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6. Heart

When we see and hear – that is, when we acquire spiritual vision – a seed is planted in the earth of our heart. This is why see and hear, with the addition of the phonetic pair d-t, give seed and heart. We need our eyes and ears to be opened.

Seed is also the past tense of see – or it would be, if see was a regular verb. And the past tense of hear would be heart.

This is because the past tense in English, which is written -ed, is pronounced d or t, depending on whether the previous sound is voiced or not. If the previous sound is voiced, for example b, then the pronunciation of -ed is d (mobbed); if, however, the previous sound is voiceless, for example p, then the pronunciation of -ed is t (stopped). It is only if the previous sound is d or t that the sounds have to be separated by a vowel sound and the pronunciation is id (decided).

An inordinate amount of importance is placed on the ability to see and hear in the Gospels. Christ is always crying out, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (Mt 11:15, Mk 4:9). In Matthew 13:16, he tells the disciples, “Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” He is referring to spiritual vision, which unfortunately is not the kind of vision that is usually taught in schools, because in schools children are taught to label and count, to analyze, to think, to rely on reason, on effort (“work hard, and you’ll get good marks”), and this creates a certain distance between us and the things that surround us, leading to the idea that we can do something with them, such as deal, trade, buy and sell because they are somehow alien to us, external (we adopt the same attitude towards language).

It also encourages the idea that in order to achieve something in this life we must act (do something to something or someone else). If you teach a child to count up from 1 (never from 0), you are encouraging them to think in terms of profit and loss, quantity, what comes in and what goes out, you are encouraging them to trade in the things of this world, which is the whole basis of the dominant system, capitalism (counting up). You are not encouraging them to truly see the things of this world for what they are worth and to rejoice in them. This comes to us naturally, but in the hurly-burly of classrooms it is often extracted. A good example would be a friend of mine’s ability to draw. Before he attended school, he drew beautifully (several of his drawings were published in National Geographic Kids). Once he started attending school and went to art lessons, where he was taught the names of artists and encouraged to remember them, his drawing became analytical, predictable, uninspired. He had lost that innocency of vision that Christ wants us to reclaim because he began to analyze, to do the exercises that he was set, to put everything in boxes, to learn not in order to appreciate, but to pass exams (to achieve a certain mark).

This idea of effort being rewarded is very dangerous, because it leads to the notion that we must always be doing something, and that implies doing something to something, not just letting it be. I have a neighbour who is always cutting down trees and bushes. This morning, another bush had disappeared. I noticed its absence. He obviously feels the need to be busy, but I can’t quite understand why he doesn’t leave them alone. After all, trees provide food, warmth, oxygen, shade, and homes (somewhere to hide) for the sparrows and great tits that populate the local area.

And what do we see with? Our eyes (addition of y). What do we use to hear? The ear (addition of h). So, we have: eyes-see-seed and ear-hear-heart, with the addition of the phonetic pair d-t in the final word of each triplet. This is because in order for the spiritual seed to take root in the earth of our heart, and to effect a change, we must be able to see/hear the message. Otherwise, the words will fall on deaf ears. This is the message of the Parable of the Sower that precedes the passage in Matthew I quoted earlier.

In the first of the Parables of the Kingdom that follow this passage, the Parable of the Tares, there is one who sows good seed in the field of the world – Christ himself – and the enemy (the devil) who comes at night to sow weeds among the wheat. “The good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one” (Mt 13:38). Weed and wheat are, of course, connected (phonetic pair d-t, addition of h). They are planted in the same field until the time of the harvest, when an angel will come to glean – language here is predicting the future, it is telling us what will happen, just as, in the case of creation, it tells us how the world came into being.

And isn’t it interesting that, of the two, weed and wheat, it is only the second that has ears? It is also, ironically, only the second that leads to true wealth (addition of l) – which is not having more of something, but seeing the wonder in people and things, without the need to possess or exploit them.

Jonathan Dunne

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5. Seed

The life cycle is reflected in language; all the words connected with creation, fertility, reproduction, have aer (air) in them, the same aer that forms the basis of speech.

In order to grow and bear fruit, a seed must be planted in the earth. Yes, but how is this process reflected in language?

