by Charles S. Kraszewski.
It wasn’t Lucius Mummius who put an end to Greece.
The self-inflicted wound was dealt ages before.
We call it xenophobia, using the Greek word for it.
Since they despised all other languages (and peoples)
we Other People had to learn Greek.
Otherwise, how could we compete with Persia in the silk trade?
We wouldn’t get too far calling it kausheya
with people who thought that Manu himself named it metáxi,
and couldn’t understand why the Persians, for example,
called it ebrisham, or the Arabs harir,
when everybody knew it was metáxi.
The Greeks were stubbornly unskilled in languages,
self-consciously arriving at the belief
that therefore all other tongues were inferior to their own.
And this led to the riddle familiar to our children:
‘Which came first, the bigot or the barbarian?’
The Greek disdain for learning foreign languages
had important and unfortunate consequences
for Poetry:
Just think how Anacreon would have relished
the lurching onomatopoeia
of the Hittite word for bear, hartaggaš,
or the refreshing sibilants of the Aksum word yesätti, ‘he drinks’;
Philosophy:
If only they could have understood our Vedic wisdom:
yé devánam yajníya yajñíyanam
‘Which of the worshipworthy gods indeed is most worshipworthy?’
perhaps they’d no longer have had to live
in superstitious terror of imaginary super-adulterers
divine rapists and cannibals;
Daily Life:
The Thracian says bólinthos,
the Greek shrugs.
The Thracian says brûtos,
the Greek turns away, and instead of hearing
‘There’s a bison over there! Don’t get too close.
Come have a beer instead’,
he just sneers and says ‘ba-ba-ba!’
making sarcastic castanets of his fingers.
These were his last words, ironically, unless you count his scream,
for he ended up on the horns of an enraged bólinthos
who sent him flailing skywards toward his indifferent and immoral gods;
and, of course, International Relations:
Because Menelaus spoke in no uncertain terms.
However, just like any other Phrygian mofo on spring break
Paris simply assumed that everyone spoke his dialect.
And the misunderstanding that ensued?
Well, let’s just say it proves
that walls are not the answer.