The mathematician S.M. (Stan) Ulam wrote:
...there is a clarity to French which is not there in other tongues ...thoughts are steered in different ways. In French generalizations come to my mind and stimulate me toward conciseness and simplification. In English one sees the practical sense; German tends to make one go for a depth which is not always there. In Polish and Russian, the language lends itself to a sort of brewing, a development of thought like tea growing stronger and stronger. Slavic languages tend to be pensive, soulful, expansive, more psychological than philosophical... Latin is something else again. It is orderly; clarity is always there ... words are separated; they do not glue together as in German; it is like well-cooked rice compared to overcooked... When I speak German everything I say seems overstated, in English on the contrary it feels like an understatement. Only in French does it seem just right, and in Polish, too, since it is my native language and feels so natural.
Those fascinating comments appear in Ulam's autobiography, my husband's birthday present from his sister and brother-in-law. Chris bought himself a copy of Teach Yourself Ancient Greek the other day which looks well nigh impossible to me. It's got grammar notes like this:
When a reflexive sense is involved (i.e. when the reference is to the subject of the clause to which the noun-group containing the possessive belongs), the genitive of the reflective pronouns is used, again in the attributive position.
Anyway, not to be outdone, because my son now has a Chinese girlfriend, I have bought a BBC guide to Mandarin Chinese. What gluttons for punishment we are.
Did you know that the opposite of yes in Chinese is not yes (apparently the same words as for am / are / is and am not / aren't /isn't—bu shi?
Shi bu shi...? means Are you or are you not?
I spent a very interesting afternoon yesterday hearing a friend talk in French about Anton Tchekhov and tomorrow morning I'm off to see the German film of Lilly Unter Den Linden again, this time at the Ambassador's Residence. Next Tuesday Daniella (she's Romanian) is going to say goodbye to our Spanish conversation group, so I'll have to struggle away in Spanish there. Last time we met, Dawn told us that the polite Spanish word for you, Usted, abbreviated to Vd., is a corruption of a respectful but now obsolete way of addressing people as Your Mercy (i.e. Your Honour), vuestra merced, which prompted a Polish Canadian to tell us how, in Poland, people address one another, or used to, as Pan or Pani (like Monsieur... Madame) to show respect. It seems that those rules are still quite complicated. In Mandarin, too, nin is more respectful than ni. Oh dear, I'm afraid that's just reminded me of The Knights Who Say Ni in the Monty Python sketch.
Is English the only language that shows "you" no respect?
