Evolution of language during my lifetime
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I’ve been reading a book, “Semantic Antics,” by Sol Steinmetz, that traces the change of meanings for a number of interesting English words from as early as 800 AC to the present time. Amazing, for instance, to learn that a word like “nice” originally had a meaning that was opposite to its current one.
When we think of changes of meaning we normally think of the pace of centuries, but it really goes on in a person’s lifetime. (There is an analogy here with the evolution of finches which was thought to take thousands or even millions of years, but recent observations noticed pronounced changes in some species that adopted to live in urban areas: the preference for dull grey feathers, to escape being spotted by hawks against the grey of the surroundings).
Witness my own experience: I’ve been outside the German Sprachraum (language space) for a few decades and I find peculiar changes of word uses. I’m most struck by the use of “verstorben” vs. “gestorben” for someone who died. People in my time were said to be gestorben, period. Verstorben was the privilege of kings, philosophers, and bishops, of people with higher purpose so that the act of dying had, in a sense, to deal with much more material, stuff that transcended the mere flesh. Their delicate souls, their ambitions, their forward thinking, their grand visions.
Nowadays nobody suffers the indignity of “gestorben” anymore; everybody winds up “verstorben”, even though the use of the present tense of the word, “verstirbt” is practically unknown. In other words, the Verstorbene of today suffers the same fate, he stirbt, just as the Gestorbene of my time, but the progression of time has mysteriously embalmed him with this extra aura.
In German, the prefix “ver-” is often used to make a big deal of a verb that expresses something mundane. It transforms a simple action into something all-embracing, total, final. The dead parrot in Monty Python’s famous sketch, in other words, is not simply “gestorben,” he is “verstorben:”
‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!!
I watch with some trepidation a further development of the verb. “Entstorben” would indicate a process of gradual disappearance that preempts the instantaneous final event. Perhaps there might be one that alludes to the final disposition of the corpse: “Zerstorben” would indicate a death followed by an event of fragmentation, or pulverization, as in cremation.
But I hope it will never come to that.
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This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Darwin, dead parrot, dust, finches, gestorben, Monty Python, nice, Sol Steinmetz, verstorben. Bookmark the permalink.
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