A seed must be planted in the ground in order to bear fruit. It must be buried. That is, it must disintegrate (not remain whole) in order to give rise to new life. This is surely a metaphor for our own resurrection.

So, a seed dies, and that is why the two words are connected in reverse if we interchange the front vowels e and i. We cannot bring forth new life except by being put in the ground (our ego, that is). We become dead to our selfish demands. And out of that deadness comes a new, unrestricted potential.

Alternatively, we can add the letter l to seed and get sleep (by rotating the letters d and p). Seeds have been known to sleep in the ground for hundreds of years before sprouting and giving forth new life. In the ancient world, early Christians referred to burial sites not as “graves”, but as “resting places”, because the people buried there were not dead, but asleep.

The seed dies and puts forth first a root and then a shoot. Do you see how these words are connected – seed with root (phonetic pair d-t, step in the alphabet r-s), root with shoot (step in the alphabet r-s, addition of h)?

A shoot appears above ground (reminding us of the seed’s existence), and as it does so, it closely resembles a tooth (step in the alphabet s-t) emerging from the gum. Language is often graphic like this.

As the root divides into two (too, addition of r), so the shoot divides into three and becomes a tree (addition of h). It cannot become a tree except by dividing, by putting out branches, as cells divide in the human body. This division, paradoxically, leads to increase.

One is three, as in the case of the Holy Trinity. The tree harnesses the power of the sun (Son) through each leaf (phonetic pair l-r, pair of letters that look alike f-t). It produces a flower, which wilts, giving way to a fruit (froot) with the seed in it. And the whole process begins anew.

So, we have: seed (dies/sleep)-root (two)-shoot (tooth)-tree (three)-leaf-fruit (root), all perfectly reproduced by language.

It is the earth that enables this, and perhaps it is time we notice the presence of air (written aer in Latin and Greek) in so many words that have to do with creation, fertility, reproduction: aer-earth-water-breath, bread, breast (all three sources of nourishment that share the same first four letters with the phonetic pair d-t, addition of h/s)-create-father.

They all have aer in them, just as language is impossible without breath (we add voice to our breath to form the vowels; we obstruct our breath, with or without voice, to form the consonants). This again provides a link between the physical world (we cannot live without breathing) and language (aer is in many words connected with creation).

And by taking a step in the alphabet, r-s, as we did with God-ego (d-e) and father-gather (f-g), we find aer in sea (imagine a sea without aer in it, it would be dead).

This brings us back to the account of creation in the Book of Genesis. On day three, the earth was created (spoken into being), together with the sea, plants yielding seed and the fruit tree.

All reflected in the words we speak.

Jonathan Dunne

Heart of Language 5/15

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4. Earth

Our bodies mimic the physical environment – our heart is the earth, our soul the soil, where spiritual seeds can be planted.

Father also contains earth. And heart.

In Genesis 1:9-13, we read that the earth was created on day three, together with the sea, seed and tree (words with which it is connected).

We have seen that the vowels emerge from the throat, where language originates, in a different order from that in the alphabet. The back vowels are u and o, the central vowel is a, and the front vowels are e and i; u and i are close vowels, o and e are mid vowels, while a is an open vowel (this is why a doctor asks you to pronounce this vowel when she wants to look down your throat, because it is the most open vowel there is). So the vowels as they proceed from the throat form an inverted pyramid, according to where in the mouth they are produced:

u                                             i

o                      e

a

Now, vowels are fluid. I have already explained that they equate to water (water forms in the mouth when you hold one for long enough). This is why a vowel can be said to flow (phonetic pair f-v, addition of e). Languages like Arabic and Hebrew don’t even write them down, they only list the consonants. This means it is fairly easy to change a vowel in a word connection, especially if they are pronounced next to each other, such as a and e.

If we maintain the digraph th, then we can see that earth in reverse gives three, the day on which it was created. It also happens to be the third planet in order of increasing distance from the sun. And, in Christian theology, it was created by the Trinity (God in three persons) – the Father (the origin of breath, from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds), the Son (Christ the Word, begotten of the Father) and the Holy Spirit (breath or wind, pneuma in Greek, the basis of all speech). So we can understand why the number three might be so important for earth.

