🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

HUBERT

LACAN

Today, I bring you something that could be considered a curiosity, even an amusement. But I believe that such peculiarities are precisely the kind of things that we, analysts, might be uniquely positioned to situate.

What follows, which I announced to you last time following Pierre KAUFMANN’s remarks regarding BERNFELD’s article and its antecedents—essentially announcing to us that the problem lies in establishing the link between sublimation and idealization—will serve as a sort of footnote before we leave behind the notion of sublimation. I had previously outlined sublimation around the enigmatic and veiled concept of the Thing, veiled for good reasons, and now I bring you something that concerns the Thing and what I might call, in sum, the paradoxes of sublimation.

Sublimation is not, in fact, what a vain public assumes it to be. As you will see, it does not necessarily operate in the direction of the sublime. Similarly, the idea of a change in the object should not be understood as causing the disappearance of the sexual object as such—far from it. The sexual object can even emerge more distinctly as such within the process of sublimation.

The rawest sexual play can serve as the subject of poetry; nonetheless, this too represents a sublimatory aim brought into play. To put it plainly, I believe it is not useless—after I spoke to you about courtly love (though I don’t know how much you have followed up on the readings I suggested in this regard)—for psychoanalysts to be aware of certain elements in the dossier of courtly love, including the poetry of the troubadours. Specialists themselves are often at a loss regarding this material.

They are as perplexed by it as a fish is by an apple. Among the works of courtly poetry, there exists one singular poem—an hapax, so to speak, in the history of courtly poetry. This poem appears in the work of one of the most subtle and refined troubadours, Arnaud DANIEL, known for his exceptionally rich formal innovations, notably the sestina, which I cannot delve into here but whose name you should at least know.

Arnaud DANIEL composed a poem about the most peculiar of the relationships of service—one of the dynamics I mentioned last time when I addressed this topic—between the lover and the Lady. This poem is notable for what cautious commentators describe as a work that oversteps the very limits of pornography, venturing even into scatology. The case it portrays seems to have arisen as a problem within this specific moral casuistry of courtly tradition, which involves judgments rendered on occasion.

The case is as follows: a Lady, referred to in the poem as Dame or Domna Ena, commands her knight to submit to a trial. This trial is to measure the worthiness of his love, his fidelity, and his commitment. She orders him to undertake a task, as the text states, that consists of “placing his lips on her trumpet.” The phrase “placing his lips on her trumpet,” as you will see from this unusual piece of poetry, leaves no room for ambiguity.

To not keep you waiting any longer, I will read the poem to you. I doubt any of you are familiar with this lost language, Occitan, though it has its distinct style and value. The poem is composed in stanzas of nine lines with consistent rhyming patterns, which change from one stanza to the next.

“Since Lord Raymond…”

This refers to individuals involved in the affair—specifically, other poets besides Arnaud DANIEL. “Lord Raymond” refers to Raymond DE DURMONT.

“…defends Dame Ayma and her orders,
I will first grow old and white-haired before consenting to such requests,
from which such a great inconvenience might arise.
For to place his lips on that trumpet,
he would need a mouthpiece with which to draw grains from the pipe.
And then he might well end up blind,
for the smoke that would escape from its folds is strong.”

I believe the nature of the trumpet in question is beginning to become clear.

“He would indeed need a mouthpiece, and that mouthpiece would have to be long and sharp…

If we evoke here the recent, similarly peculiar images from an exhibition by a famous painter…

…for the trumpet is rough, ugly, and hairy, and the swamp runs deep inside. It is not fitting that he who places his mouth to the pipe should ever be a favorite. There will be plenty of other trials, finer ones, and more worthwhile ones. And then, if Lord Bernart…”

The BERNART here is the lover.

“…avoided that trial, by Christ, he acted not a moment as a coward for having been seized by fear and dread. For if the stream of water had come, it would have scalded his cheek entirely, and it is not fitting that a woman… Bernart, I disagree with Raimon Durfort’s assertion… to tell you that you were ever wrong in this; for if you had sounded the trumpet… those seeking to dissuade you, praise God that He allowed you to escape this. Yes, he has truly escaped a great peril, which would later have been a reproach to his son and to all those… Better he had gone into exile than sounded it in the funnel between the spine and the perineum, through which pass the rust-colored matters. He would never have known so much… as to have her urinate on his snout and eyebrow.”

The poem concludes with a four-line envoy:

“Lady, let Bernart not resolve at all to sound the trumpet…

“To sound,” “horned one,” and “horn” here are filled with ambiguity, as they simultaneously mean horn, bugle, and also pipe.

