The language/music connection

[Beyond Within]

I have been studying German and Latin at school and this profound connection is starting to reveal itself to me.
Let me start by saying that the connection makes more sense the farther back you go in the history of the way language was used. Before we had film (and with it 'method acting' ), actors couldnt rely on bodily subtlety. Speech was the primary conduit of expression, and with it the artistry of nuance. As a result the actors had to make the most of this to be convincing. This means that the finest of nuances in speech mattered a lot more to the artistry of acting. Far more attention was payed to the 'rhythm', 'tone' and 'volume' of speech. Does this sound like music? If music is 'organized sound' then this surely is close to what we traditionally think of as 'music'. Not only in the performing arts did speaking delivery matter more, but in everyday life.

My teacher and my Father (who studied Latin) both tell me that Latin wasnt spoken in the harsh, unfluid way most languages are now spoken. People actually spoke in an almost chantlike manner, there was an almost musical quality to the way you were supposed to emphasize vowels and carry some words into others. Latin students often complain about the declensions and conjugations they must memorize. However this enables beautiful unity between every word in a sentence. Partially in its written form, and completely in its pronunciation. If you take a sentence like "Vetam narramus Quinti Horati Flacci" you will notice how smooth this sentence flows, due highly to the last three words all having the exact same ending. Not only this but when spoken the words flow into eachother if one ends in a consonant and the next a vowel. In hearing the language it is difficult to seperate words into distinctive 'words' because of this tendancy. But it makes speech extremely fluid. The spoken word is pleasing to the ear, the sounds are a value in and of itself. This is because the language is so consciously tied to speech.

Well I guess the point is that my attempt to cultivate a beautiful accent in a foreign tongue feels similar to the same attempt at an instrument. I took language for granted, and only through the process of learning another one have I noticed everything amazing that it requires to function. I have more to say, but not the time....

[This message has been edited by Beyond Within (edited 09-15-2004).]

[Beyond Within]

oops, it wont let me delete this

[This message has been edited by Beyond Within (edited 09-15-2004).]

[Amalie]

I totally agree with BW's comments, he makes a very valuable and important point about language, particularly about Latin, a language which has to a quite extraordinary degree an internal unity in each sentence that is constructed. It is a bit like the discipline of the legions where nothing is out of place and everything serves to a greater unified purpose. The chant like quality is partiularly significant and was fully expoloited by the Church in its Mass settings which have been incorporated as we know into great musical works, ie, Monteverdi, Tallis, Palestrina etc.
English is a marvellously fluid flexible and expressive language, but it doesn't quite have the granduer and weight of Latin though Shakespeare's Sonnets come close!




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~ Unsterbliche Geliebte ~

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited 09-15-2004).]

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Amalie:
I totally agree with BW's comments, he makes a very valuable and important point about language, particularly about Latin, a language which has to a quite extraordinary degree an internal unity in each sentence that is constructed. It is a bit like the discipline of the legions where nothing is out of place and everything serves to a greater unified purpose. The chant like quality is partiularly significant and was fully expoloited by the Church in its Mass settings which have been incorporated as we know into great musical works, ie, Monteverdi, Tallis, Palestrina etc.
English is a marvellously fluid flexible and expressive language, but it doesn't quite have the granduer and weight of Latin though Shakespeare's Sonnets come close!

Now I'm going to have to search for my Perotin and Leonin masses to listen to....

[spaceray]

One of the oldest known songs in English
"Sumer Is I-Cumen In"is a round for four upper voices and a pes of two voices.In it you hear the breezes blowing, the cattle lowing,the cuc koo singing.In Old English the vowels are broader the consonants harder,but imitating nature one cannot mistake that they are singing about a morning in spring.

My grandaughter's first word appears to be cat,not because she can say cat ,so far all her words are 'da da da da' .But when the cat appears da ,just one , is her word for the feline.It will take a while for her to refine her speech,however ,she knows it's cat and I know she means cat.

[Beyond Within]

"though Shakespeare's Sonnets come close!"

In one of my Latin teacher's lectures he commented that Shakespeare is quickly becoming unrecognizable to newer English speakers in the way Beowolf is to us. He said it may only be 50 years where translations will be necessary.

I guess the point is that his English is not the English I was comparing Latin to. The reason a language like English doesnt have the unity of a language like Latin is that English borrows from so many different sources. Our core vocabulary is Germanic, but almost all the more abstract words are Latin/Greek based. Then ofcourse you have the huge catalogue of French words. Even latin is a little unpure. There are quite a few loan words from Greek in the latin vocabulary. From what I hear Sanskrit is pretty close to absolute purity and perfection.

[Amalie]

Originally posted by Beyond Within:
"though Shakespeare's Sonnets come close!"

In one of my Latin teacher's lectures he commented that Shakespeare is quickly becoming unrecognizable to newer English speakers in the way Beowolf is to us. He said it may only be 50 years where translations will be necessary.

I guess the point is that his English is not the English I was comparing Latin to. The reason a language like English doesnt have the unity of a language like Latin is that English borrows from so many different sources. Our core vocabulary is Germanic, but almost all the more abstract words are Latin/Greek based. Then ofcourse you have the huge catalogue of French words. Even latin is a little unpure. There are quite a few loan words from Greek in the latin vocabulary. From what I hear Sanskrit is pretty close to absolute purity and perfection.

*

I completely agree that sadly we will soon need translations for Shakespeare.
The only difficulty there is of course the language and the thought and values are inextricably linked, so that even if we do translate it given the 'Huxleyean' world we now live in, would it mean anything to the the modern audience. I slightly disagree with the second point, of course English has borrowed from numerous languages , but that I would respectfully submit is not its defining characteristic which is a minimal grammatical substructure.
My husband knows fluent German and he often comments on the way in which second and modal verbs are pushed to the end of the sentence so that you have to wait until someone has finished speaking the final word before you can work out what they are saying. English is just not like this.
We can work out what people are saying as they speak and that is because English works in discreet units of meaning.
This is however a personal view. German of course borrows heavily from Latin.

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~ Unsterbliche Geliebte ~

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited 09-16-2004).]

[Amalie]

Correct me if I am wrong on this, but the reason Sanskrit is very pure is that it was a priestly language for one of the major Indian religions and has not developed.
Latin is similar in this instance being a dead language and only preseved in the Catholic Church. By the way I was staggered to be told by a priest recently that there is only one dedicated professor of Latin in Holy Orders in the Vatican left.
Incredible! Though I do read elsewhere that there a number of priestly translators working on dictionaries translating Latin into modern English. The one I like is -
Transmissio Imago , for television!



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~ Unsterbliche Geliebte ~

[Haffner]

Very interesting discussion indeed! Language as music; my first exposure to this concept was through the English literature of the early 20th century, this including writters such as Woolf, Faulkner, and primarily James Joyce. They use repition, juxtaposition and a very lax grammatical structure to create a very fluid, rythmic language commonly referred to as "stream of consciousness" as I am sure you are all familiar with. Joyve's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and "Ulysses" really opened my eyes to the vast expressive powers of language and it's close relation to music.