Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  To confirm what I have said above, note that the profoundest of all philosophers, the most penetrating investigators of the truth, and those most capable of taking things in at a glance,1 were expressly remarkable and singular also for their imaginative faculty and heart, were distinguished by a decidedly poetic bent and genius, and gave egregious proof of this either in their writings or through the actions or sufferings of life that proceed from imagination and sensibility, or by all these things together. Of the ancients, Plato, the profoundest, most wide-ranging and sublime of all ancient philosophers, who ardently desired to conceive of a system that would embrace all existence and make sense of all nature, was, in his style, inventions, etc., a poet in this sense, as everyone knows. See Fabricius under “Plato.”2 Of the moderns, Descartes, Pascal, who at the end of his life almost went mad as a result of the force of his imagination; Rousseau, Madame de Staël, etc.3 (23 August, having heard of the death of Pope Pius VII which was on 20th of this month, 1823.)4

  [3246] To those few Latin monosyllables I have collected elsewhere [→Z 1129ff.], add pax [peace], a word that expresses a thing which ought to be one of the first or most ancient to be named; whence pacare [to pacify], pacisci [to make a covenant], pactum [covenant], etc. The corresponding Greek term is trisyllabic: εἰρήνη. The same may be said of nex [violent death], whence also neco [to kill], eneco [to kill off], etc. (23 Aug. 1823.)

  For p. 3235. Placeo es [to please]–placo as [to placate]. Placeo also has Placito as. Note that this placo comes from a verb of the second not the third conjugation. Convivo is–convivo as [to live together] and convivor aris [to banquet]. Convitare [to invite to dinner], and combidar (French convier), almost convictare, is a regular continuative of convivo is–convictus. If, however, it was not a corrupt version or sibling (in the sense of being common to all three daughter languages, as you can see) of invito as [to invite], where does this verb come from? From vita [life], perhaps? Or is it perhaps a continuative of the irregular continuative inviso is–invisus [to visit], almost invisare with the s changed into t, in the same way that these two letters are exchanged not infrequently in participle forms (fixus–fictus, etc.), or is it a different inflection of inviso is itself, and more regular? Moreover, if not convivo is, then certainly the simple vivo is [to live] perhaps has the regular continuative form victo as, and certainly the frequentative victito. Then see the Glossary, if it has anything on the things mentioned above. (23 Aug. 1823.) See. p. 3289.

