On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language

by Ilan Stavans

Yiddish, Spanish, Hebrew, and English-at various points in Ilan Stavans's life, each of these has been the prominent and controversial scholar's primary language. His family's immigrant experience took them from Eastern Europe to the Jewish ghetto of Mexico City, which Stavans abandoned for Israel and subsequently the United States. In this rich memoir, the linguistic chameleon outlines his remarkable cultural heritage from his birth in politically fragile Mexico through his years as a student activist, a young Zionist in Israel, and a student of theology in New York to his career now as a noted academic and writer. Since survival has meant borrowing other people's languages and pretending they were his own, Stavans offers a view of his journey from the perspective of words. Along the way, he introduces his remarkable family: his brother, a musical wunderkind; his father, a Mexican soap opera star; his grandmother who emigrated from Eastern Europe to Mexico in 1929. Masterfully weaving personal reminiscences with a provocative investigation into language acquisition and cultural code switching, On Borrowed Words is a memorable exploration of Stavans's search for his place in the world.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Language, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. An award-winning writer and public television host, his books include Growing Up Latino and Spanglish. A native of Mexico City, he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Cynda Reads]

Great discussion of language and culture & culture and language. Stavans, Jewish Mexican, now Jewish Mexican American, has lived in Mexico, US, Israel, Spain, and other points in Middle East and North Africa. His life seems to have been a mission to understand himself in context of language. He find expansions and limitations in the four main languages he knows: Hebrew, Yiddish, Spanish, and English.
I gave On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language 4☆ because I love language and how it defines our worldview and how other define us. I find the story of his brother to a balance with Ilan's being verbal and linguistic and his brother barely having language skills.
Very personal memior about language, culture, and life.

[Leanne]

The LA Review of Books published an essay by Ilan Stavans in which the writer and translator reminisces about his Memoir of Language: On Borrowed Words. Born in Mexico to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Stavans was raised with two native languages: Yiddish and Spanish. When he was a young man, he left Mexico to work on a kibbutz in Israel; later he married an American and moved to New York. Reflecting on his "lives" in Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew and English--- the translator engages in self- translation:

"I firmly believe that how one perceives the world in any given moment depends on the language in which that moment is experienced. Take Yiddish, which is, at its root, a Germanic language, but is strongly influenced by Hebrew. It also features Slavic inclusions. These distinct elements give the language a taste, an idiosyncrasy. The life I lived in Yiddish was defined by the rhyme, the cadence of the sentences I used to process and describe it. But this wasn’t my only life. I was born in 1961 in Mexico City into an immigrant enclave of Eastern European Jews, and so began speaking Spanish right alongside Yiddish. I have two mother tongues — di mame loshn and la lengua materna. Both shape my viewpoint. Eating in Spanish — dreaming, loving, and deriving meaning from life in that language — all these actions differ from their counterparts in Yiddish. The taste of things is determined by the words used to express it."

In Spanish, he feels unconstrained. He says he waves his arms more but the lyrical quality of the language grates on him. English, being much more “rigid and logical,” is preferably to think in, he says. But, he always prefers joking in Yiddish. He says the rhythm of the language lends itself to joking around. While liturgical and metaphysical, Hebrew is the language for praying…And I love his words that The taste of things is determined by the words used to express it.

More here--wonderful book, wonderful thinker. http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksda...

[inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅]

really interesting and personally relatable. i struggled with the pacing at times- took me months to finish. but i do think i learned a lot and saw some validation. 🙇🏽‍♀️ not my favorite read but not bad
(3.5/5 stars)

[Giovanni García-Fenech]

I have mixed feelings about Stavans. He's undeniably sharp - I love his notion that the US should consider Spanish a native language, for example, or his refusal to reduce Latines to "brown" - but he often slides towards self indulgence (Ilan, we don't want to hear about your dreams! In. every. damn. book!) and self regard. In short, worth reading but expect to be annoyed.

[Andrea]

Uneven pacing but lovely prose. Dedicated meditations on language, loving, travelling, and Jewishness. The last chapter could have been completely omitted and this memoir might have rated higher... But still, all in all, quite an enjoyable read.

3.5/5.

[Emma Sotillo]

I admire Stavans' love for languages, and I sort of envy his collection of dictionaries...

[Balloon Bruce]

Couldn't finish it. I just was not interested in his grandmother.

[Natalie]

Very touching and illustrative of the immigrant relationship to language. Highly recommend to students of languages

[Rochelle]

As a North of the border American who moved to Mexico 14 years ago, I found Ilan Stavans' account, written as loosely linked chapters, of his reverse journey fascinating. Like Conrad and Nabokov who also wrote in English, he has a beautiful style, with only a couple of vocabulary errors and omitted words that a copy editor could or should have caught. I'm not always in agreement with Stavans but what more could I ask than that he makes me think about identity--Jewish, academic and linguistic? Given his dismissive attitude toward many Mexican writiers I admire, though, I wonder what his courses are like.

I first read On Borrowed Words a few years ago, reread it this week. The hardback edition is a pleasure to read and hold.

[Alexander Hurst]

I had the tremendous pleasure of having Ilan Stavans as a professor for a class titled, "Impostors," where we delved into various forms of impostorship, and questioned the meaning of authenticity. This book is a glimpse into Stavans own search for which of his many selves is the most true and genuine. The whole time through, I could hear his voice leaping off the pages, as if I were sitting in his office in an old wooden chair, chatting with him about childhood, change, and the things that give us meaning.

[Keerthi]

Rumor has it Stavans wanted (wants?) to include Martí and Cabeza de Vaca in the Norton Anthology of *Latino* Literature. WHAT?

Another point of interest: according to Stavans, "as a language, [Spanish] is somewhat undeserving of the literature it has created" and "Spanish, in spite of being the third-most-important language on the globe...is peripheral. It is a language that flourishes in the outskirts of culture, more reactive than active" (223).

[Rimma]

It was slow going at first, but then I got pretty into it. He describes the book as a memoir of the mind, I was taken with the concept of living in translation.

[Daniel]

Absolutely excellent. A concrete testament to what you could call "the postmodern condition" - a good contrast to Hunger of Memory

[Ladyellie]

This book put me to sleep time and again.....