Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  For a nation to have little need [795] of foreign words, it must not only have people who cultivate every kind of knowledge, and are at the same time diligent, scholarly, and deeply attached to the language, and have in itself a life full of variety, activity, and movement, etc. etc.; it must also be the inventor of all or almost all the knowledge and all the everyday articles that come within the purview of language, and not only the inventor in the strict sense but also the perfecter, because where disciplines and objects are invented, given shape, and perfected, there, too, words are created, and they, together with those disciplines and those objects, are passed on to foreigners. This is precisely what happened in Greece, and this is precisely why its language became so rich, and could be maintained in so pure a state, in contrast to Latin. Because Greek needed little from foreigners, from whom (except in the earliest times, that is, while the language was attaining its characteristic state) it received scant knowledge and no disciplines, whereas with Latin it was the other way around. Almost the same thing happened in Italy in the beginning, for it was the inventor of almost all the disciplines that were known in those times, [796] full of diligent and studious people who cultivated those disciplines and were masters of the language; and it also had great life and variety and an outside reputation, and patriotic spirit, although it was not united, but for that reason perhaps even more effective in furnishing the language with many new items. But it stopped when the disciplines both increased in number and were all brought to swift and far-reaching perfection; it played no part in the immense labors of recent centuries, either in the perfecting of knowledge or in other endeavors; moreover, it completely neglected its language, at the same time and for various reasons, so that even those Italian writers who have cooperated to some extent (very little, and very few) with the rest of Europe in the recent advances in knowledge have not extended their own language at all, since they write not Italian but Barbarian, and have adopted wholesale the nomenclatures or languages they found in use among foreigners in the same genre, or in a genre resembling their own (if by chance they were its inventors). And so it is painful but necessary to say that if Italy does not want to go on being the only part of Europe condemned to do no more than listen, or to remain ignorant of the newest and most generally understood forms of knowledge, and if it wishes to speak to contemporaries about matters relevant to the times, as all good writers have done, and as must be done anyway, it had better [797] welcome into the citizenship of language (this needs saying) not just a few but a substantial number of completely foreign words. It should take consolation, however, in the fact that all nations have had the same need, to a greater or lesser degree, at one time or another. Its old language, Latin, did; we ourselves did in the earliest stages of our language (and if now we must return to a need that is experienced in the beginning, the fault is our own). The nation should not suppose that it will become barbarous if it manages to do what I say, with honest, mature, cool, and accurate judgment. Indeed, it should hasten to introduce and select these same foreign words if it wishes to prevent the language from barbarizing altogether, and irremediably. Because the only way to halt the advance of corruption is as follows: to call for a profound and far-reaching study of the language, and at the same time the freedom for each writer with a mastery of the language and a thorough knowledge of its nature and its resources to use his own judgment in introducing, deploying, and using necessary innovations, even if they are foreign. As long as any writer (who’s not with his great-grandparents) [798] is denied this liberty, as long as he is deemed impure if he wishes to use necessary innovation and finds himself forced to choose between what is called, presented, and prescribed as the purity of the language, and the right to treat his own subject and to express his own thoughts (original and his own, or not, as the case may be, but simply modern), despairing of a purity in which it is not only difficult (as it always will be, in any case) but in fact wholly impossible to express his thoughts, he will ignore it altogether, and will become (once again despite his best intentions) guilty out of necessity, having recourse to that barbarism which alone will furnish him with the means to make himself understood and to write. Or at the most he will abide by the wretched division between those writers who are completely empty and worthless but pure and those who write of things but are barbarous, when in fact neither type can hope for immortality, but least of all the former, unless they combine the two qualities and the two virtues that lie in words and things. Such excesses, however, are already so far advanced