Saturday, September 01, 2018

Words, words, words

I have been fascinated by words for longer than I can remember.  I was an unplanned child, born at a time when my parents had no space and less money.  I was with my mother all the time while my father studied at university and my mother either embroidered tea cloths for pin money or studied English.  I grew hearing two languages: Scots English and Greek.
My mother did her language learning out loud, reciting, reading to me.  We learned to read together.  I did not know that was what I was doing.  Then before I was one year old we went to Greece, and I as surrounded by aunts with other sounds: Greek.  Apparently I was silent for a worrying time before embarking on my attempts.
Then back to Scotland for my second birthday - back to sounds I had almost if not forgotten.  Then back to Greece when I was three - this time silent for four weeks before I began to speak fluently, in Greek, appropriately pronounced, with idiom, and including (unknowingly) Pontic Greek expressions (much delight and clapping - and pinching of my cheek!).
I returned to Scotland after my fifth birthday in order to start school.  I had forgotten my English.  The three day train journey across Europe started in panic - I could understand what my mother said to me in English, but I could not find the words in myself to speak.  A kind university student, returning from vacation on the same train dedicated himself to reminding me first of nouns by pointing, then gradually of everything else.  (I would have suffered so much more if we had simply flown as is normal today!)
In those very early years I realised that it's not just a difference of vocabulary.  Body language is also different, and thought processes, reactions, fine expression of emotions.  How much of a potential to understand more is missed when only being in possession of one language.
I went on to learn French then German, and was lucky enough to spend some time in each country.  Then by studying literature and language development at university doors and windows were opened and my understanding and curiosity grew.  Poetry became a joy rather than an embarrassing tedious chore of rote learning and recitation.  A career in publishing drew on all of the above, and contributed the additional delights of typography: the visual aspects of language, lettering, and layout.

Imagine then my recent dilemma when faced with a 19th century sample book - containing a partial gazetteer as I try to whittle down our over-large collection of books.  Was it simply sentimentality which was making me want to keep it?  By William Morris's dictum it is neither of use nor beauty - or was it?  What on earth could I do with it.
All at once I knew what to do.  I scanned the pages which most appealed.  And within this post are the initial experiments for my new project.

10 comments:

  1. Wonderful story and a great new project. I will follow with interest!

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  2. I find this coupling of book page and your images so interesting. As. I started following the urban sketchers movement, fascinated by the many different styles and mediums and types/shapes of sketchbooks in use to capture the urban scene, I ran across several sketchers who just used old books to work in. The one I remember best used bold black lines and fill-ins probably with a brush pen but did nothing to obscure the words showing in the background. If someone had merely told me this, I would have assumed the text would distract from the focus of the sketch. I was so surprised that it did not, especially since the only other use of books I'd seen was altered books where the text was knocked back if not totally obliterated by grasp before proceeding.

    I really like this coupling of yours, especially the strategic use of pages with illustrations. And so fascinating your personal history with languages. I can somewhat relate to those childhood experiences of going silent when you were switched from one culture and its language. I took both Spanish and Latin in high school with some proficiency (which I have totally lost long ago - use it or lose it) so years later when I became pen pals with a Russian lady who couldn't write in English but could translate my letters fairly well and I saw that the local community college was offering a course in Russian mostly geared towards Americans planning to travel in Russia I signed up. The brain was not as nimble as it once was but I found some words very similar to some Spanish ones to my surprise so I soldiered on. I got pretty good at understanding simple sentences and responses when reading or hearing them, but when it came time for me to respond out loud, I could hear it in my head but struggle to get it out of my mouth.

    I still remember what our teacher, who was Russian with parents still there, said about learning a language, that you have to get to the point where you quit translating everything in your head but just automatically know. I really admire people like you who master on any level multiple languages. With all those worrying silent stretches and times struggling to make the switch after time immersed in one language, was your family surprised when you took so well to publishing?

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    1. Sheila, it's interesting, isn't it how a page of type makes an interesting background at a certain distance. It provides a means of eliminating the blankness of a page, and can also provide a framework into which composition can flow.
      I do like what is emerging for me with this idea, and look forward to working on it more. These four are simply a quick trial to see whether it would work.

