hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2010-07-20

■ #449. Vendryes 曰く「言語は川である」 [language_change]

　昨日の記事[2010-07-19-1]に引き続き，Vendryes の言語観を示すもう一つの印象深い一節を引きたい．言語は無常で「ゆく河の流れは絶えずして」という趣旨である．

The construction of a written language marks a stopping-place in the development of language. The forms crystallize and ossify, losing the elasticity natural to life. It is an illusion, however, to imagine that language can ever be arrested. What gives this impression of arrest is the fact that an artificial language is superposed on the natural one; the discrepancy between the two, slight at first, becomes increasingly greater in the course of time, until eventually the contrast becomes so marked that there is a break. This creation of written language may be compared to the formation of a film of ice on the surface of a river. The ice borrows its substance from the river, it is indeed the actual water of the river itself---and yet it is not the river. A child, seeing the ice, thinks that the river exists no more, that its course has been arrested. But this is only an illusion. Under the layer of ice the water continues to flow down to the plain. Should the ice break, one sees the water suddenly bubble up as it goes gushing and murmuring on its way. This is an image of the stream of language. The written tongue is the film of ice upon its waters; the stream which still flows under the ice that imprisons it is the popular and natural language; the cold which produces the ice and would fain restrain the flood, is the stabilizing action exerted by the grammarians and pedagogues; and the sunbeam which gives language its liberty is the indomitable force of life, triumphing over rules and breaking the fetters of tradition. (275--76)

　ここでは，人工的な書き言葉と自然の話し言葉は多くの点で相反するものでありながら，両者が一体となって言語という川を構成しているという言語観が，川面に張った氷とその下を流れる流れの比喩で巧みに描写されている．規範によって固定化された氷層は水流による洪水を妨げる働きをするが，氷の下の水流そのものを止めることはできない．むしろ，氷が割れた隙間からは生き生きと水流のほとばしる有様が観察されるのであり，川の生と躍動が氷の下でこそ横溢しているのだという．気温その他の条件に応じて，氷が厚くなることもあれば，氷が溶けてなくなることもあるだろう．
　この比喩でいえば，ラテン語はさしずめ川底まで完全に氷の張った川と考えられる．中英語はところどころに薄氷が浮かんでいる川，現代標準英語はしっかりとした厚みのある氷が張っているが，実はその下は奔流といった川だろうか．
　[2010-06-01-1]の記事で触れたある学生の比喩的な「言語という鉄を溶かしたり固めたりする温度は何か？」という問いも思い出させる．

　・ Vendryes, J. Language: A Linguistic Introduction to History. Trans. Paul Radin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.

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