mrzz
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I promised some good friends here a post of some recent trips, but could not write about them on time and left the immediate impressions escape me. I know I am in debt, so I hope the next post recovers a bit of my credit. It is about a local idiom spoken in Malaysia (where I am right now), that comes from Portuguese language (I am Brazilian and therefore a Portuguese speaker). It is a long text, I wrote it to the fanpage of one of my books, in Portuguese originally, but thought it would interest a few language lovers here (@Horsa and @Moxie), maybe curious and investigative minds like @Chris Koziarz.
So I google-translated it (sorry, don't have the time to a full re-write), and just edited the most obvious mistakes -- but still some things will look strange, and I am sorry for that in advance. Luckily you are all good and experienced readers around here.
To give some context, the "Tales of the Ax" mentioned is the (automatically translated) name of the book (published this text under this fanpage as this is the one with most followers), "Juno" is the co-author responsible for the art of the book. The original is here.
So here follows the long story, under the name:
" 'Tales of the Ax' and the death of a Portuguese cousin"
It's strange to watch a language die. A language, or dialect, or Creole language, or any other technical term that you want to use.
Of course you can say that somehow, when we look at anything which is alive we are always watching it die. But it is not from this absolutely generic point of view that I am speaking here. I'm talking about the deathbed, the words coughed in blood, the seconds before the last closing of the eyes.
One of the first things that someone who writes often learns in their own flesh is that a language is something living and dynamic - the will to transgress some rule, to twist some pattern, to cross some border, is always there, either by will or necessity. No doubt many people repeat this line - it has already become a tired cliche, to be honest - but it is still a truth with much more nuances than it seems (and most likely those who repeat it tirelessly do not perceive them).
One of these nuances is that the languages also die (were not they alive?). Most linguistic deaths hide under the veil of the eternal transmutation, only a few take place out in the open, on broad day light.
I am writing these lines in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But two days ago I imagined that I would be writing something in another tone, a post drawing attention to the fact that now you can find the "Tales of the Ax" on the other side of the globe, in a small corner of the world where something similar as Portuguese is spoken. I would write an amusing lie about the fact that the book has come so far ... or rather, not a lie, but an omission, after all I would omit the fact that the book arrived there only because the author (of the texts) brought it underneath his arm. It would take one or two pictures and, voilà, a beautiful post for the fanpage.
Well, it was not quite like that. It lacked the “arrange it all with the real world” part, paraphrasing Garrincha. Of course I did not expect to arrive here (or rather, there, in a city called Melaka) and speak the same Portuguese that I use every day to buy bread or curse at the umpire. But all I thought, trying to prepare myself, was thinking of a living language. I think this is the story of anyone's life: the story of how you react when you discover that your basic assumptions were completely wrong.
Oh, the writing technique in vogue asks that, at this point, I unravel a bit more of the "mystery" behind this text. Well, fuck the writing technique of internet days, I'll reveal everything at once: In Malaysia, in Melaka, there is still a small community that speaks a language descendant of the Portuguese of the sixteenth century settlers (1511), who kept the dominion of the city for 130 years (until 1641, when the Dutch finally took it), of course with enormous influence from Malay language as well. I am in Malaysia for a reason that does not matter here, and I thought it was an excellent idea to take some copies of the "Tales of the Ax" to this small language island. It seemed to fit well with the book. It actually combines a lot more than I imagined at first. The fact is that I imagined that I would get there and marvel at the attempt to understand and be understood. Six hours of searching afterwards (enough to go through all the streets of the "Portuguese Quarter"), the taste that remained in the mouth, or the echo that remained in the ears, was quite different.
Obviously there are people out there with much more knowledge than I, who will be able to say as accurately as possible the number of people who speak "Kristang", the history of the language, etc. and so on. What I write here is nothing more than the impression of an interested passer-by. Right or wrong, I will not apologize for it. (Anyway, a good reference can be found here).
