Make Joyful Noise: The Sound of Language

At first, the people of the whole world

had only one language and used the same words.

Genesis 11:1



The sound of languages has always fascinated me, from the mellifluous tones of French to the guttural sounds of German, from the dark lilting tones of the Scandinavian languages to the musicality of the Chinese tones.  That last example is often cited as a reason that perfect pitch is more common among the population of China (and other Asian cultures that share the language's emphasis on pitch and tone to provide meaning).

When I was in Montreal a couple of years back, I spent Sunday morning walking from church to church to hear the range of language and music in some of the city's most beautiful churches.  I heard the same Bible verses read that day in English, French, and Latin.  My French was nowhere good enough for me to translate, but it was a unique experience to know the gist of the text and enjoy the language as a musical interpretation of it.

I know that a sizable portion of our congregation prefers us to stick to English (and it is part of our church's name, after all).  But I can't help thinking that we're missing out on part of the musical experience if we don't get to hear other languages on occasion.  In some religions, to read a text actually means to sing.  One highlight of a bar mitzvah is the chanting of a Torah verse, and the Koran is often sung as well.  We often do the same when we chant the Psalms.  The challenge of comprehension can be part of the fun when we travel, and it can broaden our minds with a new perspective.  Then the sound of our native language can be a joyful noise when we return home.

Pastor Uhle's rhetorical flourish

Since I've been ranting about language this week, one phrase from Sunday's sermon has stuck with me. Pastor Uhle delivered this nicely crafted phrase:

"God dwells in people, but those same people dwell in buildings: churches."

I love the balance of the line. The chiasmic nature of its structure, the repetition of "people" and "dwell," and the emphasis on the word churches caused by the delayed contrast with more mundane "buildings." I wonder if it was written or extemporaneous or a mix. In any case, it's fantastic oratory.

This is the kind of language that leaves me inspired for the week. His message that a church is more than a building resonates strongly in a period of church closings around us. Our church is comprised of people and language and music, but also a Sunday school and a web site and a blog and a choir and committees... The church is a mosaic of many things, all of them need inspiration and participation to survive. In other words, join the choir this fall!

Rhetoric

Again, language is on my mind this week. As I thought about yesterday's post I realized how many people automatically precede the word "rhetoric" with the word "empty." We've all adopted the stance of the anti-hero Holden Caulfield in labelling everyone a phony, in assuming that the formal is dressed up because it has no substance.

Au contraire! Rhetoric is the art of language. Combined with grammar and logic, it forms the linguistic triumvirate of human discourse. The best hymns are based on the best poetry, and language has driven the development and understanding of religion throughout all time. For instance, Martin Luther's theses were written in the formal style of the time. The dialogues of Thomas Aquinas are practically transcribed conversations in an eloquent flourish of the Latin language.

Of course, the psalms are the best example we have of poetic language and music in the church. Consider the 23rd psalm. This web site provides five different translations of the famous text. The King James is poetry, the text that causes us to straighten our back and lift our chin. The Contemporary English Version, on the other hand, is a casual address to a Buddy Christ-type conception of God. I find it particularly interesting that the RSV and NRSV held on to the word "shall" in the first verse. They instinctively knew that for such a famous verse, people would demand the more formal language.

Why do I think it's important to hold on to both formal English (and even some Latin) in church? Because it's beautiful, it's memorable, and it demands our attention and intention during the service. Aren't those among the goals of worship?

Language in church

I've been thinking a lot about language recently. That's mostly because I've been reading a book by one of my favorite linguists John McWhorter, titled Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care. His premise, in a nutshell, is that the cultural change of the 1960s caused us to abandon our love for formal English, both written and spoken. We've replaced it with a constant search for the lowest common denominator (newspapers writing with middle school vocabularies), "authenticity" (a freedom to use casual speech and even expletives liberally in music and speech), and the common notion that great orators and the days of elocution are firmly behind us, no longer necessary. Sunday's prayers and hymns are a perfect illustration of this formal/informal divide between the generations, the difference between loving language and communicating in the vernacular.