“…without a large dousil…”

An indigenous word that means something akin to “tool.”

“…with which he will close the hole of the perineum, and then he may sound without peril.”

This rather extraordinary document, offering us a unique perspective on what might be called the profound ambiguity of sublimatory imagination, draws its significance, as I ask you to notice, first from the fact that we have not preserved all the works of the Trouvères and Troubadours. This poem—not only possessing obvious literary merit, which the translation does not fully convey—has not been lost. In fact, whereas certain poems of Arnaut DANIEL exist in only two or three manuscripts, this one is found in twenty manuscripts.

Clearly, there were those at the time who preserved and transmitted these poems, reflecting both the weight of historical circumstances and the intrinsic significance of the text itself. Moreover, we have other texts—though I will spare you these—that show two other troubadours, TRUMALEC and Raymond DE DURMONT, taking opposite stances in this dubious debate. Here, we encounter something resembling a sudden inversion of what is concealed in meaning, and something presenting itself to us as a singular retorsion: the idealized woman abruptly replaces the constructed, skillfully elaborated Thing—crafted with refined signifiers, and God knows Arnaut DANIEL ventured far into the realm of utmost subtlety in the lover’s pact. He pushed desire to its extreme, to the moment it offers itself as a sort of sacrifice that turns back upon itself in a kind of self-abolition.

Well, it is this same poet who, with some reluctance, composed a poem on a subject that, to have devoted so much of his poetic talent to it, must have touched him at some level. Thus, we find ourselves before this: the Lady, occupying the position of the Other and the object, abruptly presents—in its crudeness—the void of a Thing which, in its nakedness, proves to be the Thing itself, her Thing, the one that lies at the core of herself in its cruel emptiness. This Thing…

Some of you have perceived and sensed its function, direction, and perspective in relation to sublimation.

…This Thing is, in a way, unveiled here with particularly insistent and cruel force.

It is nonetheless difficult not to perceive its echoes and antecedents, for example, when we read in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe about the origin of the poetic flute. PAN, pursuing the nymph SYRINX, who eludes him and disappears amidst the reeds, in his fury cuts down the reeds. And it is from this, says LONGUS, that the flute with unequal pipes emerges, symbolizing, adds the subtle poet, that PAN thereby wishes to express that his love was unequaled.

What do legend and myth tell us? That it is indeed SYRINX who is transformed into the tube of PAN’s flute. And the register of derision in which the peculiar poem I have shared with you can be inscribed situates itself, so to speak, in the same structure, relationship, and schema of that central void around which the articulation and sublimation of desire ultimately revolve.

I would not be thorough if I didn’t add to the dossier, for all practical purposes, and in a way to situate the place we can assign to this peculiar literary piece, that Arnaut DANIEL, even for those who are not specialists in troubadour poetry, is referenced somewhere: it is in Canto XIV of the Purgatorio where DANTE places him among the company of the sodomites.

I was unable to delve further into the specific genesis of the poem in question. I will now give the floor to Madame HUBERT, who will discuss a text to which analytic literature frequently refers. This is SPERBER’s text, which ostensibly addresses the problem of the origin of language but also touches on various issues related to what we are attempting to articulate here concerning sublimation, particularly in connection with JONES’s article on the theory of symbolism, which I have commented on myself. I have heard feedback that my commentary is not easily accessible to readers.

I referenced it in a brief article published in a journal issue dedicated to JONES’s theory of symbolism. Indeed, JONES refers very explicitly to this issue in raising a particular question. The question is as follows:

“If,” he says, “Sperber’s theory is true—that is, if we must consider certain primordial activities, particularly agricultural labor and humanity’s relationship to the earth, as direct equivalents of the sexual act—can we say that certain traits generated from this relationship, which persist in the meaning of this primitive connection, can be attributed to the process of symbolization?”

JONES answers no. In other words, given his conception of the function of the symbol—and I won’t dwell on it further here, as it is not our focus—he considers that it is not, in any way, a matter of symbolic transposition or something that could be classified as an effect of sublimation.

The effect of sublimation here must be understood, so to speak, in its generosity and authenticity. The farmer’s copulation with the earth is something we must regard in strict equivalence of terms, not as something we can call a symbolization, but as something that is strictly the equivalent of a symbolic copulation. If you read JONES’s text, this is what you will find, and it is worth pausing to consider.