And what I saw, or rather heard, or better yet, I almost did not hear, was a language almost dead. A strange relic, like an old porcelain cup, dirty, cracked, hidden in a corner of the cupboard-could still be used, but in fact it's just waiting to be transported to where the things we do not dare throw away. It does not matter if she's beautiful, if it's good quality, how many good goals we've had in her. After a certain curve of its existence, that last little crack, the saucer that broke, or the new set that came from the store, there is no more escaping the chest of old stuff.
The first place I entered the Portuguese neighborhood in Melaka was at the "Restoran de Lisbon". There I met some Portuguese, seated, drinking a local beer. They were as visitors as I was, and they were friendly to me. "Can you feel it?" asked one of them, referring to the supposed "Portuguese climate" of the place. I could hear Portuguese music playing, but I could not lie politely. My reply was a simple "no" to the surprise of my kind interlocutor. "Another twenty minutes and you get it," was the answer. Unfortunately not. I did not realize anything that you imagined I would notice, my friend.
By the way, my dear casual interlocutor with whom I divide a language, if you allow me a polite remark, I think that much of what you perceived was illusion, self-suggestion or whatever name you give it to. Like me, you wanted to see a living Portuguese root, a trait of culture with which we both have a connection to. With this it seems that the past of centuries is here on the side, connecting us all, inhabitants of this strange world. And then time and distance seem small, irrelevant, against the much larger whole of which we are part of. Well, as my younger friends would say, "just not."
It is true that the wife of the restaurant owner spoke Kristang reasonably well - but she would not speak to me. And I believe her mother spoke perfectly, though I did not see her open her mouth. Many people there still use the language to talk, they still have it as their mother tongue. But his reluctance to speak their language to a stranger says something. It's like hiding your mother when a visit comes home. Not a good sign.
And the children speak English (besides Malay, of course).
This first place I came in was not where I spent the most time. I ended up walking a bit more and sitting down to eat at "Joan and El Chico's - Portuguese Sea Food" (yeah, ia mix of English and Spanish). There, too, the older people spoke to Kristang, and it was clear there how much they did not want to play with me-let's talk-a-idiom-alike. Two phrases exchanged and a "would you like something else to drink, sir?" would appear (in English). As I was leaving, frustrated, cell phone in hand for a taxi, a local girl, about twelve, came to offer help. In good English. Pretty fucking strange, isn’t it? Hell yeah.
All right. I have many defects. I'm sloppy, forgetful, disorganized, even arrogant and so on. Besides, I have a stubborn stubbornness, who hesitates at first, but after it bites, it does not let go at all. When I left the restaurant, in a hellish sun, dripping sweat from the elbows after a few steps, I thought to myself. "Oh, no, I'm not going to come home and whine later." I closed the app, I could still find a newsstand, a bookstore (hahahaha, what a joke), any place to leave the books I had in the backpack. An old man with a reader-eyed face would be just all right.
I had seen on the internet a map of the Portuguese neighborhood, I knew it was not big. And I went out to walk the streets, maybe I would hear the mothers screaming for their children, a couple fighting, people talking, maybe I would hear a living language, living like the languages live, in the streets and inside the walls of the houses. Just hearing that damned Cristang suddenly was enough.
But not. Infernal coincidence, it was the quietest suburban streets I've ever encountered. There were white and beautiful houses, which, yes, many even had a modern Portuguese air, similar to what I saw in some suburb of Lisbon. Undoubtedly there are Portuguese (born in Portugal) there. And in almost every house in this neighborhood, a huge and ornate Christian crucifix on the walls. But all surrounded by silence, by the silence of an empty church.
In the streets, with Portuguese names such as "Jalan d'Albuquerque" (Jalan is, among other things, "street" in Malay), there was a plaque telling the story of the historical character who lent his name to the road. In Malay and English. I thought about taking a photo, but at that moment I realized that I did not want any photos that day. This is a story told only in words.
