spoiled by foreigners, the internet, smartphones, young people and other traditional culprits behind our Bulgarian misfortunes.
It is precisely in this gloomy domestic environment that this bill has emerged. It provides for regulating the use of standard Bulgarian in the public sphere and establishing some kind of consultative council to the Council of Ministers. And other half-baked hors d'oeuvres... I mean, dishes.
Let us be clear: caring for the language is a wonderful idea, but in the opposite sense. My theory is slightly Enlightenment-inspired—if someone is going to care for the language, they should be a liberal and encourage syncretism and interaction with other languages and cultures, because language is a living, pulsating organism. From that point on, fretting over it and wanting to control its natural development is a pointless and reactionary undertaking.
It is like loving the forest but insisting that the trees grow only in a northeastern direction. Slightly tilted, right, but not too much, because they might just tilt back the other way.
Where does this fixation on language come from?
And as for “Vazrazhdane” itself, it would be a good idea to ask it, somewhat in the manner of Lacan: "Well, what are we going to do about the thousands of signs in Russian along our Black Sea coast? Fine them too?"
Otherwise, this group obsession most often appears in societies that have rather serious problems with the "purity" of public life, but prefer to start with words. Probably because words are easier to inspect than institutions, who knows.
In short, language is not a monument. Wilhelm von Humboldt formulated one of the most important ideas in linguistics, adding to that of my ancient favorite Parmenides: language is not "ergon," a finished product, but "energeia"—an activity that is constantly being carried out, something like perpetual work.
That is, language is not a museum exhibit that must be protected from the dust of time. It is something like a "zoon," an Aristotelian meta-"being," even an "animal," which changes, appropriates foreign experience, writhes, experiments and sometimes produces rather ugly words. And that is its existential right.
No one in France speaks like that
By the way, Bulgarian, the "language so wonderful, who does not curse you," is a magnificent example of historical linguistic openness. It contains Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, French, German, Russian, Italian and English layers. Shall we organize a campaign to Bulgarianize "theater"—from the Ancient Greek "theatron," that is, "let us go on Thursday at seven to an open space where many people gather"? And "music"? Did you get tickets for "a combination of sounds linked to a later interpretation of the word for the ancient Greek Muses, from whom this wonderful noise derives"? And "philosophy" and "idea"?! Shall we call them "love of wisdom" and "form (thought)"?
Ferdinand de Saussure helps us understand why such an undertaking is pointless: a word's meaning is established through its place in the language system, not through its original meaning. A word does not become any less Bulgarian or usable because it crossed our border from another language a century ago.
Let us say a little about the much-vaunted French law on the same subject. No one here knows anything about it, but it has been held up as an example both now and in the past—mainly because "computer" supposedly became "ordinateur" there. In fact, this is the Loi Toubon of 1994, named after the then culture minister Jacques Toubon. However, it primarily regulates the use of French in education, employment relations, public services and consumer information. Contrary to the rumors, the "Toubon" law does not prohibit the French from using English words in their everyday or written speech. Besides being a continuation of the centuries-old cultural war against English, it protects the use of French only in certain public and institutional contexts.
Of course, there are jokes and absurdities there too, mainly aimed at the Académie française: "podcast" became "audio-capsule," "hashtag" was "mot-dièse," "spam" was supposed to be "arrosage" (sprinkling), but the greatest one is Wi-Fi, which was supposed to be pronounced "L’ASFI," "lasfi." Guess what—no one in France speaks like that.
Just as in Iceland, with its 400,000 inhabitants (fewer than Plovdiv and the surrounding villages). There is also a law on the status of the language there, but the main emphasis is on ensuring the conditions for it to function effectively in all spheres of society. More than 90% of Icelanders speak the new lingua franca—English.
Language is not purity. Language is freedom
And here I have to return you to the saddest part. The Russian philosopher and semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin spoke of the polyphony of language, of the different social, professional, cultural and individual voices in a linguistic community. And in this linguistically distinctive chorus, the professor, the taxi driver, the teenager, the poet, the programmer and the football fan all speak at once. The Facebook and Instagram user now speaks too—the person who writes one sentence with three exclamation marks, seven spelling mistakes and absolute confidence in their own correctness.
All of them participate in the living life of the language. The professor may be "cringing," the teenage poet may "mog" their classmates with their talentless poems, and the programmer may "debug." And one should neither take a "selfie" nor limit oneself in language.
Because language is not purity. Language is freedom. And the worst thing we can do for it is save it to death.
This text expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office or DW as a whole.
Source: www.dw.com