Bulletin

Issue: October 2005

News

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Did you hear the one about the elderly Jerusalemite rabbi who questioned God about the two most important concerns in his life?

Dr Zuckermann discovers how revival
involves survival in his research into
the hybridic Israeli language,
see page 15 of the March issue.

'Will my daughter ever marry?' 'Yes, but not in your lifetime,' God answered.

'Will the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever end?' 'Yes, but not in my lifetime,' God replied.

Which, according to Dr Ghil'ad Zuckermann - La Trobe University post-doctoral research fellow at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology (RCLT) - neatly sums up why the conflict is so intractable: the fundamentalists in each faction believe that God is on their side.

And both sides try to demonstrate God's approval by fashioning language into a religious and political weapon.

Dr Zuckermann, a world expert in language contact and historical linguistics, is currently researching 'lexical engineering', which he says opens a window onto the broader question of how language can be used as a tool for religious, ethnic and political groups to maintain or form their identity.

An accomplished 'lexpionage-aficionado', who has been a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dr Zuckermann is interested in etymology, a branch of linguistics concerned with the formation of words and expressions and with the development of their meaning. However, whereas etymologists usually focus only on (diachronic) derivations, Dr Zuckermann's groundbreaking analytical work also explores the sociology and philology of what he calls 'etymythology', i.e. (synchronic) popular etymology.

'Since etymythology often results in altering the meaning and associations of a word, it, in fact, changes the "real etymology". Thus, it should not be overlooked even from a strict linguistic perspective, let alone a cultural one.'

'Socio-linguistically, etymythology is often more influential than 'real etymology'. The English word bugger originally denoted 'Bulgarian' (French bougre, Latin Bulgarus), referring to a sect of heretics who came from Bulgaria to France in the eleventh century. But since the real etymon (true origin) is forgotten, Bulgarians don't normally complain about the sodomite meaning of the word in English.'

'On the other hand, on 15 January 1999, David Howard, a white aide to Washington DC Mayor Anthony Williams, who happens to be black, used the word niggardly - which means "miserly, stingy" - in a conversation with two colleagues. Eleven days later, he resigned as rumours were spreading that he had used a racial slur. Speakers linked niggardly to the politically incorrect nigger and negro although, initially, niggardly had nothing to do with nigger.

'Language is a guide to social reality. We can understand culture through words and grammar. For example, there are linguistic rhetorical mechanisms that religious leaders and politicians employ for ethnocentric xenophobia or propaganda purposes.

Some first millennium rabbis redesigned the Greek word for 'gospel' euangelion - which literally means 'good news' - and turned it into the Hebrew 'awen gilyon, pronounced similarly but actually having the sense of 'evil revelation-book'.

The coiners were aware of their witty manipulation, but later generations might have been less well informed, especially given that Hebrew was considered to be the Ursprache (proto-language).

The rabbis produced their concoction to support an anti-Christian position. Their effort not only to translate, but also to correct, brings to mind Jorge Luis Borges's amusing remark, made in 1943: El original es infiel a la traducción (The original is unfaithful to the translation).'

'Other Jews manipulated the Arabic word rasul meaning 'messenger (Muhammad)', turning it into the Hebrew word paul, the literal sense of which is 'flawed, faulty, disqualified'. Numerous cultures have examples of etymythology.'

Oxbridge-educated Dr Zuckermann, fluent in 11 languages, including Arabic, mentions a recent theory that 'the Koran's promise to Muslim martyrs, hur 'in, might have been not 72 virgins - dark, wide-eyed (maidens) - as most commonly believed, but rather 72 sultanas(!) - white (grapes), jewels (of crystal). Syriac hur is a feminine plural adjective meaning 'white' and is associated with 'raisin'. 'If one could convince fundamentalists that this alternative interpretation is true, it has the potential to reduce, obviously not to obliterate, the number of suicide bombings.'

Dr Zuckermann says the semantic manipulation of words for religious or political motives is a weapon of the weak and strong alike. An Australian example of political manipulation of vocabulary is that 'asylum seekers' have become queue jumpers, which has detrimental social connotations.

He argues that there is a bi-directional relationship between language and thought. Whereas thought can determine language, language can influence the way people think.

The 'Black Jews' in America - who claim to be the real Jews, dismissing (Ashkenazic) Jews as converted Khazars (people of Turkic origin) - interchange the words Schindler and swindler to justify their belief that the Holocaust was nothing compared to the tragedy of one hundred million black slaves.

Dr Zuckermann says that lexical engineering plays a major role in what he calls 'othering', the practice of defining - and securing - one's own (positive) identity through (stigmatising) the other.

Thus, some Chinese terms relating to Jews or to Islam have their origins in written characters portraying them as different or inferior.

'We use "othering" consciously and unconsciously in various levels of our daily lives. Think about the supporters of the 15 other AFL teams who ridicule Collingwood as a way of bolstering their own team.'

Such mild use of 'othering' is, of course, a far cry from what Dr Zuckermann terms 'lexical terrorism', which is the engineering of words to demonise those in religious, ethnic or national groups we dislike.