I passed a hotel, and next to the lobby, in an open room downstairs, there was the "Vasco da Gama's sports bar". Closed, with an English menu (at least what I could see from the door), and with a seemingly Chinese employee fixing something. Okay, I could have turned it over, but suddenly I was afraid of what I was going to find. I went ahead, and on the other side of an avenue, outside the Portuguese neighborhood, more Chinese trades and shops. Lively, pulsing, crowded with people eating and talking. The Chinese seem to always be the majority. People come, there comes the economic activity inherent to life, and following all this, the language.
According to the figures I have seen, between 1500 and 1700 people still speak Kristang. With a billion and a half speaking Chinese across the street, the future picture is clear.
At this hour the memory of my comfortable hotel room in Kuala Lumpur, three hours away from that hot asphalt and the sound of a language incomprehensible to me, seemed like something heavenly. But the certainty of future repentance was enough fuel for my stubbornness.
I returned - after turning a little more and not finding or hearing anything worthy of note - for the restaurant where I had lunch (by the way, the menu does not matter, this is not a travel diary or a gastronomic guide). I remembered that one of the ladies who attended me seemed a little more receptive. It took her one more sentence to change to English and ask if I wanted another drink. “If there is only you, then it is you”, as they say in home town. She will be the happy recipient of three copies of "Tales of the Ax".
I could tell you now how this process was, the yellow smile of one who receives a Greek gift from a stranger, but ... it was nothing more than the obvious. I said, in obstinate Portuguese, that the books were for anyone who was curious to know what Brazilian Portuguese was like. I said it slowly, a few times. She asked if it was not a bilingual edition, in Portuguese and English, after all, it would be easier to understand like that. Well, I'd even like to have one, but that's not the case. And only now I realize that, so immersed I was with the language issue, that I simply did not mention it was an illustrated book - this being the most blatantly obvious thing to be said. A thousand pardons, Juno! (Juno is the co-author of the book, responsible for the art work).
Well, now the matter is finished and three copies of the book are in Melaka. If they turn out to wrap fish or not, this I do not know. I do not think so, after all the paper is not good for that.
One thing I enjoy in the present is that it constantly connects the oneness of the past with an infinity of possible futures. The present is the most radical transition of states possible. Everything can happen, always. The books are now there, three messages in small bottles floating in a huge ocean of possibilities. But who knows, perhaps in two, three, ten, fifty years, curious hands and eyes will find the book, and from this a strange chain of events will lead to ... well, you got it. Something like that. It's one of these good things to think about just before you go to sleep.
More likely, however, is that the books end up in some corner, and are just another part of an inheritance that for the locals will seem increasingly alien. They did not arrive in time to be anything but part of the remains of a dying language.
But do not get me wrong. I do not think the death of a language should be lamented. It's part of the cycle. The amazing thing is to think about how this language survived alone for more than 300 years, surrounded on all sides. Paraphrasing the title of an excellent book, the improbable victories of Portuguese ...
To witness these last sighs was a very didactic experience, to be honest. The "language of Camões", or the "language of Shakespeare" (translation note: Portuguese expression to refer to a language, "Camões" is one of the most important authors of Portuguese language, somewhat like Dante is for Italian) are pompous expressions that tell very little truth. The Portuguese belongs more to the fishermen of Lisbon than to Camões or Fernando Pessoa. The genius of them is not inherent in the language. Their genius lies in making literature with something that exists, in principle, merely to aid in our struggle for survival. It is a kind of human miracle that we can make art with it.
And in the future will come the Camões and the Pessoas, who will do literature with this ugly, frighteningly ugly thing in its hasty practicality, which is the language that is emerging from the world of instant and mass communication. And they will make good literature, despite the raw material. Like the good Portuguese navigators of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they will find a shortcut in the midst of unfavorable winds and currents. Without the elements and the people perceiving them, they will guide the ship to calmer waters, and for a few brief moments it will seem that, alone, they are able to carry everything with them. Until the next wave hits ... No, my dear, you do not have the rudder in your hands. You are passengers on this boat, like everyone else.