While a seed is planted in the earth in order for it to grow, a spiritual seed has to be planted in another kind of earth – our heart. This is why the two words are connected. It is not enough for us to hear a spiritual message, we have to take the message on board, to let it into our hearts, where the seed of an idea can grow and bear fruit.

We might then remember the layer of something that surrounds the earth like a shell or a circumference: soil. We cannot place the seed on a rock or among thorns if we want it to grow. We must place it in the soil.

Again, when it is a question of a spiritual seed, there is another kind of soil where we must plant it – our soul. This is where the spiritual seed will bear fruit.

So, earth-heart, soil-soul (containing the close vowels, u and i).

Language is drawing a comparison between the physical environment and our own bodies, in which the heart takes precedence (and where the soul is perhaps a layer around it, as soil is a layer around the earth).

Jonathan Dunne

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3. Human

The elements of speech – breath, water and flesh – are the same elements that are present in the act of creation in the Book of Genesis. The world was spoken into being, which means that we, and the world around us, are a form of language.

Language is made up of three elements: breath, water and flesh.

The first element is breath. Breath forms the basis of all speech. Without breath, you are dead. Breath is represented by the letter h, a letter that is dropped in colloquial speech and silent in some languages, but for me the most important letter in the alphabet:

h   (breath)

The second element is water. This is when we add voice to our breath and form the vowels. Hold a vowel sound for long enough, and water will collect in your mouth. The vowels are listed in the alphabet in the following order: a-e-i-o-u. But this is misleading because the vowel sounds are formed, from the back of the mouth (where language originates), in a different order:

u-o-a-e-i   (water)

Since breath on its own doesn’t make a word (it only expresses exasperation), the first word that the human apparatus is capable of producing is the combination of breath, h, and the first vowel sound to emerge from the throat, u: hu. You might think this is unremarkable, but, as we have seen, hu is Sanskrit for “invoke the gods” and the root of our word God.

So the first utterance we can make by our very nature is to call on God, just as when we move away from the ego and produce the symbols A + O, we say another name of God, Alpha and Omega. While the science of etymology stipulates that human derives from the Latin word for “man”, homo, I would suggest that really it is a combination of hu and man. We are spiritual beings.

The third element of language is flesh. We obstruct the passage of breath with our lips or tongue (our flesh) and produce the consonants, which can be voiced or voiceless. The consonants are divided into phonetic pairs according to where they are produced in the mouth. There are seven simple pairs:

b-p   d-t   f-v   g-k   l-r   m-n   s-z   (flesh)

We see all these elements – breath, water and flesh – in chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of Genesis. Take, for example, Genesis 1:1-2:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

I would suggest that this passage in Genesis is really a description of speech. Or the creation of man in Genesis 2:6-7:

But a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground – then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Again, all three elements of language are present, which would suggest that the world was literally spoken into being. This would explain the proximity between space and speak (the letter c, a redundant letter in English, can be pronounced k or s), and also the presence in world of word and lord (the reiterative verse “And God said”).

What is also remarkable is the word these three elements have in common: father. We have seen the phonetic pair f-v, but v is also connected to b and w (think of languages such as modern Greek, Spanish, Latin and German), so through the intermediary of v, I can make the connection f-b/w.

In this way, we see that breath and father have the same letters, water is in father with the addition of h, and flesh is in father with the addition of a (phonetic pair l-r, step in the alphabet s-t).

Father contains speech.

Jonathan Dunne

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2. And

The different ways of moving away from the line that represents the ego in English (I), and how the three shapes that result spell a name of God – and a conjunction.

The ego in English is a line: I. It separates us from one another. It has a beginning and an end, like time (a word that is closely related to line, we cross out the l and apply the phonetic pair m-n).

How do we move away from the line that is represented in English by the pronoun I? I can see three ways to do this.

