A Language Diversion

Drunk Friday and for something different let’s talk about the Old English word tungelwitegan and why I hate to see it translated as ‘astronomers’ because yes I’ve been thinking about it.

So in Old English there are two words: tungelwitegan and tungelcraeft. Both are compound words, okay? Tungel, or tungol, has various meanings – star, planet, celestial body, but today I think we’d just go with ‘space’. Witegan means prophecy or divination. And craeft means, um, craft. So in Old English someone good at wordcraeft or practicing wordcraeft is a writer, okay?

So here’s what bugs me about translating ‘tungelwitegan’ as astronomer: craft and divination are two different things, just based on the context and the use of the words. The act of being an astronomer is having tungelcraeft. The act of being an ASTROLOGER is tungelwitegan. There’s an element of magic in tungelwitegan, of knowledge outside of knowledge, okay, that gets diluted when you try to translate it as meaning the same thing as tungelcraeft.

And it makes me mad because a thousand years ago, people knew the difference. There’s a beautiful poem in Old English about the world, and in it the writer talks about how the earth is round, how the rotation of the earth and its position comparative to the sun affects the seasons and which side of the earth has sun and which one doesn’t at certain times, so they fucking knew science, okay? They knew the difference. So if they used tungelwitegan instead of tungelcraeft in a sermon, they knew what they were doing. What they were saying. The difference they were trying to convey. And erasing that is taking away from the magic, the knowledge outside of knowledge, that they were trying to get across, and also is kind of ignorant because it implies that we need to improve their worldview, that maybe they didn’t know any better in the so-called “Dark Ages,” BUT THEY DID.

What was I arguing? Oh no wait okay. There’s this idea that our ancestors, our people, they just didn’t know any better, and we’re better than them. But they knew shit, they knew science, and it’s fucking recognizable as science, and they knew magic (let’s be real, Jesus was magic), and they kenned the difference and any attempt to erase that is erasure of history. And you might say ‘jesus Chris it’s a difference of just two words” but it’s really not, because if it’s those two words what else is it? How many other words, and how many other ideas, and what else has been erased and who gains from the erasure? And what do we lose of ourselves, our collective selves, the whole fucking scale of our amazing selves, in the process?

I forgot my point again. I’m sure it was a good one. Anyway translation ruined my life and I’m here to ruin yours for the low low price of zero dollars, you’re welcome, I love you.