Book Section
Libera Pisano

Wandering Words

Translation against the Myth of Origin in Fritz Mauthner’s Philosophy
In: Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Cultural Inquiry, 26 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 211–27
Open Access
In this paper, I will address the issue of translation as a critique of autochthony that emerges in the context of Fritz Mauthner’s linguistic scepticism. Translation, for Mauthner, becomes a privileged prism through which to consider identity and belonging, as well as a way of understanding uprootedness, since language is a continuous product of borrowing, bastardization, stratification, and contingency. According to Mauthner, languages are not possession, but borrowing; not purity, but contagion; not an abstract crystallization, but transit. Therefore, love of the mother tongue — the only way to conceive patriotism — is not a physical connection with the land, roots, or nation, but a refuge, an always precarious Heimat (home).
Keywords: Fritz Mauthner; Translation; Mother Tongue; Linguistic Skepticism; Autochthony
Rights: © by the author(s). Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Part of Untying the Mother Tongue Containing:
Introduction / Antonio Castore, Federico Dal Bo
But You Don’t Get Used to Anything: Derrida on the Preciousness of the Singular / Deborah Achtenberg
Philosophy’s Mother Envy: Has There Yet Been a Deconstruction of the Mother Tongue? / Michael Eng
‘My Mother Tongue Is a Foreign Language’: On Edmond Jabès’s Writing in Exile / Federico Dal Bo
The Mother Tongue at School / Jakob Norberg
Scarspeak: Thinking the Mother Tongue as a Formative Mark / Juliane Prade-Weiss
The Shuffling of Feet on the Pavement: Virginia Woolf on Un-Learning the Mother Tongue / Teresa Prudente
‘I know you can cant’: Slips of the Mother Tongue in Fred Moten’s B Jenkins / Jeffrey Champlin
The Mother Tongue of Love and Loss: Albert Cohen’s Le Livre de ma mère / Caroline Sauter
The Staircase Wit: or, The Poetic Idiomaticity of Herta Müller’s Prose / Antonio Castore
Wandering Words: Translation against the Myth of Origin in Fritz Mauthner’s Philosophy / Libera Pisano
Title
Wandering Words
Subtitle
Translation against the Myth of Origin in Fritz Mauthner’s Philosophy
Author(s)
Libera Pisano
Identifier
https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-26_10
Description
In this paper, I will address the issue of translation as a critique of autochthony that emerges in the context of Fritz Mauthner’s linguistic scepticism. Translation, for Mauthner, becomes a privileged prism through which to consider identity and belonging, as well as a way of understanding uprootedness, since language is a continuous product of borrowing, bastardization, stratification, and contingency. According to Mauthner, languages are not possession, but borrowing; not purity, but contagion; not an abstract crystallization, but transit. Therefore, love of the mother tongue — the only way to conceive patriotism — is not a physical connection with the land, roots, or nation, but a refuge, an always precarious Heimat (home).
Is Part Of
Untying the Mother Tongue
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
September 4, 2023
Subject
Fritz Mauthner
Translation
Mother Tongue
Linguistic Skepticism
Autochthony
Rights
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Language
en-GB
page start
211
page end
227
Source
Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Cultural Inquiry, 26 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 211–27

References

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Cite as: Libera Pisano, ‘Wandering Words: Translation against the Myth of Origin in Fritz Mauthner’s Philosophy’, in Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Errans, 26 (ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 211-27 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-26_10>