So, instead of writing a post about our book landing on an exotic shore, here's my “good night” to the Kristang language. Not without taking my hat off, in respect to the centuries of survival, like an insistent candle, on the window sill, which refuses to fade, until the arrival of the last breath of wind.
Bong Anuti, Cristang. Or, in modern language, GN.
The future Camões have a hell of a job in their hands.
So I google-translated it (sorry, don't have the time to a full re-write), and just edited the most obvious mistakes -- but still some things will look strange, and I am sorry for that in advance. Luckily you are all good and experienced readers around here.
To give some context, the "Tales of the Ax" mentioned is the (automatically translated) name of the book (published this text under this fanpage as this is the one with most followers), "Juno" is the co-author responsible for the art of the book. The original is here.
So here follows the long story, under the name:
" 'Tales of the Ax' and the death of a Portuguese cousin"
It's strange to watch a language die. A language, or dialect, or Creole language, or any other technical term that you want to use.
Of course you can say that somehow, when we look at anything which is alive we are always watching it die. But it is not from this absolutely generic point of view that I am speaking here. I'm talking about the deathbed, the words coughed in blood, the seconds before the last closing of the eyes.
One of the first things that someone who writes often learns in their own flesh is that a language is something living and dynamic - the will to transgress some rule, to twist some pattern, to cross some border, is always there, either by will or necessity. No doubt many people repeat this line - it has already become a tired cliche, to be honest - but it is still a truth with much more nuances than it seems (and most likely those who repeat it tirelessly do not perceive them).
One of these nuances is that the languages also die (were not they alive?). Most linguistic deaths hide under the veil of the eternal transmutation, only a few take place out in the open, on broad day light.
I am writing these lines in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But two days ago I imagined that I would be writing something in another tone, a post drawing attention to the fact that now you can find the "Tales of the Ax" on the other side of the globe, in a small corner of the world where something similar as Portuguese is spoken. I would write an amusing lie about the fact that the book has come so far ... or rather, not a lie, but an omission, after all I would omit the fact that the book arrived there only because the author (of the texts) brought it underneath his arm. It would take one or two pictures and, voilà, a beautiful post for the fanpage.
Well, it was not quite like that. It lacked the “arrange it all with the real world” part, paraphrasing Garrincha. Of course I did not expect to arrive here (or rather, there, in a city called Melaka) and speak the same Portuguese that I use every day to buy bread or curse at the umpire. But all I thought, trying to prepare myself, was thinking of a living language. I think this is the story of anyone's life: the story of how you react when you discover that your basic assumptions were completely wrong.
Oh, the writing technique in vogue asks that, at this point, I unravel a bit more of the "mystery" behind this text. Well, fuck the writing technique of internet days, I'll reveal everything at once: In Malaysia, in Melaka, there is still a small community that speaks a language descendant of the Portuguese of the sixteenth century settlers (1511), who kept the dominion of the city for 130 years (until 1641, when the Dutch finally took it), of course with enormous influence from Malay language as well. I am in Malaysia for a reason that does not matter here, and I thought it was an excellent idea to take some copies of the "Tales of the Ax" to this small language island. It seemed to fit well with the book. It actually combines a lot more than I imagined at first. The fact is that I imagined that I would get there and marvel at the attempt to understand and be understood. Six hours of searching afterwards (enough to go through all the streets of the "Portuguese Quarter"), the taste that remained in the mouth, or the echo that remained in the ears, was quite different.
Obviously there are people out there with much more knowledge than I, who will be able to say as accurately as possible the number of people who speak "Kristang", the history of the language, etc. and so on. What I write here is nothing more than the impression of an interested passer-by. Right or wrong, I will not apologize for it. (Anyway, a good reference can be found here).
And what I saw, or rather heard, or better yet, I almost did not hear, was a language almost dead. A strange relic, like an old porcelain cup, dirty, cracked, hidden in a corner of the cupboard-could still be used, but in fact it's just waiting to be transported to where the things we do not dare throw away. It does not matter if she's beautiful, if it's good quality, how many good goals we've had in her. After a certain curve of its existence, that last little crack, the saucer that broke, or the new set that came from the store, there is no more escaping the chest of old stuff.
