Real people telling true stories in a variety of languages and, as Bob Dylan would say, ‘something’s going on but you don’t know
what it is’. The effect is such that it appears that part of the soundtrack has made a unilateral declaration of independence. It hasn’t, instead
it is hung like a curtain, making numerous points of contacts to what is happening on screen. |
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The real importance is revealed in the introduction. It reads, in part, “My Illustrious Queen. Whenever I ponder over the token
of the past that have been preserved in writing, I am forced to the very same conclusion. Language has always been the consort of empire, and forever
shall remain its mate. Together they come into being, together they grow and flower, and together they decline”, and further, “Our
language followed our soldiers whom we sent abroad to rule”. In Spain itself it also had consequences, even assuming one had learned to
write, one now required a teacher to write properly, dialect (and local identity) were devalued. All this is too far in the past to wake even echoes
in our minds.
There are, then, eleven native languages in déjà vu, each reflecting a distinctive way of thinking and the cultural
assumptions of those who speak them. Viewed historically, some of those languages (English, French, German, Portuguese) represent major export items
- spreading the word with missionary zeal in the interest of the politics of power, economic efficiency and cultural presumption. In this post-colonial
era we are still only half aware of the hierarchies which language creates. Language does not simply aid communication. It can, and often does, create
cultural refugees - people whose mother tongue is devalued or actively suppressed while they are still in their ‘own’ land. Contemporary example
abound, the most obvious at the moment being the Kurds. The effect of this invalidation is to consign an entire people to a linguistic limbo where the
presumptive superiority of the colonial power is demonstrated by the inability of the colonialised to raise their voices in effective dissent. Imposed
silence is free to be equated with agreement or even stupidity. The paterfamilias then speaks for the people, imposing the necessary ‘familial’ discipline
when needed. It leaves open only the road to counter violence. |
One of the consequences of euro-centric expansion and colonialism has been that places are named in the
spirit of the immigrating culture. New South Wales, Nova Scotia (New Scotland) or even New York. Tinged with home sickness, rebellion and a desire to
start again, they are also coloured by a desire for cultural continuity. The naming process treated territory as a tabula rasa. And naming is claiming.
When we look at an atlas and see Newfoundland, one is always tempted to ask the fate of those who lost it. Even more significant is how this naming
process affects the peoples of the ‘newly discovered’ lands. As Wilfred Thesiger said, “we usually called them one thing, and they
called themselves another.” The Lakota become the Sioux, the Inuit become the Eskimo and the Afars the Danakil. Identity is partially violated.
The crux of the matter is power. |
Ivan
Illich has written extensively about his concept of vernacular values. In that context, one of his concerns has been language, and, as he points
out, that is not the same as speech (oral culture). He draws attention to Elio Antonio de Nebrija who published the first book of Spanish grammar - “the
first in any modern European tongue”. A superficially praiseworthy educational enterprise. Its significance goes beyond the fact that it was
published just fifteen days after Columbus sailed and that it contained the first Americanism (canoa - canoe). |
