h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here's another question. Is a written language less flexible than an oral language? I think most people would say yes, but then does that mean that once a language is written down the inflexibility spreads to the oral part as well?

"Here's another question. Is a written language less flexible than an oral language? I think most people would say yes, but then does that mean that
once a language is written down the inflexibility spreads to the oral part as well?"

I'd answer "it depends" Some oral poetic traditions are extremely rigid (to modern tastes)an dconservative(see the opening bit of my entry A938469), while Modern English has produced such linguistically original written works as Joyce's "Ulysses". And Modern English is arguably now producing more new vocabulary and idiom than at any time in its history and yet it is a language that inundates in a written form to a degree never seen before.

The second half of your question is very interesting and relates to a very long debate in the critical study of oral-formulaic poetry, a debate much longer than a pancake recipe.

Very interesting, what you wrote. So here's another question that my reading of your entry prompted. When does a composition become nonsense and why?

Yes, I know it depends on the language, but just consider some examples maybe from either English or Anglo-Saxon or whatever. Is Finnegan's Wake nonsense? How about Alice in Wonderland? How about Analiese's Coyote Tales? At least one commentor has remarked about the latter that he finds them difficult to comprehend because of presumed cultural differences. What do you think?

If those cultural differences are apparent in a contemporary work, maybe some acculturated combination thing, imagine how they might influence the interpretation of Beowulf or Homer or whatever? Or taking it a step further into the realm of gibberish, how about a comic book? Or something roughly equivalent like a classical Nahuatl book or an equivalent Mayan text? What about a calendar stick or a winter count? Or a script of an ancient language no one remembers or has decoded?

I guess I'd have to start by asking what you mean by nonsense. Do you mean a work that is incomprehensible to the listener/reader? Or do you mean a work such as Alice in Wonderland or Finnegan's Wake which is carefully crafted to be somewhat nonesensical but which uses that nonsensicality to communicate its message to a (willing) listener/reader? Have you read "Shakespeare in the Bush"? It used to be a pretty standard reading for Cultural Anthropology courses. It's a field study, not a work of fiction. In it an anthropologist starts out thinking that the great works of human art are potentially comprehensible to any humans, no matter what their culture. The anthropologist decides to tell the story of Hamlet to a group of people he's studying (I don't even remember what continent its on. Sorry.) and soon finds that he's spending more time explaining the culture behind the story than he is telling the story.
Well, that's a tangent.
In understanding any utterance other than one's own (perhaps), there is an element of translation. Anyone who has tried to translate poetry will know how difficult (impossible) true translation is. There is a spectrum which runs from somewhere around trying to understand what your mother is yelling at you from the kitchen door all the way to scratches on Paleolithic bits of bone. At one end we can make sense quite effortlessly; at the other there is so much of the culture missing that we don't even know if there's an attempt at communication. Communication depends on a shared field of knowledge. You know what it's like to be a Native American. I don't know that. But I've spent a goodly portion of my life feeling that it is important to learn all I can about this place I live and the people who have lived here. I've listened to stories like yours before. I construct an understanding of what you're saying. I'm not Aboriginal and I could never pretend to be nor do I want to be. But I think it's worth listening to you.
The pancakes are burning.

Well, here's my take on Hamlet, and you'll probably notice we'll get all bogged down in the title before we even have a chance to look at the plot or story.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark?

Well, I'm a sort of English speaker so I figure this is about some person named after a village, a hamlet, but which one? I don't know.

Prince? Well, I'm sort of an knowledgable English speaker, knowledgable in the way of some knowledge about where certain English words come from and so I know this word came from the Latin, princeps or first citizen. Hey, that's clearer, some guy named after a village, any village, who is it's first citizen, meaning first in time or first in place or first in what? Well, let's not get bogged down in quibblings. But what the heck is a citizen? Oh yes, a person who lives in a city right? No, a person who is the subject of a nation state or kingdom or realm or domain or?

Maybe we just better go on to Denmark, right? What's a Denmark? Something a badger leaves at the frontdoor? Well, of course that's not it at all is it? It's a territory, maybe even a frontier, associated with people called Danes.

Okay, so what have we got so far? The title of this thing translated into much clearer terms is Some Guy Named After Any Village Who is First Living in the Territory of the Danes. Ooops, that's not quite it, is it?

But I'm pretty sure it'll become clearer from the context. This guy finds out his mother poisoned his father so he wreaks revenge and in so doing ends up snuffing his mother and himself and his girlfriend and maybe a few other people along the way. Heck that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Mother should have been exiled for doing that not snuffed. No wonder the guy gets in trouble. Plus he screwed up the marriage arrangements on top of everything else. He must be crazy! Why are we talking about some crazy man who makes no sense?

so, you have read "shakespeare in the bush".

No, I haven't read it. Does this mean I probably don't need to?

you probably don't need to read it as you pretty much paraphrased the response of the non-Europeans in the piece.