The first place I entered the Portuguese neighborhood in Melaka was at the "Restoran de Lisbon". There I met some Portuguese, seated, drinking a local beer. They were as visitors as I was, and they were friendly to me. "Can you feel it?" asked one of them, referring to the supposed "Portuguese climate" of the place. I could hear Portuguese music playing, but I could not lie politely. My reply was a simple "no" to the surprise of my kind interlocutor. "Another twenty minutes and you get it," was the answer. Unfortunately not. I did not realize anything that you imagined I would notice, my friend.
By the way, my dear casual interlocutor with whom I divide a language, if you allow me a polite remark, I think that much of what you perceived was illusion, self-suggestion or whatever name you give it to. Like me, you wanted to see a living Portuguese root, a trait of culture with which we both have a connection to. With this it seems that the past of centuries is here on the side, connecting us all, inhabitants of this strange world. And then time and distance seem small, irrelevant, against the much larger whole of which we are part of. Well, as my younger friends would say, "just not."
It is true that the wife of the restaurant owner spoke Kristang reasonably well - but she would not speak to me. And I believe her mother spoke perfectly, though I did not see her open her mouth. Many people there still use the language to talk, they still have it as their mother tongue. But his reluctance to speak their language to a stranger says something. It's like hiding your mother when a visit comes home. Not a good sign.
And the children speak English (besides Malay, of course).
This first place I came in was not where I spent the most time. I ended up walking a bit more and sitting down to eat at "Joan and El Chico's - Portuguese Sea Food" (yeah, ia mix of English and Spanish). There, too, the older people spoke to Kristang, and it was clear there how much they did not want to play with me-let's talk-a-idiom-alike. Two phrases exchanged and a "would you like something else to drink, sir?" would appear (in English). As I was leaving, frustrated, cell phone in hand for a taxi, a local girl, about twelve, came to offer help. In good English. Pretty fucking strange, isn’t it? Hell yeah.
All right. I have many defects. I'm sloppy, forgetful, disorganized, even arrogant and so on. Besides, I have a stubborn stubbornness, who hesitates at first, but after it bites, it does not let go at all. When I left the restaurant, in a hellish sun, dripping sweat from the elbows after a few steps, I thought to myself. "Oh, no, I'm not going to come home and whine later." I closed the app, I could still find a newsstand, a bookstore (hahahaha, what a joke), any place to leave the books I had in the backpack. An old man with a reader-eyed face would be just all right.
I had seen on the internet a map of the Portuguese neighborhood, I knew it was not big. And I went out to walk the streets, maybe I would hear the mothers screaming for their children, a couple fighting, people talking, maybe I would hear a living language, living like the languages live, in the streets and inside the walls of the houses. Just hearing that damned Cristang suddenly was enough.
But not. Infernal coincidence, it was the quietest suburban streets I've ever encountered. There were white and beautiful houses, which, yes, many even had a modern Portuguese air, similar to what I saw in some suburb of Lisbon. Undoubtedly there are Portuguese (born in Portugal) there. And in almost every house in this neighborhood, a huge and ornate Christian crucifix on the walls. But all surrounded by silence, by the silence of an empty church.
In the streets, with Portuguese names such as "Jalan d'Albuquerque" (Jalan is, among other things, "street" in Malay), there was a plaque telling the story of the historical character who lent his name to the road. In Malay and English. I thought about taking a photo, but at that moment I realized that I did not want any photos that day. This is a story told only in words.
I passed a hotel, and next to the lobby, in an open room downstairs, there was the "Vasco da Gama's sports bar". Closed, with an English menu (at least what I could see from the door), and with a seemingly Chinese employee fixing something. Okay, I could have turned it over, but suddenly I was afraid of what I was going to find. I went ahead, and on the other side of an avenue, outside the Portuguese neighborhood, more Chinese trades and shops. Lively, pulsing, crowded with people eating and talking. The Chinese seem to always be the majority. People come, there comes the economic activity inherent to life, and following all this, the language.