  [3247] It is a well-known fact that human languages vary according to climate.1 It should be equally well known that the difference in character between languages corresponds to a difference in character of pronunciation, i.e., the sound of each language considered generally. So a language with harsh sounds has an austere character and spirit, a language with soft sounds a soft, delicate character, a language that is still coarse has a coarse pronunciation and rhythm, and as the character of the language and diction becomes more civilized, it grows softer and is cleansed, and as the language itself becomes more refined and regular and is perfected, the general pronunciation and sound lose their coarseness too, become gentler, are mitigated and softened. It should be equally well known, too, that as the character of the language corresponds to that of the pronunciation, so the characters of pronunciations correspond to the natures of the climates, and hence to the physical qualities of the men who live in those climates, and to the moral qualities which proceed from the physical ones and correspond to them. This is why in northern climes, where men hardened by the cold, suffering, and hardship of providing for their own needs in lands that [3248] are naturally barren and under iniquitous skies, and strengthened also by the cold temperature of the air, are physically more robust than they are elsewhere, and more courageous in spirit and swifter of hand, the pronunciations are more forceful and energetic than elsewhere, and require great spirit, like the pronunciation of German, which is full of aspirates, and in order to pronounce it, it feels as though as much breath as a man can fill his lungs with is required, hence to us Italians, in hearing it spoken by native speakers, it sounds like it requires huge effort to speak it, or as though they have to use great force of lungs. The opposite is true of the languages in southern climes, where men are soft by nature and inclined to be lazy and otiose, and gentle of mind, and desirous of pleasures, and less vigorous physically than agile and lithe. Hence force is a characteristic of, e.g., German pronunciation, and softness and delicacy of Italian pronunciation, no less than they are of their respective languages. Given that such properties of one language relative to another are to be found in the languages themselves, it follows absolutely, considering each language in its own right, that delicacy and softness are prized in the Italian tongue, for instance; [3249] which is why the person writing or speaking Italian whose language (both in terms of style, combination of words, and pronunciation) is more delicate or softer than that of other Italians (save for where those qualities go beyond the boundaries which in all things separate what is fitting from what is excessive, with respect both to the language itself and the subject being dealt with), is praised more than other Italians, precisely because Italian is softer and more delicate than other languages. On the other hand, among Germans the speaker or writer whose language appears to be more forceful than that of other Germans receives greater praise, for German outstrips all others in terms of force, and its character is force, as opposed to softness: nor is softness a virtue in its own right, even in Italian, but in it, compared to other languages, it is a quality rather than a virtue, hence in the speaker and writer of Italian it becomes a virtue, not as softness per se, but as proper to and characteristic of Italian. Thus, as nations become more civilized, and physically more delicate than the primitive ones were, greater [3250] delicacy of form also became a virtue among human beings, not because delicacy is virtuous in itself—for in fact the respective delicacy of forms were certainly held to be failings and shortcomings among primitive men, or to be the cause of such forms receiving less praise—but merely because physical delicacy today, contrary to the laws of nature, and contrary to the welfare and destiny of human life, has become proper to, and characteristic of, civilized nations and persons. See pp. 3084–90. Hence those Germans were greatly deceived (and were censured by Mme. de Staël in De l’Allemagne)1 who sought to soften their language in the belief that they would make themselves more praiseworthy than other Germans if they spoke and wrote it more softly than they did, and that softness, if they could produce it in the German tongue, would bring to it great merit, contrary to the nature, and contrary to the character of the language which is forceful, and which requires such force in the writer and speaker as does not exceed the boundaries for the quality of this language, and the quality of the particular matters treated in it, and which by the same token excludes softness from the German language as vice and not merit, on the grounds that it is contrary to its nature.

  [3251] To return to my proposition, then, as I have said, these proportional relationships between the different natures of climates and the different characters of the respective pronunciations and spirits of languages must be well-known facts, as are the forms of these relationships, i.e., the way in which the climate works on languages and how properties of climate give rise to properties of pronunciations and languages. But perhaps it will not always have been equally well observed that as different characters of pronunciation and language have been found in the same climate and country in different periods of history, such differences always corresponded to the physical qualities of the men who used each of those pronunciations and languages, one after the other, which physical qualities varied according to the different moral, political, religious, intellectual, etc. circumstances found in different generations in the same climate and country. Thus, although the southern climate naturally inspires softness in the character of pronunciation and sounds, the sound of Greek, however, and that of the Roman language, certainly much softer than the sound of the [3252] northe
rn languages at the time, and than it is now, was much less delicate and more forceful than what is heard today in the new language of Latium and of Rome and Italy.1 And this for no other immediate, physical reason than because, given their moral and political circumstances and their lifestyle and customs, the ancient Greeks and Romans (as is testified by thousands of other signs and indications) were much stronger physically than modern Italians are. The very pronunciation of modern French (and that of other languages) has become softer along with the customs of the nation, as Voltaire, etc., says, for at one time it was pronounced as today it is written, etc.2 Thus it is that since French pronunciation, because of the geographical position and natural quality of its climate, which is half northern and half southern, has almost as much of the southern pronunciations as it does of the northern ones (albeit tending more to the South), and is a balance between one group and the other and forms a link between them (you may see pp. 2989–91), so too does the character of Greek and Latin pronunciations hold, I would not go so far as to say precisely the middle ground between northern and southern, but that between the character of the Italian pronunciation, which is one extreme of the modern southern pronunciations, and the absolute extreme in terms of softness; and that of the least harsh of the northern pronunciations and the one which [3253] comes closest to being soft and is the most extreme of the northern pronunciations in this sense, the closest to the southern pronunciations. Or we might say, perhaps, that Greek and Latin pronunciations are in the middle between the Italian, which is the most southern, and French, which is neither properly southern nor northern. The Oriental languages, modern Greek, Turkish, the savage and native languages of America below the equator, which are spoken and written in climates a great deal more southern than those of Italy or Spain, are nonetheless much less soft than Italian or Spanish are, and even than some of the northern European ones. This is because of the uncouthness or acquired barbarity of the peoples that use or used them, because of their harsh and cruel customs, etc., whether such languages are considered to be ancient or modern. (23 Aug. 1823.)

