‘Professor Lovell told me something similar,’ said Robin, remembering. ‘He’s convinced that Romance languages will yield fewer returns as time goes on.’
‘He’s right,’ said Anthony. ‘So much has been translated from other European languages to English and vice versa in this century. We seem unable to kick our addiction to the Germans and their philosophers, or to the Italians and their poets. So, Romance Languages is really the most threatened branch of the faculty, as much as they’d like to pretend they own the building. The Classics are getting less promising as well. Latin and Greek will hang on for a bit, since fluency in either is still the purview of the elites, but Latin, at least, is getting more colloquial than you’d think. Somewhere on the eighth floor there’s a postdoc working on a revival of Manx and Cornish, but no one thinks that’s going to succeed. Same with Gaelic, but don’t tell Cathy. That’s why you three are so valuable.’ Anthony pointed at them all in turn except for Letty. ‘You know languages they haven’t milked to exhaustion yet.’
‘What about me?’ Letty said indignantly.
‘Well, you’re all right for a bit, but only because Britain’s developed its sense of national identity in opposition to the French. The French are superstitious heathens; we are Protestants. The French wear wooden shoes, so we wear leather. We’ll resist French incursion on our language yet. But it’s really the colonies and the semi-colonies – Robin and China, Ramy and India; boys, you’re uncharted territory. You’re the stuff that everyone’s fighting over.’
‘You say it like it’s a resource,’ said Ramy.
‘Well, certainly. Language is a resource just like gold and silver. People have fought and died over those Grammaticas.’
‘But that’s absurd,’ said Letty. ‘Language is just words, just thoughts – you can’t constrain the use of a language.’
‘Can’t you?’ asked Anthony. ‘Do you know the official punishment in China for teaching Mandarin to a foreigner is death?’
Letty turned to Robin. ‘Is that true?’
‘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?’
Professor Lovell looked very pleased by this question. ‘Reading,’ he said. ‘There is no other way around it. You compile all the sources you can get your hands on, and then you sit down to solve puzzles. You look for patterns and irregularities. We know, for instance, that the final Latin m was not pronounced in classical times, because inscriptions at Pompeii are misspelled in a way that leaves the m out. This is how we pin down sound changes. Once we do that, we can predict how words should have evolved, and if they don’t match our predictions, then perhaps our hypothesis about linked origins is wrong. Etymology is detective work across centuries, and it’s devilishly hard work, like finding a needle in a haystack. But our particular needles, I’d say, are quite worth the search.’