Because of the 80th anniversary, we used hymns and prayers that have been around for many years, drawn from older hymnals of the church. This led to quite a sprinkling of "thee" and "though" and "most heartily beseeching." The prayers ended with an address to Christ, "who liveth and reigneth with thee." I'm sure there were people who asked themselves who would ever talk like that.

That opinion is perfectly natural for the zeitgeist of today, but no one would have considered such language inappropriate in 1929. That isn't because people spoke that way at all times. Certainly F. Scott Fitzgerald did not woo Zelda by saying, "I heartily beseech thee to accompany me to the speakeasy." The language was out of fashion even then; just see films of the era for proof. However, when people went to church they dressed in their Sunday best and expected to hear eloquent language and oration. People knew that there was a way of speaking in church (and other formal situations) that differed from casual conversation. One modern holdover is a wedding invitations or announcements, where the formal aspects of language still occur more regularly than in, for example, a birthday e-vite.

As for the hymns, some of the hymnals best and most cherished hymns still use a formal, more eloquent language. For example, who would want to tamper with ELW 685 "Take My Life, That I May Be"?
Take my life that I may be
consecrated Lord to Thee;
take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise.

It's basically a trochaic quatrain: four rhyming lines of lilting syllables. Read it aloud, and it might sound like this:
TAKE my LIFE that I may BE
CONseCRAted LORD to THEE

That's formal poetry. That's a lyricist crafting formal language in a beautiful hymn, language that strives for excellence and yearns for inspiration from heaven. That's language and music worth singing!

PS Thanks to Mary Frances for her beautiful singing on Sunday, and also thank you to everyone for your birthday wishes.

Change in perspective

The musical Jekyll and Hyde includes this lyric: "One rule of life we cannot rearrange, the only thing constant is change." Of course, all our discussion lately about contemporary music, new liturgical settings, and so on are a question of how much change is appropriate and when. How much of the past should we cling to? How do we keep the best of it, while still evolving and growing over time?

Those questions were in the back of my mind this afternoon when I sat down to read Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter. I'm certainly not a linguist, but I'm perpetually fascinated by both language and history. This book explores the origins of our modern language as well as its quirks and eccentricities.

What I most noted, however, was a two-page summary of the progression of the English language, beginning with Beowulf in Old English and passing through a whirlwind of historical highlights, including Chaucer's Middle English writing, Shakespeare's plays, the King James Bible, Samuel Johnson's dictionary, and Jane Austen. Somehow that progression seems neat, orderly, even teleological - English is constantly changing while also improving until it reaches "the end" sometime in the 19th or early 20th centuries. In McWhorter's words, "...somehow there seems to be an idea that the process had an inherent end point, beyond which we are not to go. It's as if somebody somewhere had been endeavoring to meld...the English we have right now, that they officially declared themselves finished sometime not long ago, and that from now on, we are not to mess up their creation."

That's not much different from the progression of music we could expound: Gregorian chant, Monteverdi, Bach (Luther), Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Brahms, Chopin, Wagner, Debussy...and then we're done. We don't need pop, rock, blues, jazz, 12-tone, atonal music, or any of the other oddities that the modern world has given us...or do we?

We'd never give up the diverse wealth of 20th century literature, but we might pick and choose some of the best from each decade. Similarly, we need to sample music of the modern styles and eras, being judicious in our standards. The jumble and confusion we experience is a problem of perspective. It's too easy to pigeonhole the 18th century because we only know a handful of names, dates, and facts about it. The 1960s are considerably harder to summarize because it's such a recent lived experience; we haven't yet decided what was the best and what was the worst, what will last and what will fade away.

The debate itself is where the value lies when it comes to modern music, so don't be afraid to make suggestions or comments anytime. You'd hate to leave the process to the "experts" only, wouldn't you?