I’m reading Eugene Vodolazkin’s 2012 novel Лавр in Lisa Hayden’s superb translation as Laurus, and I’ve come across a passage that seemed eminently Hatworthy. Our hero Arseny, a 15th-century village healer, has gotten enough renown for his success that his patients in Belozersk are giving him plenty of money (Christofer is the grandfather who raised him and taught him about healing herbs):
Arseny used the money to buy several small books that he chanced upon: they described the healing properties of herbs and stones. One of them was a doctor book from abroad, and Arseny paid the merchant Afanasy Flea, who had visited German lands, for a translation. Flea’s translation was extremely approximate, which limited opportunities for using the book. Arseny employed the book’s prescriptions only when they coincided with what he knew from Christofer.
By following along as the merchant read the unfamiliar symbols and translated the words they composed, Arseny grew interested in the correlations between languages. Thanks to the story of the confusion of tongues, Arseny knew of the existence of seventy-two world languages, but he had yet, in his whole life, to hear a single one of them beyond Russian. His lips moving, he repeated the unaccustomed combinations of sounds and words to himself, after Flea. When he learned their meanings, it surprised him that familiar things could be expressed in such an unusual and—this was the main thing—awkward way. At the same time, the multitude of opportunities for expression entranced and attracted Arseny. He tried to memorize correlations between Russian and German words, along with Flea’s pronunciation, which probably did not correspond to authentic German pronunciation.
The enterprising Flea quickly noticed Arseny’s interest and offered to give him German lessons. Arseny readily agreed. Essentially, these new lessons were nothing like the usual notions of teaching, because Afanasy Flea was unable to say anything intelligible about language in general. He had never thought about its structure and certainly did not know its rules. At first the lessons consisted of nothing more than the merchant reading more of the doctor book aloud and translating it. These language lessons differed from their previous translation sessions only because at the end of each section, Flea asked Arseny:
Got that?
This allowed the merchant to charge Arseny a double fee: for translation and for lessons. Arseny did not begrudge the money so he did not grumble. He valued Afanasy Flea as the only person in Belozersk familiar to any degree with speech from abroad. Understanding that he would achieve little by merely reading the doctor book, Arseny decided to make use of one of his instructor’s undeniable merits: Flea possessed a good ear and a tenacious memory.
During his time spent on lengthy trips in the land of Germany, Flea had mastered phrases to be uttered in various situations and could repeat those words when asked probing questions. Arseny described these situations for Flea and asked what to say in those cases. The merchant (this is so easy!) waved his hands around, surprised, and reported all the versions he had heard. Arseny wrote down what Flea said. When he was alone, he put his notes in order. He extracted the unfamiliar words from the expressions he heard from Flea and registered them in a special little dictionary.
I presume he will make use of this knowledge later in his travels. The novel is delightfully cavalier about historical accuracy (the author calls it «неисторический роман» — “an unhistorical novel”); there are occasional dips into the future (at one point someone quotes the Little Prince: “For what you have tamed, you become responsible forever”), and the language mingles Ye Olde Church Slavic with modern colloquialisms in a pleasing way which Hayden renders with perfect pitch (her equivalents for “бля” are a master class in themselves). She even comes up with a spectacular equivalent of the pun in “Корова (что в вымени тебе моем?)” (an allusion to the Pushkin poem “Что в имени тебе моём” ‘What is in my name for you,’ with в вымени ‘in udder’ substituted for в имени ‘in name’): “The cow (how shall I udder your name?).” Highly recommended!
The Russian original is below the cut:
На эти деньги Арсений по случаю купил несколько небольших книг, в которых описывались целебные свойства трав и камней. Одна из них была иноземным лечебником, и Арсений заплатил купцу Афанасию Блохе, ходившему в немецкие земли, за перевод. Перевод Блохи был весьма приблизительным, что ограничивало возможность использования книги. Полученные рецепты Арсений применял лишь тогда, когда они совпадали с тем, что он знал от Христофора.
Следя за тем, как купец читает незнакомые литеры и переводит составленные из них слова, Арсений заинтересовался соотношением языков. О существовании семидесяти двух мировых языков Арсений знал из истории столпотворения, но кроме русского, за всю жизнь не слышал пока ни одного. Шевеля губами, он про себя повторял за Блохой непривычные сочетания звуков и слов. Когда он узнавал их значение, его удивляло, что знакомые вещи можно выражать столь необычным, а главное – неудобным образом. Вместе с тем многообразие возможностей выражения Арсения завораживало и притягивало. Он старался запомнить и соотношение русских и немецких слов, и произношение Блохи, вряд ли соответствовавшее настоящему немецкому произношению.
Предприимчивый Блоха интерес Арсения немедленно заметил и предложил ему давать уроки немецкого. Арсений с готовностью согласился. Начавшиеся уроки были, в сущности, далеки от привычных представлений о преподавании, потому что о языке как таковом Афанасий Блоха ничего вразумительного сказать не мог. Он никогда не задумывался о его структуре и уж тем более не знал его правил. Первое время уроки сводились к тому, что купец продолжал читать лечебник вслух и переводить его. Отличие этих уроков от прежнего перевода состояло лишь в том, что по окончании каждой главки Блоха спрашивал у Арсения:
Понятно?