I must be a certified non-european then. What a surprise, huh?

Who were the people this person presented Hamlet to again?

See here! I answered my own question.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/people/home/idris/Essays/Shakes_in_Bush.htm

I like those Africans. They seem like very sensible people.

>> ..new ideas ... thru misunderstanding! <<

Yes! Serendipitous accidents don't just happen in the lab.


>> ..or is the lack of clarity more a hinderance..? <<

Not so long as we are free and able to ask for clarity. Ask and we shall revise.


~jwf

>> ...person named after a village, a hamlet, but which one? <<

Here already, I find a cultural difference. Because of my 'training' in the study of English Literature, I have been conditioned to respond to names as allegorical, having a subtextual meaning. Sorta like "Dances With Wolves" but not quite so literal.

Thus a 'hamlet' is a rural and rustic and simple being who goes about his business in tune with his culture, the seasons and the land until interfered with by the politics of kings and the murderous ways of adulterers. This recognition, whether conscious or not, makes him most sympathetic. He represents the victim of circumstance at least and the tragic tale of the oppressed at best.

The rest of your argument can be attributed to your failure to see him as sympathetic from the git go. And there is an obvious gender barrier preventing you from enjoying the play as well. But a lotta chicks are like that with the Prince.


~jwf~

Oh no, not Dances with Wolves!!!

Okay, so seriously now, I'm responding to this thing and I'm noticing that Hamlet is continually making wisecracks. That's not exactly the tragic victim we all know or detest is it? Would this be one of the earlier versions of black comedy in English lit?

And the Africans were correct too. It was Claudius all the time playing mastermind so the struggle's with him ultimately. So was the dead king walking around or was it the shadow of suspicion?

Well, I don't really care, to be candid, but it does smell of witchcraft for sure. The water can't hurt you otherwise. Just lookee. You're walking down the dry wash and some witch stirs up a cloudburst 20 miles away and pretty soon you've got a wall of mud chasing you and guess who's going to win that race?

Goodnight, Sweet Prince. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

You wonder why he bothered then? We might find out tomorrow.

>> You wonder why he bothered then? We might find out tomorrow. <<

By George, I think she's getting it!

~jwf~

Oh I don't know, I've got a recipe for pancakes that starts with: buy a chicken, a cow, and viable wheat seeds....

>> ..seriously now, I'm responding to this thing and I'm noticing that Hamlet is continually making wisecracks. <<

Seriously then. As a fictional and larger than life character, he further endears himself to his 'English' audience by the dramatic device of humour, the kind of iconoclastic skeptical humour that was part of the general north european humour that is now considered politically incorrect (and still so loved by teenagers) for making fun of differences and dishonesties and mocking authority and the hypocricy of those in power. These are the roots of satire and parody as well as the source of so called racist jokes.

A legitimate and healthy response to encountering strangers, this kind of displacement humour laughs in the face of the unknown and the overwhelming. The best real life representation of this culturally re-inforced behavior were the beserkers, the first wild bunch who dashed madly ashore with war whoops and insane laughter when Viking raiders landed. Hollywood often portrays similar courageous and brash behavior in native american raiding parties.

It is this same youthful attitude of taunting and teasing and disrespect and spitting in the eye of Death that Hamlet embodies. And even though many would consider his cause justified, he ultimately fails because those around him who should support his vengeance are less resolute of purpose and waffle into madness, corruption and self-interest.

Emotionally distraught he bungles his revenge but more-so because he in violation of true justice by merely seeking a personal revenge with no proper plan to make things better for anyone and everyone suffers. Much like George the second's current plot to get even in the name of his father.


~jwf~

Would you agree then that the African's assessment of Hamlet's failure is essentially correct? He should have gotten a consensus before engaging in his little intrigues and plays within plays.

I guess my main problem with the boy is just that. He acts like a boy not a man. Furthermore you sort of can see that Shakespeare might have been poking his own brand of fun at the established noble houses for raising such perpetual adolescents and placing them in charge of everybody.

What's especially interesting in all of this is that the Africans suspected witchcraft in Hamlet probably not knowing that Shakespeare explicitedly used in witches in a another play, MacBeth, to stir up the plot.

Whatever Hollywood portrays about indians, it's mostly total crap. We'll probably have to wait for more films like Powwow Highway to be released before that'll ever change.

"Whatever Hollywood portrays about indians, it's mostly total crap. We'll probably have to wait for more films
like Powwow Highway to be released before that'll ever change."

Hey, Analiese. Have you heard about something we've got up hear called APTN (the Aboriginal People's Television Network)? Like all television, it's uneven in quality, but it's giving our country the point of view that so few have been getting.
Actually, the CBC has been managing to get the aboriginal voice into its shows to a limited extent going way back to something called "Rainbow Country" that I watched as a kid.

Well, of course, we have Sherman Alexis down here.