Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 April 9

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April 9

Writing as a native in more than one language

I have come across this quote from Thomas Jefferson:

• No instance exists of a person's writing two languages perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth. (Letter to John Bannister, 15 Oct 1785)

That is probably a true proposition, generally speaking. But are there not a few counter-examples? I think of Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov. whose native languages were Polish and Russian respectively, but whose novels written in English are considered superlative English prose. Are they perhaps too perfect to be really the work of native English speakers? Any other examples? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:15, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Joseph Brodsky, Samuel Beckett, and this list of exophonic writers. Mathglot (talk) 03:37, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Elias Canetti. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his works in German. German was only his fourth or fifth language. --Morinox (talk) 08:07, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

How many of those guys were around in Jefferson's time? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:45, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Before Jefferson's time, many wrote in Latin, which hadn't been anybody's native language in a long time. Leibniz is an example of someone who also wrote in French. One problem with Jefferson's statement is that he doesn't define what he means by "perfectly". It is certainly possible and not actually very difficult for a non-native speaker to write a text that is grammatically and idiomatically correct and that does not reveal that the writer is not a native speaker. Speaking is more difficult, and it may be nigh on impossible to hide one's native accent from a very acute listener. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:21, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Even speaking is not that hard for a sufficiently skilled (or determined) person. The YouTuber Simone Giertz is Swedish and didn't move to America until her late teens/early 20s. She speaks without a hint of non-native accent. There is a wide diversity in linguistic skills both written and spoken, and some people are quite adept at learning both spoken and/or written language quite easily, to be indistinguishable from native users, while others only do so with great difficulty and will never develop a native-level of usage. People are different. --Jayron32 13:58, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Another example of a speaker with a wide range linguistic adaptation: Sandi Toksvig speaks in a standard upper-middle class British accent, but is Danish and learned English in the U.S.; you can see interviews of her describing how her natural English accent is New York English, and she can drop back into it at will. From the way she speaks today, you'd never know she had lived anywhere except the UK. --Jayron32 14:03, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

This is all taken too much literally, this means, literary, in fine. Fine if she would still take interest in a lecture by TJ about the virtues of calligraphy I guess. --Askedonty (talk) 22:09, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Getting back to Jefferson's contemporaries, Jan Potocki and Casanova, both writing in excellent French but not native speakers, are counter-examples. In a more contemporary vein, there's a whole series of Romanian writers whose writings in French are of native speaker quality: Panait Istrati, Eugene Ionesco, E.M. Cioran and so on. Basically, Jefferson is wrong on this score. Xuxl (talk) 14:23, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

A modern example from the non-English world: After moving from Greece to Sweden as a young man in 1964, Theodor Kallifatides has written poetry, novels and plays in Swedish, often translating his own works into Greek. --T*U (talk) 14:50, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, all very interesting. Thank you. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:59, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Have at it

What does this phrase mean? Is it an American English expression? 86.187.235.66 (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

In British English, at least, "have at" means to tackle or attack someone forcefully or aggressively. The "it" part can be any noun or pronoun, such as "you". See [1]. An American user may clarify the second part of your question. Bazza (talk) 19:33, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Where did the expression “have at it” come from?. Alansplodge (talk) 21:31, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

A very wild guess: the verb part in the idiom has a separate etymology of the usual verb to have, perhaps originating from a dialectal variant descendant of Proto-West Germanic *hauwan, meaning "to hew", which has among its descendants Old Frisian hauwa. This theory can be falsified if already in the earliest uses of the idiom a past tense had at is attested. Actually, in early uses it seems to be used only as an interjection, always in the specific form have at you.  --Lambiam 12:56, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Not sure how early you want to go, but Shakespeare uses "have at it" several times in his plays - see the link that I posted above. Alansplodge (talk) 15:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

It was also used earlier by Chaucer. The earliest citation in the OED is from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, circa 1400:

‘Haf at þe þenne,’ quoþ þat oþer.

Which I believe means "Have at thee then, quoth that other."

The OED's definition is "To go at, esp. aggressively or forcefully; to tackle or attack; (also) to make an attempt at, ‘have a go at’. In early use chiefly in imperative, frequently with first-person meaning: ‘let me at (you, it, etc.)’, ‘here goes’ (now archaic). Formerly also with other prepositions (and adverbs), as †after, †among." CodeTalker (talk) 18:23, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Can other uses be found of an imperative with first-person meaning, where "verb" has the same meaning as "let me verb"? If no such exist, this explanation is not convincing.  --Lambiam 09:17, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Historici Graeci Minores

May someone please translate this title for me. Thanks. Omidinist (talk) 23:55, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

If you mean Dindorf's book, it is the Lesser Greek Historians. DuncanHill (talk) 00:00, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you. Omidinist (talk) 00:03, 10 April 2021 (UTC)