The first is to make reference to a third point, to bring God into the conversation, as if when crossing a river we remember the source of that river in the mountain. From a line, I, we make a triangle, Δ, which closely resembles the letter A (a triangle on stilts):

A

The second is to delete the ego, to draw a line through it (to deny oneself). We have seen that this makes a cross, †, which is also a plus-sign, + (the meaning of losing your life in order to find it):

+

The third is to treat the ego as a number, 1, and instead of counting up, as we teach our children, which has no end, we count down to 0. Again, we make reference to God (0 is an eternal symbol, it has no beginning or end) – we remember him:

O

The three symbols that result when we move away from the line are A + O. These three symbols spell the name of God Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. That is, when we turn away from the ego’s selfish demands and seek to do good, we necessarily call on God – there is no other way to do this.

And what’s curious is that this name of God, Alpha and Omega, is contained in the middle conjunction, and, if we write it with capital letters:

A ’N’ O (AND)

The reverse of and is DNA. We might say that it is in our DNA to do this. All human life is about understanding that the pursuit of our own desires, to the exclusion of others, will lead ultimately to dissatisfaction. It is when we embrace the other – not simply seek our own ends – that our life acquires meaning.

So, and, that little word that crops up so much in conversation, is like an instruction to turn away from the ego and to embrace the other, their needs, their points of view. It is a plus (our life is enriched), as the word itself indicates.

Jonathan Dunne

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1. God

How the spiritual meaning of words can bring them close together, and how removing the ego, a line in English (I), from a word can lead to salvation.

The word GOD, when written with capital letters, closely resembles three zeros (000). This is because God is Father, Son and Spirit, three persons in One.

It is curious that the words God and good are so similar, you would think that they share a common root. And yet their etymological roots are quite different: God derives from the Sanskrit hu, meaning “invoke the gods”, and good derives from the Gothic goþs, meaning “bring together, unite”. Their roots are different, but God is good – the words can’t help revealing this.

If God is good, then the devil is evil. Again, you might think that these two words share a common root, but they don’t. The word devil derives from the Greek diabolos, “accuser, slanderer”, while evil is from the Gothic ubils. Their meaning has brought them close.

If we remember that, in the study of phonetics, one pair of consonants pronounced in the same part of the mouth is l-r, and another is f-v, we will see that quite easily devil gives differ. All I have to do is change two of the consonants according to where in the mouth the sounds are produced. If I take a step in the alphabet – from f to g – father gives gather. This would seem to confirm what we saw just now about God being good (goþs – “bring together, unite”). The devil would separate us, make us disagree. The Father would unite us, make us one in him.

Take an earlier step in the alphabet – from d to e – and God gives ego (represented in English by the letter/line I). These are really the two masters we can choose to serve in this life: God (to love him and to love our neighbour) or the ego (to follow our own desires, even at the expense of others).

One makes us a slave to our passions: the ego. The other sets us free. In effect, what he does is save us, and we can see that when we remove the ego, I, from slave (what the ego turns us into), we get save.

In Matthew 6:24, we read that we cannot serve God and wealth (or Mammon). Another word for “wealth” is gold. Again, we see that when we remove the ego, I, from a word, it takes us in the right direction.

The ego in English, I, closely resembles a line. It separates us. It also resembles the number 1, the number we use to start counting. Three zeros make GOD. What happens when we put together three egos, three Is? We become ill.

Jonathan Dunne

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0. Law

A text about law, and the proximity of this word to the name of God in Exodus 3:14, I AM.

The word law in reverse reads wall. This is because the law acts as a wall around private property; divine law acts as a wall to protect us from our enemies.

Consonants, the flesh of language, are divided into pairs. One such pair is l-r. If we apply this pair to law, we get war (again, in reverse). Law is a way of avoiding war, if at all possible. Sometimes, however, it doesn’t work and someone crosses the line between us with hostile intent.

But the most beautiful – and the most important – word connection with law is I AM (capital I and lower-case l look alike; w is m upside down). This is the name of God in Exodus 3:14, the name God reveals to Moses at the burning bush. The law is very important in the Old Testament (the law and the prophets, profits). God’s law is about truth, it reflects who he is. I think behind the human laws that we make stands God’s law, reflected in his name I AM. That is, everything is contained in him; we may think we possess things, but we only possess them as gifts from the Creator.