In my article, I drew certain conclusions from this, which I will revisit later. However, for this text to be appreciated in its true value, it is found in the first issue of Imago, which is perhaps even harder to locate than the others. Madame HUBERT has kindly worked on it, and today she will present its content to you.

Presentation by Madame HUBERT

The article is titled “On the Influence of Sexual Factors on the Origin and Development of Language” (“Über den Einfluß sexueller Momente auf Entstehung und Entwicklung der Sprache”).

“Before tackling the problem of the genesis of language, it is necessary to define the meaning of the term language. Here, we are concerned only with the genesis of articulated language, leaving aside entirely the various kinds of language. For the psychological linguist, the concept of language signifies not only the production of sound but also the transmission of a psychic content from one individual to another. In other words, language exists only when there is an intention to communicate.

Thus, for example, a cry of pain as such is not speech, but it can become so if it is articulated to plead for help. Our problem is as follows: what were the prerequisites that led a speechless individual, equipped with a vocal apparatus, to develop the intention of communicating with another?

Certainly, by observing that the sounds they produced unintentionally could influence the actions of another individual. Before the invention of communication—and consequently speech—could arise, the following prerequisites had to be met:

1. Individual A repeatedly expresses their emotions through sounds.
2. A second individual, B, regularly reacts to these sounds in a manner visible to A.
3. A recognizes the connection between their cries and B’s reactions.
4. Only after passing through these preliminary stages can A intend to use their voice to communicate with B; that is, they can now cry intentionally if they desire B’s reaction. From this moment on, A possesses not just a voice but also language.

The situations that might have led to such a development seem limited by the following conditions:

1. At least two individuals must participate in the situation.
2. At least one individual, A, must experience an emotional state leading them to cry out.
3. Certain forces must compel individual B to react regularly.
4. B’s reaction must be desirable for A; otherwise, A would have no incentive to provoke B’s reaction through their cries.
5. The situation must occur frequently and remain consistent.
6. The situation must be simple.

The last two conditions result from the limited intelligence of humans, who, at this stage of development, are barely distinguishable from animals. A simple situation had to recur frequently enough to allow A to recognize the causal relationship between their cry and the reaction.

Considering the scenarios proposed for the origins of speech, it is easy to see that these conditions are often unmet. One commonly imagines the scene of two primitive hunters suddenly attacked by a ferocious beast. One of them, A, cries out and notices that the other, B, flees at the sound. On another occasion, A cries out intentionally to alert their companion to the danger. Thus, they possess an alarm cry, which becomes a linguistic element.

The first two conditions are satisfied: the presence of two individuals and the emergence of an emotion—in this case, fear. The third condition, regularity, also seems plausible, as even if B does not flee, they would notice the adversary and appear to react to A’s cry.

However, the fourth condition is questionable: B’s reaction would need to be desirable for A. It would be unwise to project modern altruistic feelings onto the minds of primitives. While the fifth condition—frequency of the situation—may be accepted, the sixth, simplicity of the situation, does not hold. In other words, the alarm cry theory lacks any probability in our view. A’s attention is primarily occupied with the danger at hand, making it unlikely that they would recognize a causal link between the cry and the reaction—whether this link is real or merely apparent.

In reality, there are only two situations that entirely fulfill the required conditions:

1. The first is that of the hungry infant. They cry unintentionally and receive food from their mother. Later, they understand the causal link and learn to call for their mother.
2. The second is the sexual relationship, where the male’s excitement is discharged through sounds to which the female responds by approaching.

Consequently, the origin of speech would be reduced to one or both of these situations. It is certain that the relationship between the child and their mother explains the origin of individual language. Nonetheless, I believe it must be rejected that human language draws its origins solely from this. Aside from the initial reflexive sounds, the child does not create their language; they receive it from adults. It seems that all indications point to sexuality as the most important root of language.

We have attempted to locate the moment at which the development of human speech began. We now ask: are there pathways from this point that lead to the linguistic milestones we know from our own experience? In other words, how can we explain that language seeks to designate things that have no connection—or only a very distant one—to sexuality?

I believe that my hypothesis—that language originates from sexual bodies—makes understandable the effort to extend it to ever more numerous and novel activities.”

Up until now, we have not truly addressed the question of the origin of language; we have merely outlined the meaning of the question. Most authors have focused primarily on the following problem: how is it that humans sought to form a group of sounds to represent precise concepts? In other words, how did they create a vocabulary? In scientific literature, these two questions have not been separated with sufficient precision. My hypothesis, which suggests that sexual excitation is probably the primary source of the first manifestations of speech, might help us understand the problem of vocabulary creation. Moreover, scientists agree that at every cultural level of a group, there is an exact correlation in its language. That is to say, linguistic development progresses step by step with cultural development. This principle also applies to the origins of language.