  A language that is strictly universal,1 whatever language it might be, would certainly and necessarily by its very nature be the most slavish, impoverished, timid, monotonous, uniform, arid, and ugly tongue, the most incapable of any kind of beauty, the most inappropriate to the imagination and the least dependent on it, indeed in every way the most separated from it, the most bloodless, inanimate, and dead, that could ever be conceived; a skeleton, a shadow of a language rather than a real language; a language that would not be living, even if it were written by all and understood universally, indeed it would be a great deal more dead than any language that is no longer spoken or written. But one may also hope that, merely because men generally have already become subjects of reason, infirm, impotent, inert, abased, discouraged, languid, and wretched, they shall never become slaves, moribund and enthralled [3254] to geometry. And in this sense, so far as a strictly universal language of any kind is concerned, one may not so much hope, as firmly and confidently predict, that the world shall never become geometricized,1 no less than one may affirm with equal certainty that it has never had such a language, save, perhaps, for when men were so few and so limited in terms of country, and did not vary at all in their opinions, customs, usage, rites, government, and life, that language was universal only because there was no more than one nation of men, at least speaking men, hence the language was universal because there was but one in the world, nor had any other language been heard, and there was and had ever been only one language, because there had been only one nation up to that time, or if nothing else, only one nation which had use and knowledge of language. (23 August 1823.)

  What I have said above, that a strictly universal language would have to be by its very nature but a shadow of a language rather than a language proper, is even more, indeed precisely, applicable to that characteristic language proposed among others by our own Soave (in his Riflessioni intorno [3255] all’istituzione d’una lingua universale, a short work printed in Rome, then recast by the author and included in the 2nd Appendix to chapter 11 of the 3rd Book of Locke’s Saggio filosofico su l’umano intelletto summarized by Dr. Wynne, translated and annotated by Francesco Soave, 2nd tome, under the title Saggio sulla formazione di una lingua universale), which language or manner of signs is not intended to represent words but ideas, or rather some of the inflections of these words (such as those of verbs) as inflections or modifications of ideas more than of words, and without any relation to the sound pronounced, or any signification or denotation of it.1 This would not be language, for language is nothing other than ideas being signified by means of words. It would be a form of writing, nor even that, for writing represents words and language, and where there is neither language nor words, neither can there be writing. It would be, rather, a third kind, in the same way that gestures are neither language nor writing, but different from both one and the other. We may confidently and assuredly believe that such an algebraic form of language (let us give it this name) [3256] which has been justly recognized as that manner of signs which may least impossibly be described as strictly universal, has never in fact been formed or instituted, let alone divulged and used. I would add, moreover, that it would not strictly speaking be universal, for it would leave all nations with their own language, as French does at present. It would also be proper to only the learned and the cultured. But the property of the learned and cultured is what French also is today. So what use would such a language be? A language that might be no easier to learn in childhood than French is, which is learned very easily and commonly in childhood. And of all the advantages that might be obtained from this chimerical language, all of them, and many more and greater advantages, would be obtained from French and perhaps more easily, which would become, if it needed to, even more commonly studied and cultivated than it already is.