in Italy, and will require so much work and talent and [799] judgment and so much effort to rectify, that, to my sorrow, I predict that we will not get to the bottom of it in this generation, and who knows when we will? (Since in order really to put the Italian language back on its feet again we would first need, in short, to put Italy back on its feet, and the Italians, too, and to remake their heads and their minds, and the same would also be required for literature, and for all the other values and achievements of a good and brave and valiant nation, given that with the minds and the kind of judgment and criticism we have, the last thing we can hope to do is to restore the language.) Because if you assume you’ve achieved this end by banning, prohibiting, and completely excluding innovation in things and in thought, when really you haven’t achieved a single damn thing, because except for a very few the purest and the emptiest write very barbarously, my view is, despite the love I bear this purity and believe it to be really necessary, that the remedy is worse than the illness. The truth is that for a long time now Italian writers, pure and impure alike, have refrained from thinking and even from [800] saying anything, so much so that if there were a danger that any of our writings might cross mountain or sea, foreigners would justifiably wonder how, in this century, in a nation placed in the middle of Europe, it’s possible to write in such a way that reading one of the Italian books that see the light these days is exactly the same, you might say, as reading nothing at all. For the rest, the point remains that the innovation I’m talking about (and I refer in particular to innovation from abroad) has to be introduced in the appropriate way. Because all ancient and modern languages are composed of foreign elements, and all of course have known an era of purity and naturalness, and the Italian language may also come to know one once again, despite the addition of many new and necessary foreign elements, provided we know how to do it, and do not neglect but, rather, dig our own soil deeper, and then deeper still. (16 March 1821.)

  For p. 785. Aside from these two kinds of innovation, there are other, similar forms, about which I also intend to speak. Thus, a thoroughly Italian word, of high quality, may be new simply in the [801] sense that it is not to be found in the dictionary, but is found in texts; or it is to be found in neither of those but, rather, in books whose language is sound but which are never quoted (and these are innumerable, especially from the good times, and by rights they have as much authority as the ones that are quoted), or finally they are to be found only in texts whose language is mediocre or very bad, but which nonetheless meet all the requisite conditions for legitimacy. And there are many, many such words or phrases. Especially, moreover, if they are in writings from the good times that are not themselves good, when at any rate every Italian knew and had a much better feeling for the nature and original, genuine character of the Italian language than is the case today, and Italy had mind and ears far less attuned and accustomed to the words, phrases, and alien genius of other languages. (16 March 1821.)

  For p. 745. It is hard to see how any nation or any literature should have had two excellent and outstanding writers in [802] the same genre in two different periods (other than when the period and the nation are wholly renewed, as Italian was in relation to Latin). Once that genre, although it may have various subdivisions, has had a perfect model, regarded as eternal, the great, superior talents have always turned to something else—either because they disdain the thought of not being able to be anything but equal to that model, and of having to have a companion, or,
thanks to the natural modesty and diffidence of those who well understand and appreciate the difficulty of such undertakings, because they fear that they may not be up to a task in which perfection has already been displayed, tested, and attained, and brought to the attention of others, and to their own—and only the lesser talents, whose characteristic qualities are confidence and recklessness, have entered the field, spurred on by the praise for their excellent predecessor, and by greed for fame, as if it were easy to win, and assessing the undertaking not in its own terms and in relation to its intrinsic difficulty but by their own desire to succeed and by the prize offered for success. Another reason, and a very compelling one, is that a genre that has already had an outstanding talent is no longer new; it’s no longer possible to be original, and yet without originality it’s impossible to be outstanding. Or if one could be original there is the perennial difficulty that even outstanding talents, when they see a road already made, will, one way or another, stumble onto it, or will mistake the genre for that same road, as if it were the only one that suited them, although there are a thousand that could serve, and perhaps