Mother Tongue and Other Tongue

Last Saturday, 20 April, I was invited to speak at a book launch. Thousand Thoughts written by Larysa (Laura) Savinska is an unusual book. It has Larysa’s original poems in English, in Russian and as if bilingualism is not enough, three poems in Ukrainian.

Linguistic theory says you can write poems only in your mother tongue. Because poetry is about feelings and emotions. Our strongest sentiments are attached to our mother tongue, our first language, the language we learn naturally, without having to cram grammar books. Larysa proves that theory wrong. She writes her poems with equal passion in English and Russian.

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Jean-Marc Dewaele from the University of London has spent a substantial part of his academic career investigating how swearwords and taboo words, the F language, affect multilinguals. (Incredible the kind of things academics pick for research). His paper begins with the drunk and angry Captain Haddock. Tintin and Captain Haddock are surrounded by armed Arab bandits in the desert. (The Crab with the Golden Claws, Hergé, 1940). When captain Haddock’s whiskey bottle is shot to pieces by the bandits, he releases a mouthful of oaths in French, his mother tongue. The swearing, of course, is only as strong as the kids’ books can swallow. Anyone fond of Tintin is familiar with the ‘mille milliards de mille sabords’ (billions of blue blistering barnacles). The Captain’s swearing is so powerful, the bandits run away.

The conclusion of Dewaele’s paper is more interesting. His research finds that swear words in our mother tongue offend us more than those in languages learnt later in life. This emotional force in mother-tongue applies to both the giver and the receiver of the swear words.

Those of you who can use swear words or have been sworn at in various languages can verify how true his research is.

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In the discussion on multi-lingual writing, Nabokov’s story is quite telling.

Vladimir Nabokov, the Lolita fame, wrote an autobiographical memoir called Speak, Memory in 1951. (In the USA, it was called Conclusive Evidence). The book essentially covered the period of his childhood and adolescence. As a child, Nabokov grew up in Saint Petersburg, in Tsar’s Russia. After the communist revolution, his family fled Russia and emigrated to England. Nabokov enrolled at the University of Cambridge. After graduating, he moved to Berlin. In the Second World War, once Hitler’s troops began advancing, the family fled again, this time to Manhattan, USA. That is where he wrote Speak, Memory, a memoir in English.

The following year, a Russian publisher approached Nabokov and requested him to write a book for the Russian readers. Nabokov offered Speak, Memory; now to be published in Russian language. Nabokov, being Nabokov, a prolific writer, didn’t want to translate. He began writing the same book in Russian.

A strange thing happened. Memories, associations, smells began to flood his mind. He recalled several stories he had completely forgotten when writing in English. The Russian memoir Drugie Berega (Other Shores) was published in Russia in 1954. Initially meant to be a simple translation, it was a very different book than the memoir in English.

Nabokov’s first two decades of life were spent in Russia. Apparently his memories, emotions, feelings from that period were closely associated with the Russian language. Though he was fluent in both languages, it was a mistake to try and capture the Russian period in English.

After the publication in Russian, Nabokov became restless and began translating the Russian version, which he considered to be authentic, back in English. In 1966, the memoir was published in English once again. Now called: Speak Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. In its preface, Nabokov acknowledged his difficulties in trying to fit the Russian memories in English. “This re-Englishing of a Russian re-version of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place, proved to be a diabolical task….” (Pp.12-13)

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In 1980, our flat in Bombay got its first phone- an immobile landline. It had a six digit number – 465416. The six digit number showed how few people had phones despite Bombay’s large populace. We were among the last to get a phone. I began to memorise the numbers of my friends, relatives, and colleagues. By 1986, I was holding more than 200 Bombay phone numbers in my head. I didn’t work as a telephone operator or a spy; I simply loved numbers and was proud of my memory.

In 1986 I moved to Moscow, and began to memorise the Moscow phone numbers. Moscow had seven digits. By 1990, I could easily recite more than 100 Moscow phone numbers. The following year, Soviet Union collapsed. In 1992, Ruble collapsed. Calling India from Moscow became dirt cheap. I thought I should surprise a few Indian friends by calling them from Moscow. In my Moscow flat, I still had a dialing phone. I tried to recall the Bombay numbers, but struggled. I was confident about my Bombay residence number, but most other numbers were blurred.

However, as soon as I came back on vacation to Bombay, and put my index finger on the phone dial, all those numbers came back. Now I had difficulty trying to recall the Moscow numbers.

This was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Both sets of numbers were stored in my head. But I could recall with ease only the local numbers.

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I notice something similar with the languages I learnt.

I left Russia 20 years ago. I rarely speak Russian now. But whenever I land in Moscow, words and expressions start flowing from my lips.

Since leaving Poland at the end of 2002, I have been there only twice. And still in November 2017, as soon as I breathed the Warsaw air, I could converse in Polish with the old fluency. On the third day, I was cracking jokes in Polish.

I may not have had as many lives as a cat does, but I have distinctly experienced Indian, Russian and Polish incarnations.

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If you speak only one language and live in only one country, you have only a single life.

If you spend a considerable number of years abroad, learn the local language and customs, mingle with the local community, (marry a local), start talking in that language in your dreams, work along with the natives, immerse yourself in that land, more importantly love the place and the people, that is reincarnation. I don’t know how credible the philosophical or religious concept of reincarnation is, but I certainly know that people who become part of another country and culture are reborn in the same life.

This is what happened to the author of Thousand Thoughts. For the past thirteen years, Larysa has made India her home, married an Indian, at her home in Goa she speaks in English with her family. She has even renamed her Indian avatar – Laura. She works as a coach and motivator- all her clients are Indian. In those thirteen years, she has experienced emotional ups and downs that have found an expression in her poems. Her Russian poems were written in Russia, her English poems are written in India.

In her poem Golden Cage, a lovely metaphor, Larysa writes about the people who shy away from experiencing another life: (Only an excerpt here)

There was a bird in a golden cage

A tiny singing bird

I loved her songs, I sang along

Enjoyed her voice a lot

One day I thought I’ll free the bird

Allow her to fly

It must be sad to stay inside

And never hit the sky

I’ve opened the little golden gate

But the silly bird stayed in

It’s all she ever knew

She was quite happy here

I’m like that bird, the whole sky is mine

And what do I choose instead?

I’ve locked myself inside the cage

Of what I thought is my nest

I look outside, perhaps I feel

That there is more out there

But I’m not ready for the sky

It’s so familiar here….

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Linguistic theorists who claim poems can be written only in one’s mother tongue didn’t take into account that reincarnation in another land can produce poetry in another language.

Ravi