And this connection law-I AM is found in the New Testament, which is about Christ become man and the message he brings. He became man so that we could become gods by grace (not by nature), a process known as theosis. He shows us the way. This word is also in law if we remember that the semi-vowel y corresponds to i.

I AM-law-way is the message contained in the Bible. We can see that all three words contain the progression of the Greek alphabet: from A (the first letter, creation) to I (the Fall, the ego in English) to O (omega, written w in Greek).

If we delete the ego – that is, submit our will to God’s – we get a cross (†), which is also a plus-sign (+). This is the meaning of Christ’s injunction to lose our life in order to find it, a seeming paradox.

One way of writing this plus is ’n’ (as in rock ’n’ roll). If we take the progression of the Greek alphabet, AIW, and substitute the deleted ego, ’n’, we get ANW, which gives us man. This is the purpose of human life – to make this progression away from the ego and become fully man, a word that is linked to law. We achieve it by observing his commandments to love him and to love our neighbour.

This is the inner meaning of language, the one we do not see. We think of language as an external tool that we hold in our hands, but it is like nature, it has its own meaning.

Jonathan Dunne

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On the Publication of My Book “Seven Brief Lessons on Language” in Bulgarian

Български текст по-долу

Language has a vertical aspect, a hidden meaning. We have not realized this aspect yet. We have not realized that you can walk into language. Be inside it. Language is architectural. Living and breathing, like the wind.

I approached the main universities in Bulgaria, offering to give a short course on this spiritual aspect of language. I was rejected because I do not have a doctorate, I am not one of them. This is despite the fact that I have worked with language on a daily basis for more than thirty years as a translator of literature.

Academics view language as horizontal, they study its evolution over time. That is, they look at man’s influence on language, man’s speech. Their focus is man-centred. The focus of my book is God-centred. I would like to give an example.

We do not know why we are here, what we are doing spinning on a planet in a corner of the universe or the multiverse. We do not know where we have come from or where we are going. So, in our blindness, we limit ourselves to laying claim, to drawing lines, and it is these lines that separate us. Lines around property, lines around products of the earth so that we can sell them, lines around countries. To cross a line, you must either pay or fight.

This is a terrible perversion of nature – our own and the world’s nature. Buying and selling instead of helping each other. Ownership. Instead of allowing that things pass through us (we are translators), we claim to be authors, to be the beginning and the end.

As far as I can see, there are three ways to escape the line that separates us. The first is to make reference to a third point, to include God in the conversation, and form a triangle, which resembles the capital letter A. The second is to draw a line through the line, to delete it, which while it makes a cross (†), also makes a plus-sign (+), the meaning of the Christian paradox of losing our life in order to find it. And the third is to treat the line as a number, 1, and to count down to zero, 0. To open the line, to breathe air into it.

Triangle, cross, circle. A+O. This means that when we turn away from the line as being too limiting, when we accept our own limits, necessarily we call on the name of God: A+O, Alpha and Omega.

And what is remarkable is that these three symbols can be found in the middle conjunction when it is written with capital letters: AND. A ’N’ O. The reverse of this conjunction is DNA. It is in our DNA to do this. To lose our life in order to find it.

We can see this progression from A to I to O in the Greek alphabet, which ends with the letter omega. That is, the Greek alphabet, which represents philosophy/theology, counts down, from I to O, from 1 to 0. The Latin alphabet used in the West, however, counts up, from I to Z, from 1 to 2. This is the mentality of making a profit, of endless production as an (ultimately futile) justification for our lives.

When we learn to open the line, to turn the letter I into O, to rotate it by ninety degrees, we realize that while LIVE spells EVIL in reverse – that possibility is always open to us – when we replace the letter I with the letter O, we get LOVE instead. That is, when we remove the ego, represented in English by the line, the letter I, and replace it with God, the eternal circle, we get LOVE. In a similar way, SIN becomes SON.

Language wishes to tell us something. But all too often we view language in the same way as the environment, as there to be exploited for our own profit, as a tool to get what we want. Language can teach us. After all, Christ is the Word. When we speak, as when we breathe or drink, we are, whether we like it or not, partaking in Him. That is what my book Seven Brief Lessons on Language sets out to demonstrate. It is the result of an experience of six to nine months when I had just arrived in Bulgaria and language fell apart in front of my eyes, allowing me to go inside it.

