A few nights back, I watched three Kurosawa films back to back (to back ?). It had been a tough day and I needed my fix. There is something to be said about the stress-busting properties of such an experience, but perhaps later (I need non-cinematic memories/subjects and fast…)
Somewhere into the first half of Yojimbo, I realised that I was not really looking at the subtitles anymore.Well, after you have seen a movie many (ever enough?) times, familiar plot and characters mean that you do not need subtitles anymore. Yes, you may not be able to follow the dialogues word-for-translated word, but your mind can paraphrase enough from memory for comprehension to occur. While you do not have to then juggle observing action and reading the words, you cannot internalise them (words), in a manner you would of a familiar tongue. A linguistic limbo, I guess.What you are left with however, is the music of the language.
You don't need a degree in linguistics to tell you that language is a complex mixture or words, expressions, gestures, tone, rhythm and peculiar nuances (common to all but unique to each language). Minor variations in tone and subtle gesture changes can sometimes communicate so much. And therein lies the joy of just experiencing a language as it happens - to listen, to see, to feel, and hopefully even comprehend.
And what of writing, the spoken word (and speaking?)? and word association and those million other things that can be written on language. Whether in a familiar tongue or otherwise, it is better sometimes, to leave things to be said by people who have said it before, more succinctly, and way better than you ever can.
The tawny guttural water
spells itself: Moyola
is its own score and consort,
bedding the locale
in the utterance,
reed music, an old chanter
breathing its mists
through vowels and history.
"Gifts of Rain" ~ Seamus Heaney
