Sprachliche Vielfalt in politischer Einheit? November 30, 2008

Subtitle and research question: Mehrsprachigkeit in Europa als Bindeglied oder Zankapfel?

E. and I went to the first day of the “Mehrsprachigkeit”-Konferenz, held in Berlin and organized by the Geisteswissenschaften department of the Freie Universität Berlin. Of course, the question in itself concerns a hot topic in an ever growing Europe. That – and the free food – was enough for us to go out and listen to what some smart people had to say about the topic.

Tower of Babylon

In general, these smart people have learned that history is a good starting point for making decisions. What we heard were deliberate discussions of previous multilingual political units: Donaumonarchie, Belgium, etc. Also, the more modern appreciation of language varieties was at issue, although a rather old man in an ivory tower – not even a linguist, but a very right wing French professor in political sciences – still dreamed of The French Language, without varieties. (About the English of German youngsters he said: “they maybe understand the English commercials in shopping windows, but read them a line of Shakespeare and they will have difficulties.” With people like that, discussion is useless.)

Smart things have been said, and the discussion about multilingual people vs. a lingua franca balanced between an appreciation of people that speak four languages or so and the usefulness of a common language. In my opinion, I find that these highly educated people tend to forget that the vast majority of the people are monolingual and that they (the highly educated) should not take themselves as the average; I am pretty sure that most people at the conference were at least trilingual.

So, in Europe, where English is almost a de facto lingua franca, but where de jure multilingualism is still in place, this discussion is highly relevant. As a linguist, I try to be tolerant about language varieties and I simply wait for a natural solution for communication problems. This does not mean that language planning is evil; we do need to think about this issue. But a decission should always be based on what is actually happening around us.

Günter Grass liest “Die Box” November 29, 2008

Last Sunday, Günter Grass read from his latest book “Die Box” in the “Berliner Ensemble” in Berlin. I do not really know his work, but E. preferred Grass over “Orpheus und Eurydike” in the “Bodemuseum“. So we went to listen to him and a discussion between Grass and an eminence grise, I suppose. “Die Box” is autobiographical and told from an interesting point of view: GG wrote down a discussion between his 8 children, who were going through photographs from a magic camera (the box, die box). These pictures and the original focalization allowed Grass to speak about himself and his history from a distance, calling himself “the father”.

Günter Grass

He read pleasantly, with voices and gestures, and really enjoyed the audience. The discussions with Grey-man were alright and to the point, although the grey-man seemed to show off his knowledge a bit. Nevertheless, interesting things have been said. “Die Box” was put into the viewpoint of Grass’ previous autobiographical work.

Too bad, the seats in the Grosse Saale of the Berliner Ensemble are a literal pain in the ass. I remember my presence during a performence of Mutter Courage, almost two years ago now, for which only Stehplätze were available (2 euro!). Those were also painful, as MC is about 4 hours. With Stehplätze, the pain is concentrated in other parts of the body.

Afterwards, Günter Grass signed his books, and I think everybody wanted to have an autograph. The line was huge, but Günter remained friendly, even when we had our turn after half an hour or so, and with quite a que behind us waiting.