Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

‘I think it is,’ said Robin. ‘Professor Chakravarti told me the same thing. The Qing government are – they’re scared. They’re scared of the outside.’

‘You see?’ asked Anthony. ‘Languages aren’t just made of words. They’re modes of looking at the world. They’re the keys to civilization. And that’s knowledge worth killing for.’

‘Words tell stories.’ This was how Professor Lovell opened their first class that afternoon, held in a spare, windowless room on the tower’s fifth floor. ‘Specifically, the history of those words – how they came into use, and how their meanings morphed into what they mean today – tell us just as much about a people, if not more, than any other kind of historical artefact. Take the word knave. Where do you think it comes from?’

‘Playing cards, right? You’ve got your king, queen . . .’ Letty started, then broke off when she realized the argument was circular. ‘Oh, never mind.’

Professor Lovell shook his head. ‘The Old English cnafa refers to a boy servant, or young male servant. We confirm this with its German cognate Knabe, which is an old term for boy. So knaves were originally young boys who attended to knights. But when the institution of knighthood crumbled at the end of the sixteenth century, and when lords realized they could hire cheaper and better professional armies, hundreds of knaves found themselves unemployed. So they did what any young men down on their luck would do – they fell in with highwaymen and robbers and became the lowlife scoundrels that we label as knaves now. So the history of the word does not describe just a change in language, but a change in an entire social order.’

Professor Lovell was not a passionate lecturer, nor a natural performer. He looked ill at ease before an audience; his movements were stilted and abrupt, and he spoke in a dry, sombre, straightforward manner. Still, every word out of his mouth was perfectly timed, well considered, and fascinating.

In the days before this lecture, Robin had dreaded taking a class with his guardian. But it turned out not to be awkward or embarrassing. Professor Lovell treated him just like he had in front of company back in Hampstead – distant, formal, his eyes flitting always over Robin’s face without landing, like the space where he existed could not be seen.

‘We get the word etymology from the Greek étymon,’ continued Professor Lovell. ‘The true sense of a word, from étumos, the “true or actual”. So we can think of etymology as an exercise in tracing how far a word has strayed from its roots. For they travel marvellous distances, both literally and metaphorically.’ He looked suddenly at Robin. ‘What’s the word for a great storm in Mandarin?’

Robin gave a start. ‘Ah – fēngbào?’^*

‘No, give me something bigger.’

‘Táifēng?’^*

‘Good.’ Professor Lovell pointed to Victoire. ‘And what weather patterns are always drifting across the Caribbean?’

‘Typhoons,’ she said, then blinked. ‘Taifeng? Typhoon? How—’

‘We start with Greco-Latin,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘Typhon was a monster, one of the sons of Gaia and Tartarus, a devastating creature with a hundred serpentine heads. At some point he became associated with violent winds, because later the Arabs started using tūfān to describe violent, windy storms. From Arabic it hopped over to Portuguese, which was brought to China on explorers’ ships.’

‘But táifēng isn’t just a loanword,’ said Robin. ‘It means something in Chinese – tái is great, and fēng is wind–’

‘And you don’t think the Chinese could have come up with a transliteration that had its own meaning?’ asked Professor Lovell. ‘This happens all the time. Phonological calques are often semantic calques as well. Words spread. And you can trace contact points of human history from words that have uncannily similar pronunciations. Languages are only shifting sets of symbols – stable enough to make mutual discourse possible, but fluid enough to reflect changing social dynamics. When we invoke words in silver, we call to mind that changing history.’

Letty raised her hand. ‘I have a question about method.’

‘Go on.’

‘Historical research is well and fine,’ said Letty. ‘All you have to do is look at artefacts, documents, and the like. But how do you research the history of words? How do you determine how far they’ve travelled?’