Quotes About Language

Chi non appartiene a nessun posto specifico non puè tornare, in realtà, da nessuna parte. I concetti di esilio e di ritorno implicano un punto di origine, una patria. Senza una patria e senza una vera lingua madre, io vago per il mondo, anche dalla mia scrivania. Alla fine mi accorgo che non è stato un vero esilio, tutt'altro. Sono esiliata perfino dalla definizione di esilio.

Dissecting my linguistic metamorphosis, I realize that I'm trying to get away from something, to free myself. I've been writing in Italian for almost two years, and I feel that I've been transformed, almost reborn.

Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband's name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over. And so, instead of saying Ashoke's name, she utters the interrogative that has come to replace it, which translates roughly as "Are you listening to me?

Quando ci si sente innamorati, si vuole vivere per sempre. Si vagheggia che l'emozione, l'entusiasmo che si prova, duri. Leggere in italiano mi provoca una brama simile. Non voglio morire perché la mia morte significherebbe la fine della mia scoperta della lingua. Perché ogni giorno ci sarà una nuova parola da imparare. Così il vero amore può rappresentare l'eternità.

Als je zonder je eigen taal leeft, voel je je gewichtloos en tegelijkertijd overbeladen. Je ademt een andere lucht in, op een andere hoogte. Je bent je altijd bewust van het verschil.

Perchè alla fine per imparare una lingua, per sentirsi legati a essa, bisogna avere un dialogo, per quanto infantile, per quanto imperfetto.

Were her mother ever to stand before her, even if Bela could choose any language on earth in which to speak, she would have nothing to say. But no, that's not true. She remains in constant communication with her. Everything in Bela's life has been a reaction. I am who I am, she would say, I live as I do because of you.

Mi aspetta un luogo in cui conta solo l'italiano. Un riparo da cui si sprigiona una nuova realtà.

Le parole sconosciute rappresentano un abisso vertiginoso, fecondo. Un abisso che contiene tutto ciò che mi sfugge, tutto il posibile.

Voleva generare un'altra versione di se stessa, nello stesso modo in cui poteva trasformare un testo da una lingua a un'altra.

Se fosse possibile colmare la distanza tra me e l'italiano, smetterei di scrivere in questa lingua.

Ci sono tantissime cose che continuano a confondermi in italiano. Le preposizioni, per esempio.

So che non è possibile conoscere una lingua straniera alla perfezione. Non a caso, ciò che mi confonde di più in italiano è l'uso dell'imperfetto rispetto al passato prossimo.

But it was another to be authoritative; Bengali had never been a language in which she felt like an adult.

How is it possible to feel exiled from a language that isn't mine? That I don't know? Maybe because I'm a writer who doesn't belong completely to any language.

At restaurants and bars, they sometimes slip Bengali phrases into their conversation in order to comment with impunity on another diner's unfortunate hair or shoes.

The better I understand the language, the more confusing it is.

In American, when I was young, my parents always seemed to be in mourning for something. Now I understand: it must have been the language.

When the language one identifies with is far away, one does everything possible to keep it alive.

The question has led to a realization: that while the desire to learn a new language is considered admirable, even virtuous, when it comes to writing in a new language, everything changes. Some perceive this desire as a transgression, a betrayal, a deviation.

When you live without your own language you feel weightless and, at the same time, overloaded. You breathe another type of air, at a different altitude. You are always aware of the difference.

I continue to admit that Italian is not my language, that it's an adopted language I love and use without possession. But I also ask myself: Who possesses a language, and why? Is it a question of lineage? Mastery? Use? Affect? Attachment? What does it mean, in the end, to belong to a language?

Containers may be the destiny of many in that they hold our remains after death. But this novel reminds us that narrative refuses to stay put, and that the effort of telling stories only pins things down so far. In the end it is language itself that is the most problematic container; it holds too much and too little at the same time.

To translate is to alter one's linguistic coordinates, to grab on to what has slipped away, to cope with exile.