much better. Greece itself, though it had such a wealth of writers and poets in every genre, [803] and good periods for literature after Homer, and, perhaps more significant, far removed in time from him, never had an epic poet again, except for one of little worth, like Apollonius of Rhodes. And Homer himself (if it is true that the Odyssey is later than the Iliad, as Longinus says)1 added nothing to his fame by publishing the Odyssey. Although, no matter who this Homer was, I surmise and believe that the Iliad and the Odyssey are not by the same author, but that the latter was imitated from the style, language, action, and Argument of the former, with a languor and weariness that are evident to all.2 I refer this supposition to those critics who are well versed in Homeric antiquity, and in those ancient times, and who know the two poems intimately, provided that, apart from this, they are also persons of taste and judgment. I will pass over in silence the Latins and their unsuccessful attempts at Epic after Virgil, who was so excellent and preeminent in that field, just as Cicero was in eloquence. Although Tasso cannot really be said [804] to be perfect in his genre, or even preeminent, like Homer (it was he who was preeminent, but not his poem, nor he within it), nevertheless after him Italy had no epic poem worth remembering, though many minor or mediocre talents attempted the same career. Indeed, although there is so great a difference between Ariosto’s kind of poem and Tasso’s, it nevertheless appeared odd that he should have set about that labor after Ariosto, and, once the Gerusalemme liberata had been published, his enemies invariably compared it with the Orlando furioso, disparaged it, accused Tasso of temerity, etc. After Molière, France had no great writers of comedies, nor did Italy after Goldoni. All of the above, though it is perhaps most evident in literature, may nevertheless be applied to many other branches of knowledge, or to other human qualities. One might, however, cite as a contrary example Racine after Corneille, and Voltaire after Racine, and some English writers of tragedies after Shakespeare, but none his equal in excellence or in fame. To be included in my discourse such excellence and fame must be absolutely evident, supreme and preeminent, both in the model and in the successor or successors. (17 March 1821.) See p. 810, paragraph 1.

  [805] For p. 762. A moment’s observation will show you that all the cultured languages from the beginning have had and employed extensively the power of forming compounds, just as all of them, I believe, then lost it, some to a greater, some to a lesser degree (except Greek, which kept it until the end).1 All, however, have retained either all or a greater or a lesser part of their first compounds, which soon became so familiar that they took on the appearance of and were held to be roots, and thus have themselves perhaps served as material for new compounds. The Spanish language has compounds, and derivatives of compounds (as, of course, do the other languages, since these derivatives are a most beautiful and fertile kind of word), and some are very beautiful and useful and apt and likewise bold, such as tamaño, demàs, and from this ademàs, demasìa, demasiado, demasiadamente, sinrazon, sinjusticia, sinsabor, pordiosear, that is, to beg, and pordioseria, begging, etc.,2 which are very useful and serve us well. All cultured languages have continued to have particles that are designed expressly for compounds and are found nowhere but in compounds. This is the case with Greek, Latin, French, Spanish (des, etc. etc.), English [806] (mis, etc. etc.), etc. And so necessary are compounds that without them no language would ever have attained what is called wealth, or culture, or even the mere capacity to discourse on many things, or on some things particularly and specifically. Because without them the roots would have to be infinite in number in order to express both all the things needing to be expressed and all the subtle gradations, differences, nuances, and accidents of a thing, and for each slightest gradation a different root would be needed, otherwise speech would never be expressive or accurate or even clear; rather, for the most part, it would be ambiguous, inaccurate, doubtful, obscure, vague, and indefinite. This indeed is the case with the Hebrew language (which cannot, it seems, be numbered among the cultured languages), because, although it has sufficient roots and derivatives, it is devoid of compounds, or nearly so. Its suffixes and affixes have nothing to do with compounds but are akin to chances or inflections or accidents or affections (πάθη) of nouns and verbs, or prepositions, etc., and do not alter the essential meaning or the substance of the word at all, as is the case with our batterlo [to hit him], uccidermi [to kill me], dargli [to give to him], andarvi [to go there], uscirne [to leave it], etc., which are not called, and are not, compounds in our sense of the term. From which it follows that the Hebrew language is subject to the