Europaloo - 7. London Bridge
>>Vorsicht an den Türen.<<
Dad, do you agree that people are actually still too stuck in one single language?
>>This is a Europaloo bound service.<<
Yes, I know, but shouldn’t we appreciate the cultural and societal arbitrariness of many of the words we use?
>>Une ligne babélique pour Europaloo.<<
All right, I am not going to argue with that, not on the phone at least, but a book written in many languages is written to everybody.
Europaloo?
If a book is just in one language, then it gives a wrong impression to the reader.
Da quando Europaloo? Pensavo fosse Waterloo?
No, that’s right, but they will think you can live all your life within a single-language world.
Sshh. Waterloo wird nicht mehr gebraucht.
Exactly, that’s no longer the case.
Que así sea.
And it won’t be possible for a while either.
Die Franzosen mochten es nicht.
Papà, non c’è bisogno che il libro sia in tutte le lingue europee: è possibile anche con solo due o tre, non trovi? Pensa quante combinazioni possibili!
Es bringt ihnen unangenehme Erinnerungen.
What will bookshops and libraries do to order the books?
Nun heißt es eben Europaloo.
Dad, they’ve always used a subdivision by subjects.
London nikogaš nemala kulturen, politicki ili bilo drug centar, iako sekogaš se obiduvaše da sozdade eden.
Papi, sie werden zurückschauen, und das monolinguistische Buch mit der Musik, die für ein einziges Instrument komponiert ist, vergleichen.
Europaloo e’ ben meglio. Un sondaggio dell’EU ha dimostrato che il 90% dei cittadini europei e tutti gli stati tranne uno preferiscono il nuovo nome.
Ne, unsere Seele ist ein verborgenes Orchester; ich weiß nicht, welche Instrumente, Geigen und Harfen, Pauken und Trompeten es in uns spielen und dröhnen lässt. Aber ich kenne mich nur als linguistische Symphonie.
When the name was changed, under an ad hoc EU commission directive, a huge shopping center was opened on top of a futuristic tower above the refurbished station, and a multimedia Babel-school was inaugurated underneath the shopping center.
Dad, we Europeans are caught in an awfully complex linguistic web, tied in lots of mutually entangled languages.
But it was not just the Babel-school at Europaloo which made Londoners conversant in foreign languages.
It doesn’t need to be dialogue only.
Ne, es war eher wegen der Billigfluggesellschaften. Lange Zeit gab es mehr Britische Leute auf Flugzeugen als in Großbritannien selbst.
You can have a narrating voice switching language according to the linguistic environment, and characters thinking in one language but speaking in another one.
>>Any unseen tickets?<<
We had badly overestimated the role of our language, which turns out to be pretty peripheral now that everybody understands everybody else.
Schon geseh’n. Schon geseh’n. [Wo hab ich’s denn verloren?]
Невозможно предсказать какое место литература будет занимать в будущем, если ей вообще будет там место.
Europa har i århundrer vært en idé, et håp om fred og forståelse.
We Europeans have wiped out linguistic diversity from North to South America, throughout Siberia and Australasia, and now we risk doing the same in Europe too!
Si, per via dei prezzi. La gente ha capito a poco a poco che conveniva spendere la vita sugli aerei piuttosto che nelle costosissime abitazioni del Regno Unito d’Europa.
Oui, je sais, però encara que hi ha moltes bases històriques pan-europees, no existeix cap narrativa veritablement unificadora.
Europeisk enhet har gjort fred og velstand mulig.
Dad, it’s not true that multiplying the number of languages in a book will divide the number of readers by that number. They are going to be four and a half anyway.
>>Questo è un treno della linea Babele a destinazione di Europaloo.<<
Papa ! C’est pas vrai : le déconcertement profond que l’on éprouvait quand j’étais un enfant dans un pays étranger…
>>Unfortunately, due to signal problems, this train will not be able to reach Europaloo, our intended destination. We are being redirected to London Bridge.<<
…est aujourd’hui complètement surmonté par la maîtrise de la langue qu’on a déjà quand on arrive là bas.
Was?
>>This is a Babel line service redirected to London Bridge. Apologies for any inconvenience that this change of schedule may have caused you.<<
What? The Spring Symphony performed by the Canterbury Choral Society?
>>Was hat das denn damit zu tun?<<
Quoi ? L’héritage?
Conducted by Richard Cooke? The Sea Symphony by Richard Cooke at Canterbury Cathedral?
>>E' di Benjamin Britten, pas de Richard Cooke!<<
Und wie geht man am besten von London Bridge nach Europaloo?
Weder Richard Cooke, noch Benjamin Britten, sondern Vaughan Williams.
Papà, tua figlia ha deciso di pubblicare un romanzo multilingue, che tu decida di diseredarla o meno. Chiaro?
Ja, stimmts, aber was ist schon die korrekte Aussprache von Vaughan Williams?
You can either take a Charing Cross bound South-Eastern train, or a Jubilee line, hoping that they are working all right.
>>This is London Bridge. Mind the doors.<<
Best of luck.
Qampas hinallataq.
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