Language As A Pillar Of History

My last blog was last year. I remember blogging about Pride and Prejudice, the type of book I don’t enjoy reading. Instead, during my Christmas break I was able to read something quite better. Mark Twain’s The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. But now I start this year reading an essay suggesting that the original version of the book contains demeaning vocabulary. Off course. Twain is portraying reality of a racist society in pre-Civil War America. Changing the language would be like changing the epoch. It would be like giving AK-47s to every Confederate. Ridiculous. Changing words, or these “hurtful epithets” as the author states, would take off the essence of a racist society, trying to portray it as a different one.

Sorry if I don’t amuse you, but I haven’t wrote a blog in a year. Anyways, to entertain my point I would like to get any sentence from Twain’s book and try to write it in a modern, educative language: “That’s so my boy – good bye, good bye. If you say any runaway niggers, you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it” (Twain 127). Let’s see. Very well, fine young man. Farewell. If you see any fugitive slaves, you get some help and catch them, and might get some reward. Different huh? Language composes a part of any country’s history. And changing it would be like saying that the United States won the War of Vietnam. The book enhances a historical period, with historical accuracy. Let’s keep it constant and not hide the reality of their language.