Thus, it is clear that the development of the cry of seduction was not possible before the formation of the family. Only the fact of living with other individuals could create these means of communication. For the same reasons, it must be admitted that the cultural advancement represented by the invention of tools—which truly marks the radical separation of humans from animals—decisively influenced the development of language.

I will attempt to demonstrate the likelihood that activities performed with the help of tools were accompanied by manifestations resembling seduction calls because they were sexually invested. Sexual investment here means that the phantasmatic activity of primitive humans bore a certain analogy to human sexual organs, perceiving in the work with tools an image of the sexual act.

On such occasions, emotions akin to those experienced during sexual activity arose, creating tensions. This tension demanded release, similar to sexual tension, and led similarly to the emission of sounds. It is not possible to provide evidence with the same certainty for all types of labor. Sometimes one must settle for a certain probability.

I will begin with a group of activities that seem essential to proving my hypothesis: agricultural labor. In the imagination of agricultural societies, there is a close parallel between the production of plants from the earth and procreation, birth, and human growth. Language testifies to this through countless metaphors and expressions shared by both realms. Human procreation is realized through the seed that plants the germ of life in the womb of the mother. Children are referred to as the offspring of humans.

Conversely, we speak of the bowels of the earth. What is significant here is the primitive representation identifying the plow with the phallus, the earth with the woman who conceives, and perceiving the plow’s activity as a sexual act. One could cite countless superstitious customs in which the plow serves as a symbol of fertility. In Aeschylus, there is a passage where Oedipus’s sin consists of having sown the field of his mother, which should have been sacred to him. Similarly, in another source, an object representing both a plow and a phallus appears in the decoration of a Greek vase, demonstrating that it is not merely symbolic but also a quite literal representation.

A similar symbolism exists among peoples unfamiliar with the plow, who dig into the earth with a kind of stick to search for roots. The same sexual investment applies to the two main methods of processing grain. Here, the mortar represents the female sex, while the pestle symbolizes the penis. In English, “to meel” or “to grind” means both to have intercourse and to grind. The Latin word “pilon” appears in Low German and Danish (various Germanic terms).

The activity of cutting with dull tools also appears sexually invested in a similar way. The double meaning of cutting poorly with a dull tool and sexual intercourse is frequently found. For example, in Syrian and Swabian dialects, to cut clumsily, and in Bavarian, “Vikel” means both to copulate and to cut poorly with a dull knife. In Alsatian, “Kise” means both to copulate and a dull knife. Similarly, in Swabian, “fich” means both cutting with a dull knife and copulation, etc.

The symbolism is easily understood: the cutting tool represents the male member, and the shaped object or hollow produced by this activity represents the female sex. An even more striking analogy concerns the activity of boring. A beautiful example is provided by a particular method of making fire. It involves two pieces of wood, one of which is used to pierce the other with rotational movements. An ancient Hindu custom accompanying the production of sacred fire highlights the analogy with the sexual act: “Here is the turning wood, the procreator; prepare and bring forth the sovereign. We want to whirl the fire. According to our old customs, fire lies in the wood like the fruit well-protected in the pregnant woman. Each day anew, the sacrificing men sing praises of […]. Insert it into her who is laid out; you who know the art. Immediately she conceives; she has given birth to him who impregnated her with his glowing red tip in its trajectory; the fire is born in the precious wood.”

Although my exposition may seem incomplete, it nevertheless demonstrates a certain plausibility for my hypothesis. Performing these major tasks would, for primitive humans, due to sexual investments, provoke excitement or at least psychic tension, which would be expressed through sounds, just as primitive sexual excitement likely provoked cries. This would represent the means to communicate the representation of labor to others by reproducing the sounds that regularly accompanied it, thereby creating a word to designate that labor.

If we admit that the discovery of the first method of labor resulted in a grouping of sounds capable of naming this labor, how can we explain why a different grouping of sounds serves to designate a new method of labor, and why a new linguistic root is created for each new discovery? For if, for example, the sexual tension from plowing discharges in the form of a particular grouping of sounds, it is difficult to understand why this tension would produce a different grouping of sounds under the influence of another method of labor.”

The solution to this problem does not seem too difficult to resolve. Simultaneously with the invention of the first tool, a word was created, which was simultaneously invested with the dual meaning of “to copulate” and “to perform a certain task.” However, this word was learned by the new generation long before the awakening of their sexual impulses. The sexual meaning of the word faded and took on a more figurative sense.