Это позволяло купцу брать с Арсения двойную плату – за перевод и за уроки. Арсений не роптал, потому что денег ему было не жаль. Он ценил Афанасия как единственного в Белозерске человека, в той или иной степени знакомого с иноземной речью. Понимая, что посредством чтения только лишь лечебника он достигнет немногого, Арсений решил использовать одно несомненное достоинство своего наставника: тот обладал хорошим ухом и цепкой памятью.
За время своих длительных поездок в Неметчину Блоха усвоил сочетания слов, произносимых в тех или иных ситуациях, и при наводящих вопросах мог эти слова повторить. Арсений описывал Блохе эти ситуации и спрашивал, что именно в таких случаях говорят. Купец (это же так просто!) удивленно взмахивал рукой и сообщал Арсению все услышанные им варианты. Сказанное Блохой Арсений записывал. Оставшись один, он приводил свои записи в порядок. Из слышанных от Блохи выражений он извлекал незнакомые слова и заносил их в особый словарик.
Thank you, Languagehat, for your post, I’m glad you’re enjoying Laurus! I was very fortunate that English offered, very quickly, a suitable pun for the Pushkin quote. I needed only to utter the English translation of Pushkin. I do not, however, remember what I did with “бля” — I make lots of these decisions either in the shower or staring out the window, running ideas through my head until something works. And then, of course, I forget what led to them in the first place. Which is probably for the best since each book and each voice presents its own demands.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the novel!
I’ve gotten to the halfway point and the appearance of the Italian guy who sees the future and is heading to Russia to learn about the end of the world, so the plot is thickening!
I’m always impressed by Hat’s ability to magically summon up the actual subjects of his posts like this.
Somewhat reminds me of my early days learning Kusaal … (though I was lucky to encounter some very much more sophisticated informants later.)
Wikipedia lists a fair number of people with the name Arseny, although I think the only one I was familiar with was Andrei Tarkovsky’s father. However, it seems to be a fairly ordinary name among eastern Christians, derived from the Greek ἀρσενικός, referring to manliness. However, it is not so common name on the West; the most notable American with a related name is Arsenio Hall, whose name must have been meditated through a western Romance language.
Not saying there’s no etymological connection with ἀρσενικός, but Russian Arseny is probably more directly from the name borne by quite a lot of saints that’s usually given in English as Arsenius or Arsenios. (Here’s a selection of bearers: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Arsenios_(disambiguation)). When my daughters were younger they were routinely at church with a slightly-older boy named Arsenije (the Serbian/Montenegrin variant: he was U.S.-born but his dad was from the former Yugoslavia), who is now all grown up and out of college.
This chap must be the most familiar one to Brits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars%C3%A8ne_Wenger
And obviously the team was named after him.
@J. W. Brewer: Yes, the longstanding use of the name among Orthodox Christians probably owes a lot to Saint* Arsenius the Deacon, who was a tutor to Byzantine princes when he was relatively young and an admired hermit when he was older.
* My sprachgefuhl is that the adjective for a name taken from a saint (analogous to theophoric or Biblical) ought to be sanctimonious.
Not to forget Arsène Lupin, of course.
sanctinomious would make more sense. Metathesis can kick in later.
In most European or European-derived cultures, the traditional stock of common given names overlaps so heavily with names of Christian saints that it seems otiose to have a special label for such names. This remained true into comparatively modern times even in predominantly Protestant cultures that did not enforce a “baptismal-name-must-be-that-of-a-saint” norm. So if you look at the ten most common given names for American males born in 1880 (the oldest cohort in the SSA’s database), you have: a) five where the saint’s-name angle would IMHO have been obvious/transparent to most Anglophones of the time (John, James, George, Joseph, Thomas); b) three where the predominant mental association for the name’s background would likely have been English royalty although there were saints of that name who had fallen into comparative obscurity in American culture (William, Charles, Henry); c) one which is borderline between the prior two categories (Edward, which is a “royal” name but where the fact that two pre-1066 kings of that name were recognized as saints was probably a key causal factor in that being the only pre-1066 name kept in rotation for post-1066 monarchs); and d) one where a saintly origin is possible but not very transparent (there’s nobody commonly referred to as “St. Frank,” but on at least one account “Frank” rose to popularity as a given name in the U.S. as a clipped form of “Francis”).
“I must be frank.”
– Emperor “Frank” Palpatine
Is there a St. Alan, BTW? There have long been French people named Alain. Not Norman(d), though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_of_Lavaur
And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_of_Quimper
I would have (instinctively) put George into the second category, because I would have thought the main division for Protestants was between names which come from the Bible and names which don’t. It seems to be for me, anyway!
