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Metaphorically Speaking
One of my hobbies is physics. I have a special interest in the origin and evolution of our universe, including the period of “inflation” immediately following the Big Bang. For non-science readers, “inflation” refers to a very brief and very rapid expansion of the universe from its very small (nuclear-scale) beginning.
When I was asked to contribute an essay on belonging, my ancestral language, Lithuanian, evoked an image of cosmic inflation. Learning Lithuanian as a child expanded my personal universe and contained elemental forces that draw me back to a historical homeland. Looking back at the experience, I’ve concluded:
- Culture and a sense of identity were inseparable from language.
- Learning a language (how and when) left a lifelong imprint in what I feel and how I express myself.
- The “experience” of one language provided a valid basis for moving between languages, such as in translation.
Before expanding on these conclusions and the physics metaphor, I should digress a bit into my own life.
The Backstory
During a casual email exchange with a Lithuanian colleague, I asked which languages his young daughter spoke. My friend replied that his daughter was two-and-a-half years old and spoke only Lithuanian. It dawned on me that when I was two and a half, I too only spoke Lithuanian.
My parents were Lithuanian emigres to the U.S. following the Second World War. We spoke Lithuanian at home and were part of an active Lithuania-American community in New Britain, Connecticut. My family and my family’s social circle maintained Lithuanian customs and took part in local Lithuanian events. On Saturdays, I attended Lithuanian school, though, admittedly, I was a poor weekend student who was much more interested in playing with friends.
Over the years, I retained the basics of my homegrown Lithuanian and was a reasonably fluent speaker, though my phrases often contained anglicized words and expressions. In hindsight, some of the anglicisms were humorous; others are too embarrassing to repeat. Obviously, I learned English growing up. I also mastered French during my college years.
I cared enough about my Lithuanian heritage that in the prime of my career I spent a summer and formally studied Lithuanian at the Baltic Summer Studies Language Institute (BALSSI). I was very fortunate to have an excellent instructor, Daiva Litvinskaitė, PhD, with whom I remain friends. BALSSI provided me with a formal foundation in grammar and a new level of fluency.
I’ve enjoyed a bit of success as a writer in English and to a lesser extent, as a bilingual writer and translator – or more accurately, as a writer who expresses himself in his first language to himself. I find myself thinking and speaking to myself in Lithuanian as if to make a point to a native speaker in Vilnius or Kaunas or Alytus.
Language and Translation
My skills as a translator are modest, which could be the reason I don’t dwell so much on literal meaning or grammatical accuracy or the recreation of a poetic rhythm. Perhaps it’s my background as a student of history, but I often approach translation as a challenge in “understanding” (verstehen as some of the great German historians would put it).
Consider the final stanza of one of my favorite poems, “Nuo Birutės Kalno” (“From Birutė’s Hill”) by Maironis. The Catholic faith was essential to Maironis’s view of himself and his Lithuanian identity. That said, I’m continually struck by a sense of a global humanity in his writings.
In “From Birutė’s Hill,” Maironis expresses a profound longing for a human connection and companionship. He needs something worldly and intimate to counterbalance God and His majestic creation. Consider the final stanza:
Trokštu draugo arčiau: juo tikėti galiu;
Jis kaip audrą nujaus mano sielos skausmus;
Paslapties neišduos savo veidu tamsiu
Per amžius paliks, kaip ir aš neramus.
For whatever reasons, this poem, especially the last lines, resonated with me, and my translation focused on expressing that vibration of the soul.
What I need is a soulmate; someone I can trust;
Like the tempest, he’ll feel the ache inside my soul;
His face won’t betray my secrets, and he must
Like me, stay restless until time itself grows old.
Stardust in the Multiverse
Returning to my original metaphor, Lithuanian “jump-started” the expansion of my personal universe. The language contained the smell and taste of kugelis, the sound of childhood folk songs, the touch of polished wood in the church pews at the community Lithuanian-American church, and the colors on Easter eggs. The echoes of my first language remained with me through time.
To a lesser degree, I have the same reaction when I translate French. The physical memories and emotions that I felt when learning the language are embedded in how I convey what an author wrote and intended to say in French. Learning and using a language defined how I understand and express myself and someone else, for example, the author of a piece to be translated.
Aš Irgi Lietuvis
Years ago, at a poetry reading in Vilnius, Kornelijus Platelis introduced me to some audience members as a Lithuanian who lives in the US. Whether or not we agree intellectually with his interpretation of ethnic identity, at that moment l felt Lithuanian. I have that same emotion when I move from English to Lithuanian as a writer or translator.
It may be that my perspective is too subjective and limited. It may be that I do a disservice to the objective meaning of words and assume too much about someone’s thoughts and emotions in another language. On the other hand, perhaps I make the purist connection of all and the most meaningful rendition of another voice.
