Monday, November 11, 2013

Post-Modern Latin?

Someone on Facebook recently directed me to this blogpost:

http://thepaperthinhymn.com/2010/01/26/how-to-speak-post-modernism/

And I thought the following expression of post-modern gobbledygook was fun!:

We should listen to the intertextual, multivocalities of postcolonial others outside of Western culture in order to learn about the phallogocentric biases that mediate our identities.

Someone then asked me to translate this to Latin and such was a very enjoyable exercise. Remember, one must translate not what a text says, but what a text means, and post-moderns should be able to appreciate that distinction precisely because they're constantly on the look out for meaning.

Anyway, here's my rendition in Latin:

Exaudiamus oportet textus et voces et modos cogitandi alienorum extra mundum Europaeorum quo melius inclinationes nefandas, quibus iniuste feminarum viri dominentur et quibus nosmetipsos non recte intelligamus, discamus.

Now, what do we find when we translate back to English? Something a bit more intelligible:

It behooves us to listen to the texts, voices, and modes of thought of those outside the world of Europeans so that we may better learn the wicked inclinations by which men unjustly exercise power over women and by which we incorrectly understand ourselves.

And so, in the final analysis, postmodern discourse is just like Holy Mass and the other sacraments: It's better in Latin.

2 comments:

Patricius Oenus said...

Iocose scriptum! Melius sonat Latine. :-)

Cave tamen: Verbum enim dominandi tantum postulat casum genitivum cum de voce quae est rerum agatur, ceteroquin aut accusativum aut ablativum regit.

Maximilian Hanlon said...

Ergo, hic "feminas" melius dicitur?