The situation is entirely different for the inventor of a new method of labor. I have reasons—reasons I will return to later—to believe that the invention of a new method could only occur under the influence of sexual tension. This literally involves the allure of the new. In performing their newly invented method of labor, the inventor was in a state of tension that incited them to emit cries resembling interjections. It seems evident to me that if this cry represented a different grouping of sounds than the ones their ancestors had invented in this manner, humans gradually created a series of words to designate primal affinities. Each distinguished itself acoustically, yet all were equal in retaining their specific value: the dual meaning of “to copulate.”

The close relationship between the invention of language and the invention of tools seems more convincing to me than theories based on terror or astonishment as triggers for the first words. At their mental level, only extremely frequent—virtually infinite—repetition allowed them to fix the first cries in memory and reproduce them. This requirement, previously stated, is satisfied by deducing the origin of speech from the acoustic sounds that accompanied labor. The songs that still accompany communal work today seem to have a direct connection to the primitive pleasure investment in all labor. I believe I am not mistaken in reducing the origin of linguistic roots to work performed by a group. This would explain the consolidation and survival of these practices, as they would have been learned by an entire group of humans simultaneously.

Some readers likely doubt the accuracy of our supposition that the invention of new labor methods only occurred under the pressure of sexual tension. It seems hard to accept that it is mere coincidence that almost all labor methods are sexually invested and make possible, even provoke, comparisons with sexual activity. This can only be explained by the fact that human sexual fantasies already played a decisive role in creating these methods. Once humans no longer had periods of rut like animals, they often found themselves without a mate available. They were therefore compelled to seek other means of discharge to deploy their energies. Naturally, they preferred activities that bore some resemblance to the sexual act and could serve as its substitute.

The reader will notice that I have touched on a well-discussed topic. Recently, Sigmund FREUD and his students have emphasized the close relationship between the achievements of civilization and such unsatisfied sexual impulses. For our purposes, it suffices to note that sexual impulses play a very important role in the spiritual life of humans, especially as we approach the origins of human civilization. Consequently, these impulses must also be given their place in discussions about the origin of language. Most readers will probably refuse to believe in the monstrosity that, at least in its beginnings, the majority of sounds signified only one thing: the sexual act. On the one hand, we are too bound by our modern standards of propriety to pronounce sexually charged words without discomfort. On the other hand, it seems implausible to us that a single concept could differentiate into the infinite number of meanings available in a modern language.

Both objections can be fairly easily overcome.”

I will now skip a paragraph in which the author discusses the development of language from these roots into phrases and the differentiation of categories, words, and nouns, as it does not seem closely related to the preceding context. I move on to the second part of the work, which involves much etymology.

“My theory on the origin of language has the advantage of being testable in practice. By asserting, against our modern sensibilities, that all meanings in a language derive from the primary meaning of ‘to copulate,’ I am obliged to prove that words designating sexual things indeed had a great capacity for semantic expansion. The historical evidence for the richness of this semantic displacement will determine the validity of my hypothesis.

Taking a few examples of sexual words, I will examine their capacity for expansion. I must limit myself to the field of Germanic languages. However, if my theory is correct, it should apply to any language. In my examples, I sometimes use words from modern dialects, as these specific words are often absent in written language. I am aware that this method introduces potential errors, but I hope the main result will not be affected by such errors. I begin with the word Geaille. This word appears in Old High German with the meaning of […] and simultaneously of ‘to copulate.’ The further development of its meaning proceeds from the sexual sense.

Relatively early, in the early stages of modern Low German, this word took on the meaning of vexare: to mistreat. Another early author is undoubtedly correct in saying that the general meaning of ‘to mistreat’ comes from the more specific meaning of ‘to mistreat by violating.’ The meaning of ‘to mistreat’ from gheare is thus attested to at a fairly early period.

The expression, originally probably very strong, “may the devil beat you,” lost its literal meaning due to frequent use. Through the intermediary of meanings like ‘to torment’ and ‘to bother,’ it took on the weaker sense of ‘to annoy,’ which is still used today in a Swiss dialect. ‘To annoy’ became ‘to tease,’ then ‘to deceive.’ Another developmental path also begins with ‘to mistreat’ and leads to meanings like ‘to throw violently to the ground’ or ‘to break.’ From ‘to throw,’ through the transformation of transitive to intransitive use, it became ‘to fall.’

