Subject
Re: Yo-semite? (fwd)
Date
Body
From: ValSyl@aol.com
Earl Sampson (ESAMPVN@aol.com) wrote on PNIN's "Yosemite" passage:
"This reading [that philosemitic Pnin pronounces the name of that national
park as if it had something to do with Jews] would clarify the rest of the
quoted passage [snip] ... It also fits nicely with the many other passages
that illustrate Pnin's obliviousness to many aspects of the American scene
[snip] ... I would be curious to know if others have read the passage this
way."
While Mr. Sampson's interpretation is quite logical, there are at least a
dozen ways non-native English speakers can garble those four syllables. It's
quite possible to say the word without saying "semite" at all, for that
matter (Ya-seh-mitty? Yoze-might?) . I like to think VN employed that word
just for its aural ambiguity. I like to think he'd say: pay attention to
Pnin for what he does with English, not for what he thinks about Jews. Sure,
in his conversation he probably did pronounce it with the "semite" audible,
but he mangled it in accordance with the laws of Pninian pronounciation,
(c.f. the passage on "dzeefeecooltsee") and not consciously out of anything
to do with Semites per se. I don't think.
I'd like to hear from Galya Diment on this, since she has written on Pnin, VN
and "the real Timofey??", Marc Szeftel. My hunch is that in many ways PNIN
is _about_ a foreigner pronouncing English, and that issue -- literally, how
to speak the language -- is its core subject matter beneath the plot,
personalities, etc. But of course my hunches are not scholarship, so machete
away.
Sylvia
Sylvia Weiser Wendel
Earl Sampson (ESAMPVN@aol.com) wrote on PNIN's "Yosemite" passage:
"This reading [that philosemitic Pnin pronounces the name of that national
park as if it had something to do with Jews] would clarify the rest of the
quoted passage [snip] ... It also fits nicely with the many other passages
that illustrate Pnin's obliviousness to many aspects of the American scene
[snip] ... I would be curious to know if others have read the passage this
way."
While Mr. Sampson's interpretation is quite logical, there are at least a
dozen ways non-native English speakers can garble those four syllables. It's
quite possible to say the word without saying "semite" at all, for that
matter (Ya-seh-mitty? Yoze-might?) . I like to think VN employed that word
just for its aural ambiguity. I like to think he'd say: pay attention to
Pnin for what he does with English, not for what he thinks about Jews. Sure,
in his conversation he probably did pronounce it with the "semite" audible,
but he mangled it in accordance with the laws of Pninian pronounciation,
(c.f. the passage on "dzeefeecooltsee") and not consciously out of anything
to do with Semites per se. I don't think.
I'd like to hear from Galya Diment on this, since she has written on Pnin, VN
and "the real Timofey??", Marc Szeftel. My hunch is that in many ways PNIN
is _about_ a foreigner pronouncing English, and that issue -- literally, how
to speak the language -- is its core subject matter beneath the plot,
personalities, etc. But of course my hunches are not scholarship, so machete
away.
Sylvia
Sylvia Weiser Wendel