The Linguist

@CIOL_Linguists WINTER 2022 The Linguist 27 SECTION HEADER REVIEWS Archaeologists and historians have long speculated about the meaning of the Lascaux cave paintings in the Dordogne, southwest France. Were the Palaeolithic depictions of animals, human figures and symbols art for art's sake, communication between groups of people, or of spiritual significance? The contribution of University of Essex professor, translator and writer Philip Terry centres on the less-discussed symbols in the paintings. A fantastic stroke of good fortune led him to acquire work on interpreting the signs, written in the 1940s by a French poet called Jean-Luc Champerret. In a French New Wave-style short film on YouTube, Terry explains that we know almost nothing (on sait presque rien) about Champerret. In his book, he outlines how the poet examined the caves as a hide-out for the Resistance, of which he was a member, soon after they were discovered by five schoolboys in September 1940. The caves' rapid rise to fame scuppered this plan, but code-breaker Champerret was so affected by the signs in the paintings that he filled notebooks with possible interpretations. "[He] proposes that they are to be read as script, as a primitive form of writing and… proposes meanings that should be attached to each sign." There is a key at the back of Terry's book. Champerret's method was to take a three- by-three grid, featured in some of the paintings, and insert a sign into each square, in what Terry describes as an "astonishing, almost unbelievable proposition, in effect Carcanet 2022; 403pp; ISBN 9781800171725 Paperback, £19.99 The Lascaux Notebooks Jean-Luc Champerret; edited and translated by Philip Terry announcing the discovery of Ice Age poetry". Champerret 'translated' this into a nine-word French poem, adding connecting words, adjectives, adverbs and details to create progressively more elaborate versions. The Lascaux Notebooks represents Terry's English translation, edit and arrangement of these beautiful, visually arresting poems, including the original signs and some prose narratives from the original notebooks. The poetry evokes a prehistoric world of hunting with spears in forests and rivers, threading necklaces of amber beads, dancing and singing by fire-light. During his talk at Oxford Translation Day, Terry read a poem Champerret created by inserting signs into the grid that he interpreted as 'tooth', 'fruit', 'hut', 'root', 'man' and 'happiness'. There is a striking resemblance between a 1934 William Carlos Williams poem and Champerret's most elaborate version, which begins: 'To say I have eaten/ the fruit that/ you were keeping in the hut'. This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in poetry, translation and the use of constraint as a spur to creativity. Josephine Murray MCIL Quiz answers Quiz, page 16 Grave mistakes. 1 AirBnB: only bookings inside Russia and Belarus were suspended; 2 Google Translate: e.g. 'Sudanese Language' was written backwards in Arabic; 3 The test was in Afrikaans, spoken by mainly white and mixed-race people and only 13.5% of citizens; 4 It is Welsh for 'love', which would not be trademarked in English. True or false. 1 True; 2 False – it's fungi (tinyurl.com/rsfungi); 3 True (tinyurl.com/frontiers- ageing); 4 True (tinyurl.com/LanTr22). Picture caption. The Georgia Guidestones, USA: created in 1980 in 12 languages, they were destroyed, most likely by conspiracy theorists. Access issues. 1 Applications had to be made in English; 2 A lack of interpreting; 3 A new 999 BSL service that connects users to British Sign Language interpreters; 4 Prisons. What language…? 1 Polari, a secret language comprising rhyming slang, Italianate phrases and cant words, used by gay men when homosexuality was illegal in the UK; 2 Welsh; 3 Swahili; 4 Irish. What links…? 1 Made the news for 'speaking' multiple languages at a young age; 2 Gave support to Ukrainians fleeing the war; 3 Among the gaming words reportedly 'banned' by the French government; 4 Words the British Information Commissioner's Office asked staff to avoid so as not to "confuse or alienate" readers. Schools out. 1 Offered Ukrainian and Russian translations of its free courses, which follow the UK school curriculum; 2 Post-Brexit red tape and the pandemic; 3 All of them; 4 Languages. Pop culture. 1 She presented in BSL; 2 They only provided an interpreter for this award, not the entire event; 3 Coldplay; 4 BBC. Who's who? 1 Comedian John Bishop: learnt BSL with his deaf son Joe for the TV show Life After Deaf; 2 Davina McCall: hosted 'language barrier' dating show Language of Love, which was axed after one series; 3 MP Rosie Cooper: her British Sign Language Bill passed, which means legal status will now be granted to BSL in the UK; 4 Actor Ajay Devgn: criticised for calling Hindi India's national language as it is rarely spoken in huge par ts of the country. Tech developments. 1 Zoom; 2 By converting spoken language to text that appears in front of the eyes; 3 Checked and fixed the mistranslated tattoos for free; 4 Assamese, Aymara, Bambara, Bhojpuri, Dhivehi, Dogri, Ewe, Guarani, Ilocano, Konkani, Krio, Lingala, Luganda, Maithili, Oromo, Meiteilon (Manipuri), Mizo, Quechua, Sanskrit, Sepedi, Sorani (Kurdish), Tigrinya, Tsonga, Twi. Animal instincts 1 Pigs; 2 Translate cat sounds into English; 3 Dogs; 4 Our primate ancestors had the tools for speech five million years ago. Political manoeuvres 1 New Zealand; 2 CIOL; 3 Ministry of Justice (MoJ); 4 Go on strike. Why did they go viral? 1 Moved to tears while interpreting President Zelensky's words after Russia invaded Ukraine; 2 Reported live from Kyiv in six languages – the montage clip even led to marriage proposals; 3 Her children, who live in the UK, only watch TV in Spanish and are now "fluent"; 4 Recommended using Taylor Swift and Disney songs to criticism from the UK tabloids. Who said? 1 a) Rishi Sunak during his bid to be Prime Minister; 2 c) Abdelmadjid Tebboune as Algerian primary schools start teaching English; 3 b) Bettina Stark-Watzinger, arguing that English should be obligatory for German bureaucrats; 4 b) Michelle O'Neill referring to the delayed Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill.

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