Language of flowers

I've talked with many artists about the language of flowers, but it never occurred to me to look for a dictionary. Until now. And, thanks to Temple Univeristy Library, here are a few...

de la Tour, Charlotte. Le langage des fleur. Paris: Garnier Freres, 1858. (French, illustrated)

Dumont, Henrietta. The Language of Flowers. The floral offering: a token of affection and esteem comprising the language and poetry of flowers. With coloured illustrations from original drawings. Philadelphia: H.C. Peck & Theo Bliss, 1852.

Ingram, John H. Flora Symbolica; or The language and sentiment of flowers. London: F.W. Arne and co., 1869. (link)

Wirt, Elizabeth Washington Gamble. Flora's Dictionary By A Lady. Baltimore: Fielding Lucas, Jr, 1832.

Bullhorn politics

So for some time I've been compiling research on how racist groups communicate their messages in the public sphere. I've spent a lot of time on the SPLC website, on the ADL site, and even a few hate groups I have tracked down. My assumption - valid until this election cycle - was that publicly displaying one's racism was a risk to these people, and that the symbols they used to telegraph their views was an essential adaptation to a world with which they are out of step.

Boy. Am I an idiot.

This has been driven home as candidates on the right have abandoned the dogwhistle for the megaphone. There are a thousand regrettable examples, but I want to just looks at this one for a minute. I don't know journalist Tom Cahill's work at all, or follow usuncut.com, but I appreciate his eye. In a story that ran on March 17, 2016, (picked up by Gawker...I know, I'm still in the depths here, but that's where this stuff happens some times) Cahill pointed out that PBS Newshour ran a story on Trump's popularity in the south on March 15 in which they spoke to (and photographed) a person named Grace Tilly and members of her family. Cahill (and others) observed that Tilly  had some prominent tattoos - one of a Celtic cross and another of the number 88. In certain contexts these signs are associated with white supremacist groups. Tilly, according to PBS, denies any white supremacist or Neo-Nazi allegiances and claims, "are connected to her family’s Celtic religious beliefs".

Is this some form of plausible deniability? I think it's hard to imagine - based on the data in the story - that the Tilly family represents a model for racial tolerance in 21st century America. Another member of the Tilly family interviewed in the piece, Pete, complains about, "all these protesters and all this stuff, and people saying [Trump is] racist" and specifically goes on to mention Black Lives Matter, before performing the signature move of racists everywhere and denying the value of race as a subject. Ms. Tilly's claim about her Celtic ancestry may or may not be true, but it tracks terribly close to the going mantra of 'heritage not hate' behind which hate now tends to hid.

So what we have here is someone who waves the (coded) flag and, when confronted on it, refuses to take responsibility for the message that's being sent. (I have considered the possibility that Ms. Tilly went to get tattoos that would celebrate her cultural identity that she thought had no meaning other than the one she intended. That is a very remote possibility given the popularity of number codes like 88...which, so far as my research has gone, has nothing to do with Celtic myth and are widely known among tattoo artists).

And this is a parent who kept her 11 year old home from school, "so that he can see democracy in action."

Grace, for the love of God, let your kid go to school. Don't do us any more favors. Please.

Recent research...

I have a couple or three shows coming up and I am moving away from the literary quotations that have been subject matter for a while...I am looking for new subjects in the argot of various groups. The idea of dictionaries that guide readers through worlds that are intentionally closed off by language is interesting...

This could get messy...

This brochure, produced by a detective agency around 1880, contains a section of the slang of Philadelphia's petty thieves. We are told that "You rarely hear slang form thieves over 30 years of age. Although all crooks are familiar with the terms, its use is chiefly confined to pickpockets, sneak-thieves, and the younger class of criminals, who take delight in mastering the language of their elders and in familiarizing themselves with its use." (21) 

Bruce Rodgers' 1972 book is as personal and idiosyncratic as these kinds of books tend to be. "Slang flourishes in the ghetto," he writes in the introduction, "Those who leave the ghetto shake off its language first, then decry its message. Slang is secretive, a form of protest and an expression of social recognition [...] yet this secretiveness is not snobby; anyone interested can break the code [...] when the secrecy in slang becomes and object in and of itself [...] slang stops being primarily a means of communication." 

More to come. These were found at Temple University's Special Collections Research Center (thanks!).

Dying Languages

In June, 2005, Elizabeth Kolbert (writing in the The New Yorker) poignantly described an emerging crisis in world langauges. Focusing on Eyak, Kolbert called attention to the phenomenon fof language extinction adn described efforts being made to preserve languages that are being erased adn forgotten as populations migrate, assimilate, or disappear into the fog of mass communication.

I was reminded of this sad story when I saw images of remarkable paintings by Moroccan-born artist Hamid Kachmar, on view at Boston University's Sherman Gallery. Here's a passage from the gallery's description of the show:

In Reviving the Ancient Tifinagh Script, Kachmar renders the ancient Amazigh script, Tifinagh, into textual and visual compositions that represent a struggle for identity, cultural survival, and self-conception. For centuries, the Tifinagh script has been politically suppressed; painted out of Amazigh people’s collective consciousness. For Hamid and many other cultural activists of his generation, Tifinagh represents not just the ancient script of a still widely spoken indigenous language, but also a symbol of the struggle for cultural survival.

a painting by Hamid Kachmar

Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages? - John McWhorter