Colunas>Marcelo Carneiro da Cunha
|
19 de abril de 2011
|
15:00

Lieber Señor Carrion. Est-ce que you are pazzo?

Por
Sul 21
[email protected]

How on Earth did you come to the fabulous idea of prohibiting the use of foreign words in the brave state of Rio Grande do Sul?

I understand that since you are a member of that glorious and jurassic Communist Party of Brazil, comprehension of contemporary reality may not be a major part of your brain capability. But, wasn’t there anything better to do with your, mine, everyone’s time? Particularly with the very expensive time of our brave State Representatives?

Shouldn’t you be trying to occupy banks and denounce the Capitalist system? Why bother with language?

Verstehen Sie wie bedeutungslos das wirklich ist, und so, warun haben Sie etwas so unnötig getan? Perché?

No hay como compreender la oposicion tan intensa a idiomas estranjeros de parte de un digno representante de un grupo defensor de una ideologia completamente estranjera, no?

Or is it Marxism Brazilian-conceived, and born? I don’t think so, and I am sure our readers are very much aware of that very basic fact: that most things in life and on this planet, be it plants, animals, viruses, ideas and words, are at one moment or another foreign.

You remind me of my brave father, who was always complaining agains the “foreign music” I liked to listen to, meaning, of course, rock’and roll. But do you know what music HE listened to? Mozart, Nat King Cole, boleros, jazz. Brazilian, right?

I find it disturbing to see that not only you could find the time and energy to go for such useless and populist notions. It is scary to think that the State Council actually voted in favor of this utter nonsense. Haven’t you learned from time and experience?

The very language you supposedly defend, our brave Portuguese language, was Celt, Latin, Moor, Spanish, and now becomes increasingly Brazilian. Would you also forbid Brazilian words built into the Portuguese original form? Following your great leader Aldo Rebelo, you move toward the irrelevant faster than Albania moved into nowhere.

You, sad Policarpo Quaresmas of more complex years, do nothing but embarrass us, real people, living in a real, complex world.

Languages are like plants. Would you like to send coconut and mango trees back to where the Portuguese navigators brought them from? La busqueda por una imposible pureza lingüistica no es demasiado cercana de una busqueda por pureza ideológica, o peor, racial?

It’s as useless to rule on language as it is to rule on the law of gravity. Languages are just a representation of reality, and our reality is multilayered, multicultural, multi-lingual. Nothing I, you, or the Easter Bunny can do anything about, and why should we?

For someone who defends global poverty, it must be difficult to understand the vast wealth of interchange. Language is but a consequence of reality. If you want to change language, change reality. Which, in a global scale, may be a little over the head of our brave State Legislators, in all their might. If we want our language to be stronger, let’s make our country stronger. Which, by the way, is exactly what we are doing.

Using words in English, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, simply makes our life more interesting. Same as in food. But I guess Mr. Carrion eats only Albanian.

Brazil is a very Brazilian country, and I can guarantee that because I travel a lot. We have a beautiful language, which will preserve its place in our hearts and minds, without the need of Mr. Carrion or the brave legislators’ protection. Ignorance, dear readers, offers very little protection, against all illnesses.

Let’s just work more, and harder. Let’s make more movies, more books, better ones, in our language, in its constantly changing and evolving format.

But what am I saying? Asking for evolution to forces firmly stuck in an intangible past? How stupid of me.

Pas amusée.

Anauê.


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