{"id":599,"date":"2010-05-29T10:41:26","date_gmt":"2010-05-29T10:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/jalapeno-peppers-and-sacred-texts.html"},"modified":"2010-05-29T10:41:26","modified_gmt":"2010-05-29T10:41:26","slug":"jalapeno-peppers-and-sacred-texts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/jalapeno-peppers-and-sacred-texts.html","title":{"rendered":"Jalapeno Peppers and Sacred Texts"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Do the words we use to describe
\nsomething powerfully influence what it is we actually experience?  <\/span>Years ago, when I was first studying
\nGerman, I was amazed to learn their word for the taste of a hot pepper was
\n‘scharf<\/i>.’  <\/span>It made no sense to
\nme.  <\/span>In other contexts scharf<\/i>
\ntranslates into English as sharp, like the blade of a knife.  <\/span>Why not the word ‘heiss<\/i>‘ which is
\nGerman for hot, as in the weather is hot?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

Years later I had several close
\nGerman friends and colleagues who were as fluent I English as I am.  <\/span>I got curious, and asked them whether,
\nnow that they were fluent English speakers, they agreed with me that ‘hot’ made
\nmore sense than ‘scharf<\/i>‘ as a word for the taste of an jalapeno pepper.  <\/span>Unanimously they answered “no.”  <\/span>One elaborated that he found the word
\n‘hot’ used in that context the strangest thing he had to get used to after
\ncoming to the US.<\/p>\n

Both ‘hot’ and ‘schar<\/i>f’ are
\nmetaphors, words with more basic meanings which are adapted to describe
\nsomething else because of an important similarity, and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have effectively argued that, at bottom, most of our thinking is metaphorical<\/a>,
\nultimately rooted in bodily experience. 
\n<\/span>So words derive their meaning from their relationships with other words.
\nBut on first take most of us would assume that the world to which words
\nultimately refer is itself in some sense just what it is.  <\/span><\/p>\n

At this point the question of how
\npeppers taste begins to get very interesting to me.<\/p>\n

The metaphorical similarities that
\n‘hot’ and ‘scharf<\/i>‘ identify with the taste of an jalapeno pepper are different,
\nso different that it is only with a significant effort of the imagination that I can see how ‘scharf<\/i>‘ applies to a
\npepper’s taste, and apparently my German friends have a similar problem with
\n‘hot.’  <\/span>While most languages I have
\ninquired about tend to use their equivalent of hot or sharp, not all do.
\nSpanish uses the term ‘picante<\/i>‘ but in Spanish the weather is never ‘picante’ and the blade
\nof a knife isn’t either, although maybe its tip could be- I dunno.  <\/span>Friends
\nwho speak Spanish tell me that ‘picante’ has reference to experiencing pointed things that
\npenetrate. <\/p>\n

Now, for me, here is where it gets even
\nmore interesting.  <\/span>Let’s say
\nthere is this experience we have when tasting jalapeno peppers.  <\/span>We use metaphors to describe the taste,
\nbecause that is  what we and the Germans do.  <\/span>Each metaphor points to some aspect of the experience, but
\nthey point to different<\/i> aspects.  <\/span>A child learning a language simply
\naccepts that this is the term, and integrates it unquestioningly, and as their
\nfluency grows the word takes on the shades of the other words with which it is
\nmetaphorically connected, what my friend Jim calls “The Dance of the
\nMetaphors.”   <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the process of gaining fluency
\nthat dimension of the experience becomes perceptually dominant.  <\/span>Young German and young English speakers
\nlearn to live in different worlds,<\/i> even
\nif their pre-linguistic experiences were presumably identical.  <\/span>Once learning to experience peppers in
\nthat way, they continue to do so and in time have difficulty understanding how
\nthe other metaphor could apply.  Socialization and hypnotization have a lot in common. <\/span><\/p>\n

If something so basic to our encounter with the world as taste can
\nbe so strongly influenced by the subtleties of language, what else can?  <\/span>Speakers of different languages to some
\ndegree live in and experience different worlds.  <\/span>Becoming fluent in another language involves learning to live
\nin a different world, although if the experience  of my German friends
\nis indicative, one may never be able to live equally completely in two
\nworlds.  <\/span>One will always be home.<\/p>\n

Sacred Texts<\/b><\/p>\n

So far as I know, powerful
\nspiritual experiences are universally said to be beyond words.  <\/span>People try and put them into words when
\nthey talk about them, but seem always to say that ultimately words do not do
\ntheir experience justice.  <\/span>Certainly
\nthat has been my experience.  <\/span><\/p>\n

When we combine this widespread
\ntestimony with the fact that we learn to live in different linguistic worlds
\nthat can importantly shape even how we experience such basic phenomena as
\ntaste, I think the implications for learning about spirituality are
\nprofound.  <\/span>The one I want to close
\non is that there can never be a complete translation of a spiritual experience
\nfrom one language to another, because the experience is never able to be
\ncompletely incorporated into the experiencer’s language.  That language
\ntakes its meaning from living within the complete linguistic world of the
\nwriter.  <\/span>Outsiders reading a
\ntranslation are at least two steps removed from what the original writer was
\ntrying to communicate.<\/p>\n

It is easier to translate a
\ndetached description of someone else’s experience, but that is even farther
\nremoved from accessing the originally experienced reality.  <\/span>There is even more room to get it wrong because the person doing the initial description is not the person having the experience.<\/p>\n

We Pagans do not have sacred texts.  <\/span>Some people, particularly many scholars,
\nsee that as a shortcoming.  <\/span>A
\nsacred text would certainly make blogging easier: how does verse 23 of chapter
\n4 in The Book of Gerald<\/i> apply to my situation today?  <\/span>And to yours?<\/p>\n

Increasingly though, I see it as a
\nstrength. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do the words we use to describe something powerfully influence what it is we actually experience?  Years ago, when I was first studying German, I was amazed to learn their word for the taste of a hot pepper was ‘scharf.’  It made no sense to me.  In other contexts scharf translates into English as sharp,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-spirituality","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nJalapeno Peppers and Sacred Texts - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/jalapeno-peppers-and-sacred-texts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jalapeno Peppers and Sacred Texts - 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