      Learning languages can be so idiosyncratic. I am lucky - or rather, was, because I may well have lost it by now - in being a parrot. With each language that I learned I had hardly any difficulty with pronunciation as long as I hear natives speaking. My younger brother, who has a much wider vocabulary, and has lived in Greece for over 30 years still has a Scots accent when speaking Greek. And what amuses me is that his elder son, who was educated and grew up in Greece, speaks English fluently, but with that mild Scots accent!

      Your Russian teacher was right - you have to think in the language. And then you experience the way of thinking, which I think is so enriching. I still find myself thinking in Greek or French - particularly when responding emotionally to some situation.

      The silent stretches were I now recognise a period of watching and listening. My parents were both instant criticisers, and I learned at a very early age to look before I leapt - or listen before I spoke!

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  3. I find your silence at three and then suddenly, speaking fluently in Greek, fascinating: it's something I have heard of before. Fascinating how the mind works. As for the pinching of the cheeks … so Greek: I used to do that years ago but am too Anglicised now and have stopped.


    Alas, I have forgotten most of my French and German through lack of use. I was fluent in both. I was able to study French sociology texts when at University in the UK and this really helped my studies. My German was very good too, even though I never warmed to the language: I attended a German High School in Athens and we studied Maths and the sciences in German (the rest of the curriculum was in Greek), but it's all gone now.

    I enjoyed reading this post. I wrote something similar for my reading group's blog. Maybe I should re-blog it here.

    Finally, I like your latest work - so interesting.

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    1. Eirene, my instant ability at an early age did turn out to have a negative side. My Greek remained what I describe a peasant language, and I never learned a wide vocabulary nor to write.
      Odd things do happen with language: after my mother had her stroke and suffered from aphasia, the language which gradually came back was English, not her native Greek. She understood what I was saying in Greek, but the words she struggled to get out were in English.

      Alas, I also am losing my languages other than English from a lack of use. I never did use them intensely after university. They came in useful at foreign book fairs when they could be used not only directly, but as a third language for communication. And I did learn what I call restaurant Italian from my frequent visits to the Bologna children's book fair. But apart from continuing to broaden my appreciation of experiences in life, my languages do not serve me any useful purpose these days.

      I would very much like to read your post for your reading group. Is it an online group, or do you meet?

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    2. Our reading group meet once a month, Olga, except for twice a year when we have a party. We also have a blog where we post thoughts, reviews or insights on some of the books we have read and discussed. It's a closed blog, available only to the group members. I will look into re-blogging my post on 'my life of reading' when we get back from Serifos.


      Fascinating, what you said about your mother in her later years. How does that work? The mind is an incredible thing.


      My languages do not serve me any useful purpose these days, either, I am however, sorry to have 'lost' them, but obviously not enough to do something about it. I occasionally think 'I wish I could read this in French'. My father got enormous pleasure out of learning French in his 80s : he worked at it every day. My mother worked at improving her German in the same period. I wonder if it's something to do with their generation: knowledge for knowledge's sake, regardless of purpose or function.

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    3. An excellent idea for your reading group to leave room for extra thought and discussion online. It also means that everyone can have their say, no matter whether there was time during a physical meeting.

      There were all sorts of mitigating circumstances involving my mother at the end of her life. Essentially she felt that she had been rejected and abused by Greek elements, and I suspect that was why she in her turn rejected the language when she had difficulty. But even so, it was remarkable.

      Bravo to your parents. I do not think that I could take on learning another language now without actually living amongst it. But I do so agree with knowledge for its own sake - hence all the FutureLearn online courses I follow (I start a new one on Modern Building Design next week) and the variety of non-fiction that I read.

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  4. I think these new studies are wonderful. I have used text for a background, even turning it sideways. It started with a Brazilian dictionary rescued from outside book shelves at Hay-on-Wye. I stuck a part of a loose page in my sketchbook to cover the bleed-through from the other side. It was put in sideways. Then another time I had a sudden idea, which I quickly sketched out on that page. and from there found fabric with words that worked in a similar manner to recreate the look.
    Unfortunately, fabric with words like that were no longer on trend! But it forced me to look for other print fabrics that could work.
    One day I am going to write a whole length of fabric so I can use it like that first work!
    I always love to see the images you discover with women reading books. It is so calming and restful...like reading for one's self.

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    1. Thank you Sandy. Yes text in any direction, and any language/alphabet can provide an attractive element in work. If you do any gum arabic transfer you can make your own text fabric. Sue Brown has workshops and also sells a booklet http://suebrownprintmaker.blogspot.com/

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