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On adoptive language

on adoptive language

speak we should but may
we be spared the blemish of
repudiating the first syllables uttered, the familiar
cooing from those closest, all those words
that should have been said but are now
exchanged for extraneous sounds
in a separate and sometimes dissenting language, no,
there are no
perfect equivalents and trading this language
for that one is mostly
a lesser and unexciting form
of subversion, plainly a way of renouncing
the world as we know it,
and, without
once realising, a formidable
mutation takes place, our faces embracing another
cast, our voices crooning a different
tune, and we become
aligned with the inhabitants from elsewhere who
speak with such
different procedures, mean other
things or probably none of the stuff that we hold
close to our hearts, seemingly incapable of domestic emotions yet
having reached uncharted ones, and thus
this new language turns out to be
as powerful
as our fate
for what you now say is what
you have unquestionably turned into, and who
you once were
died the death
of your oldest, wisest
vocabularies



el idioma adoptivo

hablar lo haremos cuando no quede alternativa pero que nos libren de la mácula de repudiar las primeras sílabas articuladas, la canción de cuna que entonaron las más allegadas, esas palabras que habría que haber dicho tan resueltamente pero que ahora se intercambian por los sonidos en otra lengua con la que no hay equivalencias directas ni operativas, y así proceder a un trueque de este idioma por ése es ante todo una forma inferior de subversión, apenas llamativa, o incluso una manera de renunciar al mundo conocido sin comprender que aquí mismo está aconteciendo una mutación más formidable aún, el rostro abrazando otra máscara, la voz entonando una nueva y melódica arenga, y alineadas estaremos con las habitantes de otro emplazamiento que hablan con tan distintos procedimientos y que quieren decir otra cosa que lo que dicen (o incluso nada de lo que nos es entrañable o querido o ansiado) y que, además, son incapaces de expresar las emociones consabidas y por eso las intercambian por las propias de lugares no hallados en los mapas, aún por descubrir, y en este nuevo idioma que llega con tanta urgencia como tu propio destino lo que ahora dices es todo aquello en lo que sin duda te has convertido, y quien una vez fuiste murió la muerte de tu vocabulario más antiguo e instruido

(From Cuaderno de notas)

Isabel del Rio

Isabel del Rio is a British-Spanish poet, fiction writer and linguist. Born in Madrid, she has lived in London most of her life. She has published fiction and poetry in both English and Spanish, including La duda (1995), Zero Negative-Cero negativo (2013), Paradise & Hell (2018), and A Woman Alone: fragments of a memoir (2021); her collections of poetry include Madrid Madrid Madrid (2019), Dolorem Ipsum: Poetry in a Time of Pain (2020), and Cuaderno de notas (2021). Her most recent book is a collection of her short stories, La autora del fin del mundo (2022), and she has translated an anthology of Latin American poets in the UK, Equidistant Voices (2023). She has extensive experience in translation focusing on poetry, versioning and self-translation, and is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing, with translation and adaptation as her main research subjects.

© Isabel del Rio
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