URSABLOG: Do You Know What I Mean?

As I continue my struggle with the Greek language I find that my aims and targets have subtly shifted Originally, my goal was to get enough language skills to be able to pass the nationality exams here and obtain a Greek passport. Greek nationality, a passport is no longer the target itself, although it is the precious ID card that will allow me to vote and engage more fully in civic life here. My goal now is to be able to watch television, listen to the radio, and understand what is said. Put in a slightly different way, I want to be able to sit on a train, read a Greek newspaper, listen to the conversations around me, and be able to join in a conversation if someone else instigates it, or if I feel the need to start one myself. I also want to be able to write an email or a letter in passable Greek without resorting to Google Translate. I want to be able to live within Greece, not just live here, if you see what I mean.

This new goal has become clearer to me in recent months as I have started a new method of learning: one-on-one online lessons, early in the morning twice a week, with homework in between. Rather than having the exams as an incentive to learn, the incentive has changed to one more nebulous, one that I will never probably fully arrive at. For now, I am experiencing new joys: being unafraid to make linguistic mistakes, not being offended by corrections (and in fact encouraging them) and being pleasantly surprised when I can read whole sentences in Greek and understand them without resorting to Google; processing the different versions of familiar nouns, verbs and adjectives if not being able to accurately reproduce them myself.

Another joy is the somewhat unsettling discovery that it is impossible to achieve a complete match between the words and phrases of English to Greek, and vice versa. When I write now in Greek, I write using the words that I know in Greek (and searching for verbs and nouns where necessary) rather than think what I want to write in English and then translate it into Greek. This seems to me both easier and more reasonable, but as I do so, I have begun to understand that even the simplest sentences and expressions have different meanings coming from a network of different attitudes and ideas.

Take the simple, universal phrase here “Τι να κάνουμε?” (‘Ti na kanoume’, with an accent on the last ‘e’ so it sounds like ‘kanoumeh’). It is hard to directly translate, although the nearest exact translation is “What will we do?” What it means however is a kind of resignation about, or more an acceptance that whatever our desires are, the situation is out of our hands. “What can we do?” is not exactly right (I find it too negative, or passive), and “What will we do?” seems too desperate, too demanding, almost like “What should we do?”

The fact that there is not even an expression in English that reflects this rather philosophical attitude leads me to think that different languages reflect different societal attitudes. British English for example has its own codes, and is difficult for Americans, and others, to understand, even though we apparently speak the same language.

For example, popular list that went viral a few years ago explained that when a British person says “I hear what you say”, what they really mean is “I disagree and do not want to discuss it further”; the non-Brit understands that the Brit is accepting their point of you. There is a long list of these, but my favourite remains “that is a very brave proposal”, which the non-Brit thinks is a compliment on their courage, where as the Brit really means that they are insane to even think about making such a proposal. But to make things a little more complicating, this list is basically a series of expressions used by middle-class, educated Brits, as those who appreciate the BBC television series Yes, Minister will recognise. It takes a while for Brits from different backgrounds to begin to understand the nuances too.

I had lunch recently with a Japanese friend who said that he found it very hard to understand what British brokers said to him, as they used words and phrases that he could not understand fully. He told me that he liked talking to me however, because I was clear and used simple expressions (although that compliment was not extended to my writing however). I thought about this for a while and I came to the conclusion that for most of my working life I had had to adapt my speech patterns to make myself understood, first from the accents and expression of regional England to work in London, at the same time as I was speaking to people all around the world. It is a pleasure sometimes to lapse back into the free banter of my family, because I can really express myself to those who understand me, but most of the time I just want to be understood, so I keep it simple. This does not mean the language is dull – there is room for wit and humour too – but it has to be simple. After all, there are not many shipbrokers – let alone shipowners – that hail from Coventry.

Being comprehensively and accurately understood is particularly important for shipbrokers whose skill in narrative, telling a story if you like, quickly and comprehendingly, can be the difference between success and failure in a transaction. But as English is – and remains – the prevailing language of the shipping industry, and as English Law is used to govern the vast majority of shipping contracts, it is better to know and understand what we are all agreeing to. But what do we mean? Usually it is the courts that decide, and at great legal cost.
As I sit here writing this, there is a great pile of examination papers from the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers waiting to be marked. All of the papers are written, by hand, in English, but by far the majority of papers submitted – in my subject at least – are from candidates where English is not their first, or in some cases even second, language. Great care is taken to make sure that the wording of the questions is clear and precise, but most questions are asked using a verb, like ‘describe’, ‘explain’, ‘discuss’, ‘analyse’ and so on. All of these different words are asking the candidate to do something different.

In my past-paper preparation sessions with students, I try and bring out the differences, to show them what they need to do. I have even suggested that they look into a dictionary and see what the word is in Greek, or whatever, so that they are clear. But now I wonder whether this is the right thing, because synonyms reveal that ‘discuss’ could actually mean ‘dispute’ or even ‘refute’, which is not very constructive, or indeed, intelligible. Maybe I should be showing them what I think the examiners want in response to a request to ‘analyse’ something, rather than risking something getting lost in translation.

Even the same language – shipping English – that we share in our office, is open for discussion. The difference between chartering and sale & purchase is not only about function, but about rhythm, style and execution. Being ‘on subs’ in chartering is something completely different, to being ‘on subs’ in S&P. Likewise concepts like offering, trading, even indicating, mean different things to the different disciplines. How do we understand each other? By discussing of course, but do we really understand what we are trying to say, and do we really mean what we say, or say what we mean?

In my experience, it sometimes feels that as I switch from English to Greek, I am stepping from one world into another. Both languages dictate the way that I talk, but I feel that it also changes how I view the world, and also, therefore, how I think. Or am I deluding myself? I don’t think so.

Language is a system that we follow to communicate with others. As I am painfully aware, you need to be able to speak the same language to be understood. But it is the speaking, the construction of sentences within that language that creates meaning. We are free to construct sentences that clearly say what we mean – or not, as we wish – within the system. This does not mean all systems are the same, but it is up to the speaker to make themselves clear or not. Similarly, my chartering colleagues may not understand the meaning of what I am trying to say to them because we are using different terms in the same language, English and shipping. It is up to me to get across to them – if they are receptive to it – what I really mean to say.

In 1929, the American linguist-anthropologist Edward Sapir wrote:

…the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group … The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached … We see and hear and otherwise experience largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

But I would go one step further. We have to make an effort to understand the other ‘real worlds’ as we learn how they speak and think – through or even despite the language that they are using – that that we can extract meaning and make ourselves fully understood, and live and act purposefully in that world. And on that note, I have to stop now and get on with my Greek homework. «Τι να κάνουμε;»

Simon Ward