One is sooner a linguist by knowing a little about many languages than by
knowing one language very well in particular. After all, otherwise everyone
would be a linguist. I know two languages well (English and Dutch), a few
more not very (French, German, Swedish); my Latin is non-existent without a
dictionary (though fairly reasonable with - I know the rules), and I know a
very little bit about Italian, Japanese, and Finnish.
 
What would make me a linguist are having studied and read books about
Cognitive Linguisticts, Discourse Analysis, Generative Grammar, Intonation,
Phonetics, etc. It is not knowing a language, but knowing how to look at a
language. Pound is a linguist for the way he lookes at language: like a
scientist - there is ample evidence of his doing so in the literature and
in his writings, including a little essay of my own on my T.S. Eliot site
(http://people.a2000.nl/avanarum/ choose Articles On, and then The Serious
Artist)..
 
Oh what a shameless plug. Sorry about that. ;-)
 
Arwin.
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Leon Surette <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 4:55 PM
Subject: Pound as Linguist
 
 
>I can't resist this temptation.
>
>Tim Redman wrote:
>>I'm not sure that Jonathan Gill is correct when he says "Pound was
>>not a linguist."  His Latin was excellent; he possessed near-native
>>fluency in Italian and close to that in French and Spanish; his
>>Chinese became rather good by the '50s and his Greek and German were
>>adequate.
>
>        All the Italian speaking correspondents who received letters or
>articles from Pound found his Itlian to be "picturesque," "idiosyncratic,"
>or sometimes "incomprehansible." It must be admited that some
>English-speaking correspondents also found his letters incomprehensible,
so
>perhaps one shoud discount the last epithet.
>        Tim;s Italian is much better than mine, but what I have heard
>ofPoundspeaking Italian could hardly be described as "near native
flueney."
>        I agree with Jonathan Gill that Pound's linguistic aptitude was
not
>much better than average--though his motivation and industry in learning
>foregn languages was, of course, muc above average. Pound himself admitted
>in a letter--whose provenance I have forgotten for the moment--that his
>Latin was adequateat best. His Greek was essentially non-existent. His
>comand of French was better than any other language--not surprising given
>his early study of Provencal, and long association with French letters. I
>have not heard any recording of him speaking French, but it is difficult
to
>imagie that he had a good accent. I don't know of much that would count as
>evidence for his command of Spanish--though he certainly did study it.
That
>language is notable for its absene from the Cantos
>Leon Surette                                    Home: 519-681-7787
>Dept. of English                                Fax:   519-661-3776
>The University of Western Ontario               Email:
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>London, Ontario
>N6A 3K7
>