Linguistic Asides

Sunday was very normal. The air conditioning was functioning in the chapel for the first time this summer, much to my relief. I enjoyed the Book of Mormon class (I even made an intelligent comment!). I´m getting to the point that I always understand everything in that class. It helps that I make my scripture study the few days before Sunday reading all of the chapters in Spanish.

It´s quite a different experience to read Alma and Amulek´s sermons in Spanish than in English though, simply due to how verbs vary across the language. In English, there exists no difference between "you" singular and plural conjugations. But in Spanish, there´s a huge difference. The result is that the scriptures feel a whole lot more impersonal. No longer when you read the great sermons of "You need to repent of your sins, and pray unto your father for forgiveness, and Christ will redeem you with a glorious joy..." or "When you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God" do they apply just to you. In Spanish, all of these sermons become, by dint of their conjugations, addressed to the entire audience at large.

I mentioned this to Wolfang the other night, and we had a fascinating conversation about the topic. He actually told me that his favorite apostles are Elder Scott and Elder Nelson, because they both speak Spanish, and often translate the talks themselves. When Elder Scott speaks, Wolfang tells me, particuarly about repentence (which he does often), he purposefully conjugates all of his talk in the singular "you", precisely for the more personal reason I just cited.

Fascinating!