aforesaid difficulties and confusions, and remains exceedingly impoverished; and I maintain that it would appear so even if other books, apart from the Bible, existed in that language, if, however, such books likewise lacked compounds. As I said, an infinite number of roots would be needed. Now, [807] a huge quantity of roots is by its nature very unlikely, since a compound is immediately understood but for a root to be immediately and very widely understood (as is necessary), and to enter into general use, something quite different is needed. Consequently, the invention of roots in any society of men with the faculty of speech, primitive or not, is always, of course, rare, and a language that cannot express itself without roots is a poor one, because it will never express itself other than vaguely, and every word (as occurs in Hebrew) will have a great many different meanings. See Soave if you will, appendix to Chapter 1, Bk. 3 of the Compendium of Locke, Venice, 3rd ed., 1794, tome 2, pp. 12 and 13, and Scelta di opuscoli interessanti, Milan 1775, volume 4, p. 54, and in these thoughts p. 1070, last paragraph.1 And if you want to see plainly why it is that a language, once it has started to become a little cultured, and needs to express many things, and to express them specifically, clearly, and distinctly, along with the differences between them, etc., why, as I was saying, it should immediately have recourse to and discover compounds, consider the following. What would arithmetic be like if every number had to be signified by a different figure, and not by means of the varying composition of a few elements? What would writing be like if every word had to be expressed with its own cipher or particular figure, as is the case, they say, with Chinese writing? The same [808] ease and simplicity of method, and by the same token fecundity, indeed infinity, of outcomes and combinations, that derives from the use of the elements in writing and in arithmetic, indeed in all the operations of human life, as in nature also (since, according to the chemists, the whole world and all the diverse bodies in it are composed of a specific number of elements combined in various different ways, and we ourselves are composed thus and fashioned in the moral order likewise, as I have demonstrated in many of my thoughts on the simplicity of the system of man [→Z 53, 181–182]), follows from the use of the elements in language as well. All of which should be borne in mind in order to judge just how necessary it is even today to retain as far as possible, both in one’s own and in an
y other language, the capacity to form new compounds, in light of the vast number of new things needing to be named (especially in our language), a number that necessarily and naturally increases daily; and to judge, on the other hand, the impossibility of having an unduly large number of roots, considering those that already exist and those that might have to be invented, considering usage, comprehension, and diffusion, and also the faculties of memory and human understanding, and likewise considering the clarity of the ideas that must arise through speech, a clarity practically incompatible with new roots (see p. 951), and highly compatible with new compounds, and finally considering the lack of taste that comes from new roots, which are always terms, as I have explained elsewhere [→Z 109–11], whereas the same cannot be said of compounds derived from one’s own language. I say this without any doubts. The richest language will always be the one that has preserved [809] the longest, and used the most widely, the capacity to form compounds, and nowadays it will be the one that preserves it the most and uses it the most. The example of the Greek language, the richest of all that were, are, and will be, indeed always and even today inexhaustible, abundantly bears out my claim in practice, which is already so evident in reason. And on the other hand, my theory serves to explain the secret and the phenomenon of why such a language is always equal to the quantity of things, no matter how great. If, therefore, we wish for a language to be truly omnipotent with regard to words, let us preserve, restore, and, if possible, enhance its capacity to form new compounds and derivatives, that is, the use of the elements that it has, and the manner, the capacity to combine them as variously and as numerously as it can. This, and not the sheer number of elements, constitutes the real and essential wealth, abundance, and omnipotence of languages (with respect to words), as it does the form of all things both human and natural. Were we to generalize [810] our ideas a little, we would readily convince ourselves of what I am saying, and of how it is that, because of the universal nature of human affairs, this capacity is not only foremost and fundamental but also the necessary and indispensable source of the richness, abundance, and omnipotence of any language whatsoever, and of the appropriateness, definiteness, and clarity of its expression, at least when it comes to words. (18 March 1821.)