Comprehension After A Hundred Years

When people speak we often become aware of their accent. We can tell which part of our own country someone comes from or whether they are a native at all by the way they speak. Different people gain different impressions of accents however depending on where they themselves come from. If two people from two different parts of the world hear the same words coming out of the same mouth at the same time their impression of the speaker's accent will be very different.

About a hundred years ago the German poet Christian Morgenstern wrote his "Fishes Nightsong". This is a transcription of a song he heard from the mouth of a fish at night. His transcription consisted of the characters - and ( in a variable linear pattern similar to the English Pindaric Ode. I have yet to meet a fish who feels this is an accurate representation of their language. Of course when I talk to them they reply in their various fish dialects and somewhere along the line they must use the same words recorded by Morgenstern. Due to my English speaking background however I hear them as something different. I hear the occasional * or ~ but never a - or (. I am therefore unable to decipher the song due to my unfamiliarity with the sound patterns of nineteenth century German through which Mr. Morgenstern rendered the sounds of the fish.

In some perplexity about what to do I have asked a number of German speakers what they understand the fish to be singing. These discussions often make little progress as in all cases the first thing a German says to an English person is "the ball was not over the line" and this discussion about the 1966 World Cup Final goes on way beyond reasonable drinking time. It has however been pointed out to me that fish respond to what is said to them by humans in different countries. In order to know what the fish is trying to sing to a German we need to know where the fish originally came from. Then we can understand what it thinks it is trying to sing in German and what characteristics it is exaggerating to make itself sound German. Thus we can see how this relates to English and how the song should therefore be transcribed in the English language.

A possible clue came to my attention last week. This is an account of a German intelligence officer who toured Tahiti during the Second World War trying to prepare the island for invasion. The account states that the fish in his area were a threat to him throughout his intelligence work as they were the only creatures that could pick him as a German. They were able to hear a strange honking noise in his English accent which Tahitians missed and they imitated it when they spoke to him. Fortunately the locals did not realise that the strange sounds the fish were making were their attempts to speak like a German. But from this encounter the officer realised what he sounded like to the fish and when they were imitating that sound. If the Morgenstern fish came from the Tahiti area their song would be a similar attempt by a Tahitian to speak German. Gratifyingly that now appears to be the case.

The account of the officer includes a conversation with a fish in which the Morgenstern characters of - and ( appear. Translating this into English would give us a big clue as to how the song should sound to an English person and therefore be transcribed for the English. German translations are done automatically in certain computer programmes and by applying one I have discovered the English import of the song. Here for the first time is the song reproduced in fish language as heard by English speakers.

The poem as heard by an English person runs:

*****
##!#!
*****
##!#!
*******
~~{}~~
*****
~~{}~!

So know we know. I am not aware of any English translation of the Fishes Nightsong but if anyone wants to do one this is how the song should appear to make sense to an English speaker. This is not simply my opinion. I have sung this song myself to the fish at Paper Tiger Chinese Restaurant in South Kensington which are some of the best fish in London. They respond by joining in and tell me it is as familiar to them in this form as "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" is to English rugby supporters. The Morgenstern version has often been dismissed as nonsense. How unfortunate it is that due to a simple mishearing of different accents his celebration of an essential part of fish culture has fallen so utterly from public perception. How sad it is that we still fail to understand each other simply because we hear the same things very differently.