Languages

[mk_tortie]

This (from German postsecret) really scares me sometimes. Not that I'm actually at the stage where it could happen, but just that I find myself thinking in German without intending to, or I only know the German word to describe a particular moment, and half of me is pleased and half of me is afraid. Every time I think about this it reminds me of a poem we had to read when I was at school: (particularly the second part)


Search For My Tongue
by Sujata Bhatt
(The Gujerati is translated into English within the poem itself)

Days my tongue slips away.
I cant hold on to my tongue.
It's slippery like the lizard's tail
I try to grasp
but the lizard darts away.
mari jeebh sarki jai chay
I can't speak.  I speak nothing.
Nothing.
        kai nahi, hoo nathi boli shakti
I search for my tongue.
parantu kya shodhu? Kya?
hoo dhodti dhodti jaoo choo
But where should I start?  Where?
I go running, running,
nadi keenayray pohchee choo, nadi keenayray
reach the river's edge.
Silence
        akedum shant
neechay pani nahi, oopur pakshi nahi
Below, the riverbed is dry.  Above,
the sky is empty:  no clouds, no birds.
If there were leaves, or even grass
they would not stir today,
for there is no breeze.
If there were clouds
then, it might rain.
jo vadla hoat   toh kadach varsad aavay
jo varsad puday toh nadi pachee aavay
jo nadi hoy, jo pamhoy, toh kaeek leelu leelu daykhai
If the rains fell
then the river might return,
if the water rose again I might see something green
at first, then trees enough to fill a forest.
If there were some clouds that is.
jo vadla hoat toh
Since I have lost my tongue
I can only imagine
there is something crawling
beneath the rocks, now burrowing down
into the earth when I lift the rock
        jyaray patther oopadu
The rock is in my hand, and the dry
moss stuck on the rock
prickles my palm.
I let it drop
for I must find my tongue
I know it can't be here
in this dry riverbed.
My tongue can only be where there is water.
pani, pani
hujoo yad chay paylee chokri
thunda pani, metha pani, bolti bolti aavti
mathay kallu matlu, hathma pittulno pyalo
oobhaylee gaadi baju aavti
bari taraf hath lumbaveenay pani aapti
unay hoo, ateeshay tarsi
mota mota ghuntada layli pee jati
hujoo yad chay paylee chokri
Even water is scarce.
There was a little girl
who carried a black clay pitcher on her head,
who sold water at the train station.
She filled her brass cup with water,
stretched out her arm to me,
reached up to the window, up
to me leaning out the window from the train,
but I can't think of her in English.

        II
You ask me what I mean
by saying I have lost my tongue.
I ask you, what would you do
if you had two tongues in your mouth,
and lost the first one, the mother tongue,
and could not really know the other,
the foreign tongue.
You could not use them both together
even if you thought that way.
And if you lived in a place you had to
speak a foreign tongue,
your mother tongue would rot,
rot and die in your mouth
until you had to spit it out.
I thought I spit it out
but overnight while I dream,
munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha)
may thoonky nakhi chay
parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay
foolnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh
modhama kheelay chay
fulllnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh
modhama pakay chay
it grows back, a stump of a shoot
grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins,
it ties the other tongue in knots,
the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth,
it pushes the other tongue aside.
everytime I think I've forgotten,
I think I've lost the mother tongue,
it blossoms out of my mouth.
Days I try to think in English:
I look up,
        paylo kallo kagdo
oodto oodto jai, huhvay jzaday pohchay
ainee chanchma kaeek chay
the crow has something in his beak.
When I look up
I think
        aakash, suraj
then: sky, sun.
Don't tell me it's the same, I know
better. To think of  the sky
is to think of dark clouds bringing snow,
the first snow is always on Thanksgiving.
but to think:
        aakash, usman, aabh
mathay mota kalla kagda ooday
kagdanay mathay suraj, rojjay suraj
akepun vadul nahi, atelay varsad nahi
atelay anaj nahi, atelay rotli nahi
dal bhat shak nahi, kai nahi, kooch bhi nahi
matra kagda, kalla kagda
Overhead, large black crows fly.
Over the crows, the sun, always
the sun, not a single cloud
which means no rain, which means no wheat,
no rice, no greens, no bread.  Nothing.
Only crows, black crows.
And yet, the humid June air,
the stormiest sky in Connecticut
can never be
        aakash
chomasama jyaray varsad aavay
aakhee raat aakho dee varsad puday, vijli jai
jyaray ma rasodama gheenay deevay rotli vanti
shak halavti
Ravindrasangeet gaati gaati
saonay bolavti
the monsoon sky givng rain
all night, all day, lightening, the electricity goes out,
we light the cotton wicks in butter:
        candles in brass
And my mother in the kitchen,
my mother singing:
mon mor megher shungay, ooday cholay dikdigontair panay
I can't hear my mother in English.

                III
In the middle of Maryland
you send me a tape-recording
saying "huhvay aa ake vat toh kahveej padshay
bhalaynay bahr kootra bhaasay, bhalay dhobi aavay
bhalay shakvali aavay, maray aa vat toh kahveej padshay
bhalay tapali aavay, bhalay kagda kaw kaw karay
bhalay rickshano avaj aavay
maray tanay aa vat toh kahveej padshay
You talk to me,
        you say my name the way it should be said,
apologising
for the dogs barking outside
for the laundryman knocking on the door,
apologising because
the woman selling eggplants
is crying reengna, reengna door to door
But do you know
how I miss that old woman, crying reengna, reengna
It's all right if the pedlar's brass bells ring out,
I miss them too.
You talk louder, the mailman comes, knocking louder,
the crows caw-caw-cawing outside,
the rickshaw's motor put-put-puttering.
You say Suju bhen huhvay tamaray matay tabla vagadu choo
You say: listen to the tablas,
then
dha dhin dhin dha
dha dhin dhin dha
dha dhin dhin dha
dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhin
dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhin
dha dhin dhin dha
dhinaka dhinaka dhinaka dhinaka
dha dhin dhin dha
dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhin
I listen I listen I listen
dha dhin dhin dha
I hear you  I hear you
dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhinaka dhinaka dhin
        listen  listen  listen
Today I played your tape
over and over again
        dha dhin dhin dha
        dhinaka dhinaka dha
        I can't dha
I can't  dha
I can't forget  I can't forget
        dha dhin dhin dha

Comments

[anna-in-the-sky.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a most powerful, beautiful poem and it describes precisely how it feels to be lost in between languages.

I've had the same experience when I spent a couple of weeks only speaking English. It's scary, but you'll find that, once you're back to the UK, after an initial confusing two weeks or so, you'll think, dream and speak 'normal' English again. ;-)

So for now, be happy and proud you're so immersed in another language. Means you're doing well.

[mk-tortie.livejournal.com]

It's one of those poems that's always stuck in my head, out of all the different ones I had to study at school. And it does amaze me how quickly I forget things in German as soon as I go back to England for even a few days! I do think that learning a foreign language is a really interesting process, because it's so different from the natural control we all have over our native lanugages (or hopefully have!).