Macaronic language
Macaronic language is any expression using a mixture of languages,[1] particularly bilingual puns or situations in which the languages are otherwise used in the same context (rather than simply discrete segments of a text being in different languages). Hybrid words are effectively "internally macaronic". In spoken language, code-switching is using more than one language or dialect within the same conversation.[2]
Macaronic Latin in particular is a jumbled jargon made up of vernacular words given Latin endings or of Latin words mixed with the vernacular in a pastiche (compare dog Latin).
The word macaronic comes from the Neo-Latin macaronicus, which is from the Italian maccarone, or "dumpling", regarded as coarse peasant fare. It is generally derogatory and used when the mixing of languages has a humorous or satirical intent or effect but is sometimes applied to more serious mixed-language literature.
History
Mixed Latin-vernacular lyrics in Medieval Europe
Texts that mixed Latin and
An early example is from 1130, in the
Tesi samanunga was edele unde scona
et omnium virtutum pleniter plena
Translated: This community was noble and pure, and completely full of all virtues.
The
Another early example is in the
delivers a rhyming speech in mixed English and Latin.A number of English political poems in the 14th century alternated (Middle) English and Latin lines, such as in MS Digby 196:
The taxe hath tened [ruined] vs alle,
Probat hoc mors tot validorum
The Kyng þerof had small
fuit in manibus cupidorum.
yt had ful hard hansell,
dans causam fine dolorum;
vengeaunce nedes most fall,
propter peccata malorum
(etc)
Several anthems also contain both Latin and English. In the case of 'Nolo mortem pecatoris' by Thomas Morley, the Latin is used as a refrain:
Nolo mortem peccatoris; Haec sunt verba Salvatoris.
Father I am thine only Son, sent down from heav’n mankind to save.
Father, all things fulfilled and done according to thy will, I have.
Father, my will now all is this: Nolo mortem peccatoris.
Father, behold my painful smart, taken for man on ev’ry side;
Ev'n from my birth to death most tart, no kind of pain I have denied,
but suffered all, and all for this: Nolo mortem peccatoris.
Translated: "'I do not wish the death of the wicked'; These are the words of the Saviour." An allusion to John 3:17 and 2 Peter 3:9.
Latin–Italian macaronic verse
The term macaronic is believed to have originated in
Tifi and his contemporaries clearly intended to satirize the broken Latin used by many doctors, scholars and bureaucrats of their time. While this "macaronic Latin" (macaronica verba) could be due to ignorance or carelessness, it could also be the result of its speakers trying to make themselves understood by the vulgar folk without resorting to their speech.[4]
An important and unusual example of mixed-language text is the
Tifi's Macaronea was a popular success, and the writing of humorous texts in macaronic Latin became a fad in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly in Italian, but also in many other European languages. An important Italian example was Baldo by Teofilo Folengo, who described his own verses as "a gross, rude, and rustic mixture of flour, cheese, and butter".[5][6]
Other mixed-language lyrics
Macaronic verse is especially common in cultures with widespread
When I came down to Glasgow first,
a-mach air Tìr nan Gall.
I was like a man adrift,
air iomrall 's dol air chall.
[...]
translation:
When I came down to Glasgow first,
down to the Lowlands (lit. "out to the land of foreigners").
I was like a man adrift,
astray and lost.
Folk and popular music of the
Some
Macaronic verse was also common in
Unintentional macaronic language
Occasionally language is unintentionally macaronic. One particularly famed piece of schoolyard Greek in France is Xenophon's line "they did not take the city; but in fact they had no hope of taking it" (οὐκ ἔλαβον πόλιν· άλλα γὰρ ἐλπὶς ἔφη κακά, ouk élabon pólin; álla gàr elpìs éphē kaká). Read in the French manner, this becomes Où qu'est la bonne Pauline? A la gare. Elle pisse et fait caca. ('Where is Pauline the maid? At the [railway] station. She's pissing and taking a shit.')[12][13]
Modern macaronic literature
Prose
Macaronic text is still used by modern Italian authors, e.g. by Carlo Emilio Gadda and Beppe Fenoglio. Other examples are provided by the character Salvatore in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, and the peasant hero of his Baudolino. Dario Fo's Mistero Buffo ("Comic Mystery Play") features grammelot sketches using language with macaronic elements.
The 2001 novel
Macaronic games are used by the literary group
Macaronisms figure prominently in The Trilogy by the Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, and are one of the major compositional principles for James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake.
In Michael Flynn's science fiction novels of the Spiral Arm series, a massive interplanetary exodus from all Earth language groups has led to star system settlements derived from random language and culture admixtures. At the time of the novels' setting, several hundred years later, each planet has developed a macaronic pidgin, several of which are used for all the dialogs in the books.
The Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie's second book bears a cross-lingual pun as its title, Priests de la Résistance.
Poetry
Two well-known examples of non-humorous macaronic verse are
An example of modern humorous macaronic verse is the anonymous English/Latin poem Carmen Possum ("The Opossum's Song"), which is sometimes used as a teaching and motivational aid in elementary Latin language classes. Other similar examples are The Motor Bus by A. D. Godley, and the anonymous Up I arose in verno tempore.
Ezra Pound's The Cantos makes use of Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Italian, among other languages.