With thanks to the translator, Tsvetanka Elenkova, to the book’s referees, Tony Nikolov and Kalin Mikhaylov, the editors, Plamen Sivov, Iliana Alexandrova and Ralitsa Krasteva, and the designer, Bojidar Chemshirov.

Jonathan Dunne

Sofia, 25 May 2023

Езикът има вертикален аспект, скрит смисъл. Все още не сме осъзнали този аспект. Не сме разбрали, че можете да влезете в езика. Бъдете вътре в него. Езикът е архитектурен. Живеещ и дишащ, като вятъра.

Свързах се с основните университети в България, предлагайки да изнеса кратък курс по този духовен аспект на езика. Отказаха ме, защото нямам докторска степен, не съм от тях. Това е въпреки факта, че съм работил с език ежедневно повече от тридесет години като преводач на литература.

Учените разглеждат езика като хоризонтален, те изучават еволюцията му във времето. Тоест, те разглеждат влиянието на човека върху езика, човешката реч. Техният фокус е върху човека. Фокусът на моята книга е съсредоточен върху Бога. Бих искал да дам пример.

Не знаем защо сме тук, какво правим, въртейки се на планета в ъгъл на Вселената или мултивселената. Ние не знаем откъде сме дошли или накъде отиваме. И така, в нашата слепота, ние се ограничаваме до предявяване на претенции, до теглене на линии и тези линии са тези, които ни разделят. Линии около собственост, линии около продукти на земята, за да можем да ги продаваме, линии около държави. За да преминете линия, трябва или да платите, или да се биете.

Това е ужасно извращение на природата – нашата и световната. Купуваме и продаваме, вместо да си помагаме. Собственост. Вместо да позволим нещата да минават през нас (ние сме преводачи), ние претендираме, че сме автори, че сме началото и краят.

Доколкото виждам, има три начина да избягаме от линията, която ни разделя. Първото е да се направи препратка към трета точка, да се включи Бог в разговора и да се образува триъгълник, който прилича на главната буква А. Второто е да се начертае линия през линията, да се изтрие, което, докато прави кръст (†), също прави знак плюс (+), значението на християнския парадокс да изгубим живота си, за да го намерим. И третото е да третирате линията като число, 1, и да броите надолу до нула, 0. Да отворите линията, да вдъхнете въздух в нея.

Триъгълник, кръст, кръг. A+O. Това означава, че когато се отвърнем от линията като твърде ограничаваща, когато приемем собствените си граници, непременно призоваваме името на Бог: А+О, Алфа и Омега.

И което е забележително е, че тези три символа могат да бъдат намерени в средния съюз, когато се пише с главни букви: AND (И). A ’N’ O. Обратната страна на тази връзка е DNA (ДНК). В нашата ДНК е заложено да правим това. Да загубим живота си, за да го намерим.

Можем да видим тази прогресия от A към I към O в гръцката азбука, която завършва с буквата омега. Това означава, че гръцката азбука, която представлява философия/теология, брои надолу от I до O, от 1 до 0. Латинската азбука, използвана на Запад, обаче, брои нагоре от I до Z, от 1 до 2. Това е манталитетът за правене на печалба, за безкрайно производство като (в крайна сметка безполезно) оправдание за живота ни.

Когато се научим да отваряме реда, да превръщаме буквата I в O, да я завъртаме на деветдесет градуса, разбираме, че докато LIVE (ЖИВЕЯ) изписва EVIL (ЗЛО) наобратно – тази възможност винаги е отворена за нас – когато заменим буквата I с буквата О, вместо това получаваме LOVE (ЛЮБОВ). Тоест, когато премахнем егото, представено на английски с линията, буквата I, и го заменим с Бог, вечният кръг, получаваме LOVE (ЛЮБОВ). По подобен начин SIN (ГРЯХ) става SON (СИН).