According to the figures I have seen, between 1500 and 1700 people still speak Kristang. With a billion and a half speaking Chinese across the street, the future picture is clear.
At this hour the memory of my comfortable hotel room in Kuala Lumpur, three hours away from that hot asphalt and the sound of a language incomprehensible to me, seemed like something heavenly. But the certainty of future repentance was enough fuel for my stubbornness.
I returned - after turning a little more and not finding or hearing anything worthy of note - for the restaurant where I had lunch (by the way, the menu does not matter, this is not a travel diary or a gastronomic guide). I remembered that one of the ladies who attended me seemed a little more receptive. It took her one more sentence to change to English and ask if I wanted another drink. “If there is only you, then it is you”, as they say in home town. She will be the happy recipient of three copies of "Tales of the Ax".
I could tell you now how this process was, the yellow smile of one who receives a Greek gift from a stranger, but ... it was nothing more than the obvious. I said, in obstinate Portuguese, that the books were for anyone who was curious to know what Brazilian Portuguese was like. I said it slowly, a few times. She asked if it was not a bilingual edition, in Portuguese and English, after all, it would be easier to understand like that. Well, I'd even like to have one, but that's not the case. And only now I realize that, so immersed I was with the language issue, that I simply did not mention it was an illustrated book - this being the most blatantly obvious thing to be said. A thousand pardons, Juno! (Juno is the co-author of the book, responsible for the art work).
Well, now the matter is finished and three copies of the book are in Melaka. If they turn out to wrap fish or not, this I do not know. I do not think so, after all the paper is not good for that.
One thing I enjoy in the present is that it constantly connects the oneness of the past with an infinity of possible futures. The present is the most radical transition of states possible. Everything can happen, always. The books are now there, three messages in small bottles floating in a huge ocean of possibilities. But who knows, perhaps in two, three, ten, fifty years, curious hands and eyes will find the book, and from this a strange chain of events will lead to ... well, you got it. Something like that. It's one of these good things to think about just before you go to sleep.
More likely, however, is that the books end up in some corner, and are just another part of an inheritance that for the locals will seem increasingly alien. They did not arrive in time to be anything but part of the remains of a dying language.
But do not get me wrong. I do not think the death of a language should be lamented. It's part of the cycle. The amazing thing is to think about how this language survived alone for more than 300 years, surrounded on all sides. Paraphrasing the title of an excellent book, the improbable victories of Portuguese ...
To witness these last sighs was a very didactic experience, to be honest. The "language of Camões", or the "language of Shakespeare" (translation note: Portuguese expression to refer to a language, "Camões" is one of the most important authors of Portuguese language, somewhat like Dante is for Italian) are pompous expressions that tell very little truth. The Portuguese belongs more to the fishermen of Lisbon than to Camões or Fernando Pessoa. The genius of them is not inherent in the language. Their genius lies in making literature with something that exists, in principle, merely to aid in our struggle for survival. It is a kind of human miracle that we can make art with it.
And in the future will come the Camões and the Pessoas, who will do literature with this ugly, frighteningly ugly thing in its hasty practicality, which is the language that is emerging from the world of instant and mass communication. And they will make good literature, despite the raw material. Like the good Portuguese navigators of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they will find a shortcut in the midst of unfavorable winds and currents. Without the elements and the people perceiving them, they will guide the ship to calmer waters, and for a few brief moments it will seem that, alone, they are able to carry everything with them. Until the next wave hits ... No, my dear, you do not have the rudder in your hands. You are passengers on this boat, like everyone else.
So, instead of writing a post about our book landing on an exotic shore, here's my “good night” to the Kristang language. Not without taking my hat off, in respect to the centuries of survival, like an insistent candle, on the window sill, which refuses to fade, until the arrival of the last breath of wind.
Bong Anuti, Cristang. Or, in modern language, GN.
The future Camões have a hell of a job in their hands.
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