Recent examples are the mużajki or 'mosaics' (2007) of Maltese poet Antoine Cassar[17] mixing English, Spanish, Maltese, Italian, and French; works of Italian writer Guido Monte;[18] and the late poetry of Ivan Blatný combining Czech with English.[19]
Brian P. Cleary's "What Can I C'est?" makes use of macaronic verse, as do other poems in his book Rainbow Soup: Adventures in Poetry:
My auntie Michelle is big in the BON
(As well as the hip and the thigh).
And when she exhales, OUI haul out our sails
And ride on the wind of VERSAILLES.
A whole body of comic verse exists created by John O'Mill, pseudonym of Johan van der Meulen, a teacher of English at the Rijks HBS (State Grammar School), Breda, the Netherlands. These are in a mixture of English and Dutch, often playing on common mistakes made when translating from the latter to the former.
Theatre
The finale of act 1 of
First, the three lords mix Italian and Latin phrases into their discussion of Iolanthe's age:
Lord Mountararat: This gentleman is seen, / With a maid of seventeen, / A-taking of his dolce far niente...
Lord Chancellor: Recollect yourself, I pray, / And be careful what you say- / As the ancient Romans said, festina lente...
Lord Tolloller: I have often had a use / For a thorough-bred excuse / Of a sudden (which is English for repente)...
Lord Mountararat: Now, listen, pray to me, / For this paradox will be / Carried, nobody at all contradicente...
Then, the chorus of peers sing macaronic verse as they attempt to resist the fairies' powers:
Our lordly style you shall not quench with base canaille! (That word is French.)
Distinction ebbs before a herd of vulgar plebs! (A Latin word.)
Twould fill with joy and madness stark the oι πoλλoί! (A Greek remark.)
One Latin word, one Greek remark, and one that's French.
Film
"Macaronisms" are frequently used in films, especially comedies. In Charlie Chaplin's anti-war comedy The Great Dictator, the title character speaks English mixed with a parody of German (e.g. "Cheese-und-cracken"). This was also used by Benzino Napaloni, the parody character of Benito Mussolini, using Italian foods (such as salami and ravioli) as insults.
Other movies featuring macaronic language are the Italian historical comedies
Song
A macaronic song is one that combines multiple languages. Macaronic songs have been particularly common in Ireland (Irish–English)[21][22][23] and also occur for other languages, such as Yiddish–Ukrainian.[24]
Macaronic language appearing in popular songs include
See also
- List of macaronic languages
- Blinkenlights, a macaronic (German/English) warning sign
- "Boar's Head Carol", Christmas carol in English/Latin language
- Contemporary Latin
- Creole language
- Dog Latin
- Faux Cyrillic
- Hiberno-Latin
- Loanword
- Lorem ipsum, scrambled Latin used as a placeholder text in print/media
- Mater si, magistra no
- Nadsat, a fictional English/Russian language, from the novel A Clockwork Orange
- Phono-semantic matching
- Pidgin
- Surzhyk
- Timor mortis conturbat me
- UEFA Champions League Anthem
- National anthem of South Africa
References
Notes
- ^ "Macaronic". Oxford Dictionary of English. Archived from the original on 22 October 2015.
- ^ "Definition of Macaronic". dictionary.reference.com. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
- ^ Fran Hamilton. "LinguaPhile online magazine, September 2007". Porticobooks.com. Archived from the original on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
- ^ Giorgio Bernardi Perini. "Macaronica Verba. Il divenire di una trasgressione linguistica nel seno dell'Umanesimo" (PDF). fondazionecanussio.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 December 2008.
- ^ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford University Press (1996)
- ^ "Teofilo Folengo in The Catholic Encyclopedia". Newadvent.org. 1 September 1909. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
- ^ "BBC Learning - Primary - Tune in". Archived from the original on 25 April 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
- ^ "Saʿdi". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
- ^ "Hafez iii. Hafez's Poetic Art". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
- ^ "Rhetorical Figures". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
- ISBN 9780670082360.
- ^ Arbre d'Or eBooks. "Pluton ciel que Janus Proserpine...". (in French)
- ^ Genette, Gérard & al. Palimpsests, p. 41.
- ISBN 0-09-928462-6)
- ISBN 0803270291.
- ^ Byron, George. "Maid of Athens". readytogoebooks.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
- ^ Grech, Marija. "Mosaics: A symphony of multilingual poetry" Archived 28 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine, The Daily Star (Kuwait), 25 August 2007
- ^ "see for ex". Wordswithoutborders.org. August 2004. Archived from the original on 12 June 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
- Contemporary Poetry Review, 2008.
- ^ "W.S.Gilbert - Iolanthe, ACT I". stagebeauty.net. Archived from the original on 25 April 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
- ISBN 978-1-5381-1228-1.
- ISBN 978-1-139-44600-6.
- ISBN 978-0-472-13194-5.
- ISBN 978-0-8143-2669-5.
- ^ "林俊傑 JJ Lin【】官方完整版 MV" – via www.youtube.com.
Bibliography
- Gosse, Edmund William (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). p. 192.
- Posen, I. Sheldon. "English-French Macaronic Songs in Canada – A Research Note and Query in Folksongs". celat.ulaval.ca. Archived from the original on 14 September 2008.