Езикът иска да ни каже нещо. Но твърде често гледаме на езика по същия начин като на околната среда, като там, за да бъде експлоатиран за собствена печалба, като инструмент, за да получим това, което искаме. Езикът може да ни научи. Все пак Христос е Словото. Когато говорим, както когато дишаме или пием, ние, независимо дали ни харесва или не, участваме в Него. Това има за цел да демонстрира моята книга Седем кратки веседи за езика. Това е резултат от опит от шест до девет месеца, когато току-що бях пристигнал в България и езикът се разпадна пред очите ми, позволявайки ми да вляза в него.

С благодарност към преводачката Цветанка Еленкова, към рецензентите на книгата Тони Николов и Калин Михайлов, издателите Пламен Сивов, Илиана Александрова и Ралица Кръстева и дизайнера Божидар Чемширов.

Джонатан Дън

София, 25 май 2023 г.

Posted on in Places

The Spanish Riveter

Hats off to the editors of The Spanish Riveter, a magazine freely available online and published by the European Literature Network, West Camel and Katie Whittemore, for producing a very thorough and inclusive, 294-page issue packed full of interesting writing and features. I can’t think of a better way of dipping into contemporary writing from Spain in all its manifestations: Basque, Castilian, Catalan, Galician…

There are sections not only on the four languages I have just mentioned – I was privileged to be asked to write the introduction to Galician literature on pages 200-204 – but also on publishing, grants, poetry, children’s literature, women’s writing (let us not forget that the last Spanish National Book Award for Fiction was won by a Galician woman writer, Marilar Aleixandre, who wasn’t even born in Galicia and adopted the language later on) and the Latam Boom.

All the people I have worked with over the last thirty years seem to have been included, and this is a testament to the editors’ hard work and open approach.

I fancy that some Galician editors would not agree with Katie Whittemore’s statement that “there is the sense that Spain’s other languages, while perhaps still on the back foot, so to speak, are experiencing growth in the book sector, with more institutional support, as well as a greater appetite from readers both within and without the Spanish territory” (page 8). Francisco Castro, director of the most traditional Galician publishing house, Editorial Galaxia, stated only the other day in the Faro de Vigo newspaper that “the Galician market is getting smaller and smaller, every year it is getting more and more difficult to reach income levels.” He goes on to talk about the great tragedy being experienced in Galicia, “which is the loss of its language,” and affirms that “a market that has to see a language in decline is destined for extinction.”

I would say that literary translators are “destined for extinction” and not much has been achieved since the heady days of the 1990s, when there was much talk of literary translation being a profession. Literary translators are still required to take significant personal risks, they do not receive a salary, sick leave or a pension, very little attention is paid to their work, and the juggernaut that is the English-language book market is hurtling along at such a pace it simply crushes the tossed-aside can of books in translation, offering little space in mainstream media to add to the difficulty of rising printing and distribution costs. We were never much inclined to listen to the other’s voice, which is a shame, really, since this would not only enrich our lives, but also lead to better international relations. Institutions, and the general public, are inclined to toss a coin in the cap of literary translation (without really understanding what it is), not much more.

As a publisher, I would strongly disagree with Alice Banks’ appraisal of grants on pages 62-63. She mentions one source, Acción Cultural Española, whose grants “cover the cost of translation.” This is typical of how it looks on the outside and how it really works in practice. In 2020 I applied for a grant for the Oxford professor John Rutherford to translate a Galician classic, Memoirs of a Village Boy by Xosé Neira Vilas. I asked for 2960 euros and was offered 1332 euros (that is, nine euros per page). That is a long way off the UK Translators’ Association’s recommended *minimum* rate of £100/1000 words (approximately 22 euros/page). Ainhoa Sánchez, the person responsible for literature, confirmed by email that “our grants are a support and are not meant to cover the overall cost, since we do not have the necessary budget.” This is an excuse I have heard many times, but it is not true – you simply support fewer projects with the same budget. I declined the grant, and we published the book on our own. There is a review by Paul Burke on pages 208-209 of the magazine.

But let us celebrate the diversity that this excellently produced magazine has brought to the fore and thank that ever hopeful cohort of translators, editors and publishers who continue to work and strive for translation. There is much to admire here.