Life and times of the two-languaged weirdo
Some time ago I wrote very briefly about my friend describing me as a three-language weirdo (it was Polish, English and ‘that technology talk’). I find the weirdo bit more and more true as I write more and more. From text editing applications who can’t handle spell-checking a document written in two different languages to mobile phone’s T9 dictionaries that take forever to swap, I am being reminded of my disadvantaged (sic!) position as a bilingual hybrid.
The worst are the intrinsic language references, the culture you grow up with and don’t think about twice (or even once in most people’s case). That obscure knowledge we all some how have. Try telling an English that you can’t possibly finish primary school in Poland without having the national anthem carved in your brain and how symptomatic it is of Polish mentality. You’d have to go back through about 200 years of history, explain the economic formation of socialism and how the centrally planned economies failed world wide. Balls to that let’s go back to talking about football. Try telling a Polish about English Northerner’s specific working class ethos and they’ll think it’s yet another brit extravaganza of a society with too much time and money on their hands. Again, football it is, because I cannot be bothered to get into this sort of explanations over beer and even if i could be, no one can be bothered to listen. And here’s how these things get lost in abandoned communication, the most important things that could probably make us understand each other a little better. It’s as true for international relations as it is for internet users (my people versus people).
I’m still back home, as some of you know, which is why I’m sat round pondering about this sort of thing rather than sit around drinking Guinness discussing Liverpool’s game against Arsenal in UEFA Champions League Quarter-final’s 2nd Leg. I’m revisiting some of Polish best modern literature and wondering if this would ever make any sense to my English speaking friends. I had a go at translating things for them several times and it’s a dangerous thing. Translating is an act of creation in itself because it involves interpreting every sentence from scratch. I could be filling these translations and consequently my friends heads with sheer rubbish and they would never know (learn languages you anglo-centric egomaniacs or the whole world will lie to you… or something). But it’s trickier than this.
“I was a scoundrel, but probably not as splendid, as to be pushing through to the front row now. Remember, my dear unmaskers, that I could only dream at sleepless nights about being proudly called a stalinist, which you do left and right this days. As an AK solider I wasn’t allowed to attend secret conventions, as a faulty one I wasn’t allowed near the party’s altars, as a sinner I was forever forbidden the sweet pleasure of being called the commander’s name. (…) I was taking part, but I was on the side. I was living it, but didn’t carve it in the memory. I was sinning, but I can’t be bothered to confess everyday.” Tadeusz Konwicki, “Moonrises and moonsets”, 1982.
(“Byłem lotrem, ale chyba nie na tyle okazalym, zeby teraz pchac sie do pierwszych szeregow. Pamietajcie, moi drodzy demaskatorzy, ze o tym dumnym mianie stalinisty, ktorym wpolczesnie pomiatacie, moglem kiedys tylko marzyc w bezsenne noce. Jako akowcowi zabronione mi bylo uczestnictwo w tajnych konwetyklach, jako stefionemu niemozliwe bylo dla mnei przystapienie do partyjnych oltarzy, jako grzesznikowi na zawsze odjeta byla mi rozkosz nazywania sie imieniem wodza. (…) Bralem udzial, ale byle obok. Przezywalem, ale nie utrwalilem w pamiecie. Grzeszylem, ale nie chce mi sie codziennie spowiadac”, T. Konwicki, “Wschody i zachody ksiezyca”, Oficyna Wydawnicza 1990: 31)
Now, if I was to tell you that this isn’t really grand, but rather ironic, would that make any sense? First of all what is a stalinist? Does it make any sense after the World War 2 most of the intellectuals in the country were firm believer in the socialist idea, that was to wreck Poland during next 40 years, and in the person who was in charge of it? Now this is all thing of the past, but these days we can’t even establish whether Muslims are really to go on holly war with all the non-Muslims as their religious duty or not. It’s surprising how few tools we have that would attempt translating things for us.
