I took Latin in 8th grade. Our school had it as a requirement. I loved it, it was like a secret code that unlocked all the Romance languages. I was even chosen to narrate a dramatization of “The Three Little Pigs” in Latin at a pep rally, and no, I was not mercilessly beat senseless by the football team because they also had to take Latin and the quarterback was playing the wolf. Tres porcus parvus. That’s Latin for, y’know, three little pigs.
My high school Latin teacher actually dropped me a line (online) a few weeks ago, it was great - he was surprised that I remembered the language at all and I admitted that I’d subjected my daughter to both Green Eggs and Ham and the first Harry Potter novel in Latin translations. (She also did not beat me senseless as she was too young to know that I wasn’t reading English and just sorta likes me too much.) These alternating Facebook posts reminded me how much I love learning, and communication, and how glad I am that the Time Machine had been invented by the cavemen.
I think about time travel quite a bit; my favorite modern hero is a time traveler, who doubles down by cheating time as a serial immortal. No DeLorean, no mysterious pocket watch, no hot tub, this hero travels in a time (and relative dimension in space) machine, offering advice and wisdom. That sounds like fun. But that’s just fiction.
The Neanderthals did it for real, although the name of the specific genius has been, as one might imagine, lost to time, the gentle and absolute perfection of their engineering skill in the development of temporal technology is undeniable.
Questions? Yes, you in the back. Oh, I get it, I see where you’re confused…
It may help to restate one’s expectations of what a Time Machine actually does. It transports a person through time, allowing them to express opinions, passions, emotions, and information far into the future. And it allows one to reach backward through time to gain these selfsame gifts from people in the past.
That’s written language. It’s the perfect time machine, ‘cause that what it is. Does. Whatever.
That’s how a cave person, writing on a wall can tell me directly how their buffalo hunt went even though it’s been hundreds of years since that happened. Well, lots of hundreds. So whoever scrawled that writing on the cold stone wall possessed a brilliance overpowering any modern day technologist.
Unconvinced? Well, in 1823 Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem called “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, also known as “The Night Before Christmas”. I can say with one hundred percent certainty that it was written by hand, as the modern typewriter was 50 years away from being invented and the computer monitor nearly a century later.
So by hand, on paper, that one copy (probably, though there was some carbon paper in Italy - but what are the chances?) – that one copy of that poem made it to the offices of The Troy Sentinel newspaper, who printed it almost exactly two hundred years ago today. There’s an original manuscript in Clement Clarke Moore’s handwriting on permanent display in the New York Historical Society library, and almost every American can recite at least two of the lines on that piece of paper from memory. 200 years old.
I wrote something on a computer twenty years ago and saved it in computer program that is now so obsolete I can’t even open it. The words are trapped in code which seems kinda futuristic but is apparently ancient, even though it’s hewn from space age concept and science-fiction craftwork. Twenty years. I didn’t buy that update in 2002 and now it’s all just garbage, not to mention that the disc it’s on is apparently a relic so past any practical use that one is on display in the Museum of Modern Art.
We all assumed that time machines would come from science, that computers would be our conduit to breaking free of time, but they seem more heir to its savagery than we are. I mean, I can still remember things from 20 years ago. Well, some things. If I don’t remember them then I don’t remember that I don’t, so the false confidence is extremely supporting. In any case, it is clear that printed language, whether written upon papyrus or Spanish cave wall, holds a more dependable path to far-future relevance than the miracles of our modern age.
That’s how Dorothy Parker travelled through time (and relative space) to me, to offer advice and wisdom. If you’re reading my words, somewhere in the future, then my message to you is...
…wait a minute, everybody’s reading this in the future.
Wow. That is really effective.
Ok, well if it’s the future but closer to where I am now, then I have a message:
Thank you for these two seasons of a column that is so much fun for me: your responses have been wonderful. I appreciate you allowing me to travel through time and space to share yours. Happy Holidays, whenever you are. Thank you for your time. And to all, a good night.
Gifts Linguarum.