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Authors: Ben K. <benk@tilde.team>
Date: 2021-01-22
It seems like English speakers are uniquely cut off from the classical world, except that we have translations of many old, even ancient works into English. The translations, I think, are an invaluable study tool, but I fear that in some ways they can get in the way of our establishing a personal relationship with older literature. In some ways, separating language and literature *is* possible, but on the other hand one might be right in thinking that they are one and the same.
The other problem, is that reading English translations doesn't in itself provide a straightforward path for original research in the field. How would you be able to go on to read untranslated works, or perhaps translate them yourself?
It's actually very useful to have good background knowledge; having read the Odyssey in English would still go a long way to helping you understand it and related works when read in Greek. Thus, familiarity with the content is perhaps as good as familitarity with the language, but they would then be two halves that are needed to make a whole.
The problem we English speakers face is that our language itself is rather disconnected from the past. English evolved too much too recently for us to even casually pick up Shakespeare anymore, and his writings are relatively recent. We also live in a society where the dominant culture doesn't particularly value or encourage such pursuits. What hope is there that today's English speakers would delve into Chaucer or perhaps Beowulf in the original language?
Of course, as English speakers we *can* do that. Speaking a modern language makes a person uniquely well-positioned to learn the older forms of itself. So that path is open to us, but then how much old English literature is there? I wouldn't know, but hopefully more than the three things I mentioned.
My own case is interesting because I was the sort of person who probably did have the interest and motivation to go down that path, but for some reason the path never really presented itself. This is including the fact that I was practically a lifelong fan of Tolkien and generally interested in mythology and folklore; I read Beowulf in high school too, but somehow I remained largely unfamiliar with what Tolkien really did. It never even occurred to me that studying Middle English was a thing that someone could do.
Instead, I ended up learning another language, Persian. I was attracted to Persian in its modern form first and foremost, but part of the draw this language held for me was the fact that it was so apparently laced with classical culture. The same goes for Urdu, which I was actually exposed to first, and it was the bridge that introduced me to Persian eventually. I can't say I ever cared to read sonnets in English, but when spoken or sung in Urdu or Persian, it seemed magical. (This is perhaps not a coincidence, as Persian is magic in the most literal sense of the word.)
After I learned to speak Persian, I could eventually and without excessive hardship begin reading classical Persian literature. Persian speakers today possess a culture where classical literature is still read and valued, which perhaps explains why I ended up trying to read 1500-year-old writings in Persian but never in English.
This journey provided me with a valuablbe piece of insight: it was necessary to learn another language in order to access the literature of the past. This might be especially true for English speakers, but is likely useful for anybody. Native Persian speakers, for example, should probably be studying classical Arabic to better understand their own classical literature. (They do do this, in fact, though many Persian students hate Arabic lessons, probably about as much as European and American students used to hate Latin lessons.)
Put most simply, I can offer two immediate paths to help an Anglophone embark on the journey to connect better with the past:
1. Learn a modern language whose parent language you'd like to learn later
2. Learn a modern language related to your own language
For either you could just go to duolingo.com and start right now. If you choose route #1, then your language choice would be reasoned thusly:
The same goes for just about any language. Do the Mandarin course, and maybe ten years from now you'll be looking at Medieval Chinese.
Modern languages are an important stepping stone because they are alive now and easily accessible. They allow you to get in touch with a language as it is living before attempting to uncover its past. They are *not* the same as the predecessors, but just like you are not the same as your grandparents, you're still quite a bit like them. Studying an older form of your own language is something like studying a foreign language, which is also not so difficult if you've studied a foreign language before.
If you choose route #2, you can opt to study another Germanic language. Older forms of English might seem like too much to handle now, but perhaps once you've got some German, Dutch, or Norwegian under your belt you will see things differently. Once you're accustomed to German, Old English won't seem so opaque. This is not to mention the fact that these languages all have a wealth of older literature all to themselves. (Perhaps even more than English does.)
It is in fact not so unnatural to read older literature, in spite of how relatively few people do it nowadays. Contrary to being insanely obscure, you would find that it's well within your grasp.