The so-called Edward I was explicitly named after Edward the Confessor, but his son was probably just named after him…
@Jen: things may be otherwise up in Scotland due to the one-time severity of its Calvinism, but broad popular awareness of the association of England with St. George (thus making George more significant than the generic post-New-Testament saint) survived the Reformation south of the Border. Plenty of C of E parishes dedicated to St. George; plenty of taverns with George and the dragon on their signs … That association presumably made the fact that the not-very-English-seeming first Hanoverian monarch had been baptized Georg helpful from a PR standpoint.
St. Alanus/Alan/Alain/etc. of Quimper seems to be the earliest of that name, even if buzzkill types do claim that he might be historicity-challenged. There’s an old tradition that he may have come over to Brittany from the Brythonic-speaking parts of Britain, and he *may* be the same fellow for whom St. Allen in Cornwall with its namesake parish church (Eglosalan in Cornish) is named. Cornwall is full of old churches dedicated to old local saints about whom little is known and who often appear to lack a second church anywhere dedicated to them.
In Wales, too, it seems that you got to be a saint pretty much by building a church. Seems fair.
The English (a godless people) have adapted the tradition somewhat: you get to be a Lord by giving large amounts of money to the Conservative Party.
@David E.: I believe that a non-Tory PM of Welsh extraction was a key pioneer in developing that “English” tradition (or at least in making prior tradition “more systematic and more brazen”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honours_(Prevention_of_Abuses)_Act_1925#Lloyd_George_honours_scandal
I’m fond of St. Petrock; his name anyway.
New to me, and delightful; apparently he gave his name to Padstow and Little Petherick as well as the more obvious St Petrox.
French Wikipedia says that in Brittany he’s honored as « Perreux », « Pezrec », and « Pérec », the latter being a faux ami for the writer.
JWB: I see what you mean, but I still think it probably has more to do with Englishness than saintliness (even if he actually had more of the second than the first…)
Andrew then becomes an interesting test – but he’s a biblical figure, not the kind of saint made by a pope. There have never been many Mungos or Columbas or Ninians about – plenty of Margarets, to be fair, but there we’re back to being royal as well as saintly.
(I am always mildly surprised by the number of CoE parishes of St Andrew. But they tend to fly the saltire, which is nice.)
St. Petrock is, no doubt, the patron saint of evanescent novelties.
@Jen: Maybe not too many Scottish boys named Mungo (or Moluag, more’s the pity), but if you look at the names of early kings of Scotland which (in Anglicized form) remain part of the common stock of boys’ names in Anglophone societies, Donald, Duncan, and Kenneth all correspond to attested Celtic saints (and of course Constantine to an attested non-Celtic saint …). There does not seem to have been a St. Malcolm, but the etymology is something like “follower/disciple of Columba.” I don’t know how well-known those saints were to ordinary Scots in pre-Reformation times. Now, it is perhaps unlikely that modern Anglophone parents who name a son Kenneth have the 6th-century St. Cainnech in mind, but it is also perhaps unlikely that modern Russian parents who name a son Arseny have any of the antique saints of that name in mind.
J.W. Brewer said “ I don’t know how well-known those saints were to ordinary Scots in pre-Reformation times….”
Even if those saints were popular in pre-Reformation Scotland, it wouldn’t necessarily have been reflected in the popularity of names if people in Scotland followed the custom found in many countries of naming a child after a saint commemorated on the child’s birthday.
The number of churches, guilds, etc. under a given saints patronage would be another way to gauge a saint’s popularity before the Reformation ( as it would be today, in Catholic countries.)
Now, this is ridiculous. Arseniy the man is from a Greek word for a man; arsenal the armory is from Arabic “dar as-sina’ah”, a workshop; arsenic the element is from Persian “zarnik”, gold-colored; arson the burning is from Latin “ardere”, to burn. And English arse has always been English, back to PIE.
And arras the wall hanging is from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrebates
(which seems to be cognate with Welsh adref “home.” The Homies.)
And arris ‘the sharp edge formed by the meeting of two flat or curved surfaces’ is from Middle French areste ‘ear of corn.’
but it is also perhaps unlikely that modern Russian parents who name a son Arseny have any of the antique saints of that name in mind.
I dunno. Arseniy is a relatively rare name nowadays to my knowledge, and if there is no tradition of naming boys that way in the family, I’d say the chance that a priest or a calendar with names of Saints had some input in naming someone with that name is relatively high. Maybe the native Russian speakers here can confirm or correct my gut feeling on this matter.
David E reminded me of Oor Hamlet, and once again two threads unite…
When Laertes heard his dad had been stabbed through the arras
He came runnin’ back to Elsinore tout suite hot-foot from Paris
There is also St. Mary, who is both biblical and royal, though Protestants would not give her that title. In Ill Bethisad, St. Mary’s Cathedral in Philadelphia (capital of the North American Union) is the third-largest cathedral dome in the world, after those in London and Rome: a low musicological jest.