What exactly makes our species human? Wisdom? Hardly. Maybe our ability to communicate with one another in so many different ways. We can speak, sing, laugh, whisper, cry and we can choose to remain silent. Humans are the only creatures that can decide to communicate by refraining from any other form of communication. This weekās discussion is about human utterances or the lack of them. ZWIJGEN, to be silent. Letās start with Ludwig Wittgensteinās adage that concluded last weekās discussion.
āWhat we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silenceā, thus spake the Austrian philosopher at the end of the only book he published in his lifetime: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Ludwig did not really speak these ominous words. Firstly because they were written and printed and secondly because he wrote the book in German. So what he really wrote was: āWovan man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.ā In Dutch it translates as: āWaarover men niet kan spreken, daarover moet men zwijgen.ā
ZWIJGEN, German āschweigenā does not have an elegant English equivalent. Aināt that weird? Yes, in Old English there still was the verb āswÄ«gianā, resembling Middle Dutch āswigenā but sometime in history English lost the verb. āPass over in silenceā or ābe silentā are weak approximations of ZWIJGEN. In contrast with āto be silentā the verb ZWIJGEN implies a wilful action.
So Wittgensteinās last proposition can never be translated properly into English. It proves how inapt language really is. The sounds humans produce suggest that we are able to understand each other and, more so, give insight into the nature of things. But the sounds are merely sounds. In Shakespeareās words: āLife’s but ⦠a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.ā (Macbeth)
āSpreken is zilver, zwijgen is goudā (speech is silver, silence is golden) is a famous Dutch and originally German proverb. Apparently people who possess the ability to restrain their urge to utter words have a higher value than chatterboxes. As Carlyle said: āSpeech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.ā Speech is for idiots, mud, silence is for the enlightened, the wise, diamondā¦
The one Dutch person, famous as a non-speaker, is supposed to be William of Nassau-Orange (1533-84), father of the Netherlandish fatherland, founder of the Republic, ancestor of the Dutch monarchy which started in 1813. But was this great man really speechless? Why did they nickname him Willem de Zwijger, in French Guillaume le Taciturne, in German Wilhelm der Schweiger and in English William the Silent?
The short answer is: we donāt know. History is silent: āde geschiedenis zwijgtā. Historians claim that there is not an inch of evidence that William was wordless. On the contrary, this great revolutionary leader was well-spoken. Historians think that he probably received the honorary name because of a translation mistake. In 1574 a latin text referred to him as āastutus Gulielmusā (sly William). A poor latinist mistakenly translated this into Dutch in 1608 as āden swijgerā.
After his assassination by Balthasar GĆ©rardts in Delft in 1584 Willem de Zwijger became a mythical person as is testified by the national hymn in which the poet calls him a pious Christian and a fearless hero of noble blood: āAls een vroom christen man /ā¦/ heb ik ⦠als een held zonder vrezen / mijn edel bloed gewaagd.ā His dying words were in French: āMon Dieu, ayez pitiĆ© de mon Ć¢me; mon Dieu, ayez pitiĆ© de ce pauvre peuple.ā (My God, have pity on my soul; my God, have pity on this poor people.) But again, these words were probably never spoken, since he must have died almost immediately.
The Hague honours this man of noble blood with two statues. The statue in Noordeinde (opposite the King Willem-Alexanderās palace) portrays the fearless hero on staggering horseback. On het Plein in the heart of the city of peace and justice the father of the fatherland is merely standing with the first ever Act of Independence in his hand. Originally this statue faced the buildings of parliament but for some obscure reason it was turned to face Delft, where the first William was murdered and where his body is decaying in the tomb of the Orange family.