  As for a genuinely [3257] universal language, then, that is one which without study and from earliest childhood is understood and spoken by all nations as their own—leaving aside all the accidental and extrinsic but absolutely completely insurmountable impossibilities which everyone is familiar with and readily acknowledges—I say that such a language is impossible also because of its proper and absolute nature, even if the men who used it were not, as they are, formed differently in terms of speech organs, etc., and all the other natural reasons which make languages different. With the result that, even if every obstacle were overcome, and some language, by impossible hypothesis, were to become universal in the manner described above, its universality would not under any circumstances be able to endure, and men would soon return to varying in language, because of the very nature of that universal tongue, where the conditions themselves that made it suited to be universal would be in express contradiction to the durability of its universality and would formally exclude it. Hence a language that was suited to being strictly universal, as [3258] I have shown at length elsewhere [→Z 3253–54], must by its nature be utterly servile, impoverished, with no boldness whatever, with no variety, enslaved to a very few, very strict and precise rules, in trespassing beyond which or outside which neither the character nor form of this language could in any way be retained, but a different language entirely would be spoken. Nor without a good part or at least an approximation of these qualities and each one of them could French have attained the level of universality which, broadly speaking, we now see in it. Nor could it keep itself at that level, even if it did manage to attain it momentarily, as Greek did at one point. For these qualities indispensably require a lasting, if not absolute or strict, universality of language. Now a language thus formed and constituted, and provided with such qualities to the utmost degree (as one would look for in a strictly universal language), by virtue of these same qualities would, within a very short space of time, be corrupted and distorted [3259] to such an extent that it would no longer be itself; as I have shown of such nonfree languages elsewhere [→Z 1048–49, 2057–59, 2068�
��69] with the example (among others) of Latin, which, like every other such language we know of, however servile, was and is a long way from having these qualities to the utmost degree, as would necessarily be required of a language that was expected to be strictly and enduringly universal. Thus the same conditions which on the one hand would cause the proper, or rather the precise, and enduring universality of a language, without which such universality would not be possible, on the other hand, and at the same time, by their very nature make total corruption and mutation of this language absolutely inevitable and inevitably rapid. Hence without them no strict universality of language can subsist, nor any universality endure, as has been shown elsewhere [→Z 838ff.]. And similarly, if they are present, neither strict universality nor the proper state of language may endure. For this reason it is clear that a language, in necessarily being corrupted and changing [3260] entirely, necessarily also loses its proper state, that is, its form, properties, character, and nature. And as far as strict universality is concerned, again given that if a language is corrupt in just the one nation, it is corrupt in the same way, so that however changed it is from what it was before, it is the only one in that nation, and common to all. It is physically impossible for it to happen, and absurd to suppose, that one and the same language, in being corrupted among many and different nations, and being changed entirely from what came before, even if corrupted to the same degree in all places, and following the same path everywhere at the same time, could remain one and one alone among all those nations together. Corruption knows no law, and that form of corruption which is born of excessive servility and circumscription of a language knows even less, and is blinder than any other, nor, where there is no rule or reciprocal convention or consensus (which would be contrary to the nature of corruption of a language) or conformity of circumstance, can there be universality. Which, if it is virtually impossible in one nation alone, united and made one by continuous exchange and [3261] so many other circumstances, how much more impossible would it be among many nations, for how much exchange would they have between them, so separate and different from each other! And indeed, we have seen how different the corruption of Latin was in the different nations to which it spread, to the point of producing completely distinct and separate and separately regulated and constituted languages, which are still spoken today. And this despite the fact that Latin was not as servile, etc., as one would necessarily suppose a strictly universal language to be. It is therefore proven that a strictly universal language, by virtue of those same conditions whereby it would become, and by which alone it would be able to become universal, and without which its universality would be able to last but a momentary period of time, by virtue, I repeat, of these same conditions, in being corrupted, that language would immediately divide into different languages because of this corruption and hence because of those same conditions, which naturally and necessarily occasioned it, and consequently would lose its [3262] universality, the endurance of which would be made impossible by those very conditions that are indispensably required for such endurance.