Copernican linguistics

I gather from the comments of some of the fans of the program W Strone Sztuki (Towards Art) on Polish Radio 2, now discontinued, that they do not like the new program Jest Taki Obraz (There is such a painting) which replaced it for the same reason for which I do not like it. The new program is... well, American. It discusses contemporary art as if it were the same category of activity as the classical arts, so you get Van Eyck and Damian Hirst side by side (indeed, you get entirely meaningless comments like "Van Eyck inspired Damian Hirst"); often discusses works from which I tend to shrink -- the sort that belong in the other room; and when it does discuss works which I like, which belong in this room, it discusses them in ways which strike me as either vulgar or dumb.

Or, usually, both.

But above all, in American ways: whole programs are nothing but a repetition of what the participants gleaned in American art criticism. A better -- more honest -- title for the program would be "American Theory of Art in 100 Objects".

With such a title, the program might be considered a kind of popularizing program. Such programs do have their place, they are a kind of translation project, I suppose. But if so, then this one does not qualify because it does not translate well: it does not translate into Polish -- a language traditionally used in polite society in Poland -- but into some horribly mangled and perverted, degrammatized and gracelessly foreignized thing. Its so grammatically and phonetically inept that it sounds... unschooled, retarded -- the foreign terms used are both formed and inflected no better than an elementary school kid from the provinces might.

Thus, for instance, today's program talked about dezajnerzy, by which the participants meant projektanci (designers). It's a bad import: anyone who speaks English half-decently knows the word is pronounced [dih-zahy-ner] meaning that the Polish equivalent, if one were needed, should be dyzajner.

Of course, the participants wanted to use the word dezajner because it sounds with it (American), whereas the word projektanci sounds -- well -- old (Polish). But if that is the case, then why not have the program in American English? That would sound even more with it. Better yet, why not make the program in American English and air it in Texas and leave us alone?

More to the point: when we use the word dyzajner because it sounds better than its equivalent projektant, we are engaging in a kind of deception. Our message is not merely the equivalent of the English concept "designer", for which purpose the word projektant would do just fine. The meaning of the term dezajner is "a cool, fashionable person engaged in the old business of projektant which this person makes very exciting through his superior coolness". Clavell's readers will fondly remember the dwarf deer; Orwell's -- The Ministry of Truth.

Like any attempt to pervert language, the exercise is deeply suspect.

Just how suspect is made apparent by a parallel from the anglification of Japanese politics. When a Japanese politician uses the new word manifesto instead of the tried and true seiken kouyaku, he replaces a familiar, legible word, made familiar by its frequent use and additionally transparent by its being written in ideograms which make its semantic roots abundantly clear; he replaces this word with an unfamiliar word which is on account of its unfamiliarity naturally hard to grasp. This new word is slippery by virtue of its lack of dictionary definition, and its use allows the speaker to be vague, to make uncertain and deniable claims and promises. In short, the use of the word manifesto is intentionally deceptive.

Five hundred years ago the great astronomer Copernicus described the phenomenon known in English as Gresham's law; he was not the first to discover it: Arab scholars had written about it two hundred years ealier. The principle is summarized in the dictum that bad money drives out the good. In other words, when the government begins to debase the currency by issuing coinage with lower metal content, people prefer to use it to make payments (thereby getting rid of it) while they hoard the good money, with the result that the good money disappears from circulation.

We better take care.

If it is true that good writing depends on good thinking, then, it follows that good thinking depends on good language -- a language which is clear, or, as the evangelist puts it "Yes, yes, no, no". When we have debased our language and replaced it thoroughly with the new, useless coinage, a language of vague images rather than clear meanings, we will become even dumber than we are already.

You have been warned.