Cruder words like […] meaning ‘leave me alone’ took on the sense of gayen, which became ‘to escape’ or ‘to slip away.’ This explains why gayer became a fairly coarse expression for running or walking. Finally, there is another meaning, ‘to boast’ or ‘to act self-important,’ which probably derives from teasing with words or mocking. The past participle of the verb also underwent an independent semantic development.”

In Switzerland, […] means bad, annoyed, ill-mannered, grumpy, adding that compounds of gayen take on yet other meanings, for example, […] which means to overturn, to argue, or kamengaye, which means to wrestle, or […] which means to fail an exam.

One must acknowledge that the richness of the development of meanings leaves nothing to be desired. This example does not represent an anomaly; on the contrary, it can be said that all verbs meaning to copulate tend to expand their meanings in similar ways. In the Irish word, we find an almost perfect correspondence: brouiller, an older brouillen derived from brouit, which means fiancée, does not originally signify fiancée but rather a young woman, as in the English bright, or the Swedish brut, bruden, or brouiden, which means to take a wife, a young girl—thus, to copulate. Similarly, as with graen, the following meanings develop: to annoy, to worry, to beat, to strike, to throw, to fall, to escape, to walk.”

He then gives a beautiful example from an old Dutch poem dating back to 1640, which contains yet more meanings, but I do not know enough Dutch to translate it.

“There is a third verb with an identical development, found in the word cerden (in dialect cerda), which means […]. We encounter the same meanings: to annoy, to push, to throw, to fall, to escape, to notice something. Likewise, in Ireland, we find cerda, carda, meaning to polish, to clean, to iron. Furthermore, nouns designating the female sex are often found alongside verbs meaning to copulate or to whip. For example, in Westphalian, the verb to copulate is called kitchen or kouetchen. Alongside these, we find nouns.

We must also closely examine the semantic development of certain words designating the vulva. My primary example is the Germanic word fout. It universally signifies either the sex organ or the buttocks. The noun fout has a relatively restricted development of meaning. In many regions, it has come to mean woman, sometimes without any pejorative sense, though more often it has become a vulgar term, as in Swedish fond, which means prostitute or an effeminate and cowardly man. Another expansion of its meaning occurs with the sense of hole or slit, for example, in Alsatian, where […] means a wound on a tree, or in Swedish, where […] refers to the slit in trousers for fastening suspenders, and in Dutch foot signifies spirit or vital force.

We are not surprised to find in Swabian fouat, meaning to laugh at someone; in Westphalian, fouten, meaning to deceive; futelen in Alsatian, meaning to make a mistake. In Swedish, fouten means to work; in Frisian, fouden means to botch; in Alsatian, foudehen means to work superficially. Similarly, there are adjectives derived from fout that are widespread, such as fonti, meaning lazy. In German, there is forge foutel, which means vulva, and alongside this meaning, we find gueule (mouth) in southern Germany. Originally, this was an insult that has considerably softened over time. Vorge is used generally as an insult or to mean an easy girl; it is also used in the sense of hairiness. The analogy with fout extends to verbal derivatives, for example, in Swiss fudeselen, meaning to get upset or behave licentiously, and in Alsatian fudeselen, meaning to sneak away.

I will spare you further examples, but what is interesting is that in Germanic languages, the semantic development of words meaning to copulate and vulva takes very diverse forms. This development follows a sort of pattern. Here we see vulva evolving into meanings such as woman, female animal, then pubic hair, hairiness, a disguised person often wearing a mask. On the other hand, it extends to other body parts, such as the mouth, the mother’s breast, the buttocks; and further, to meanings like bag, basket, container, and even pastry.

We see this same pattern appearing in a recent category of words. Simultaneously, for the verb to copulate, the meanings evolve as follows: first, to mistreat, to beat, to annoy, to tease, to deceive, to throw and to fall, then to escape, to run away, to walk, and finally to work poorly; to cut poorly, using a dull tool; to move uncertainly, to speak poorly, and finally, to stutter. In another sequence, it evolves into meanings such as to reproduce, to grow, to occur, and to happen.”

As a consequence of his schema, he states:

“We have seen that these are sounds that accompanied labor. If a root entirely or partially exhibits this system of meanings, the sexual meanings must be considered as the starting point or at least a point of bifurcation during its development. The number of words that have passed through a sexual meaning at some point is so large that an etymologist must constantly keep this perspective in mind, especially when considering earlier linguistic periods. The seduction cry, he adds, represents the most ancient manifestation of language.

The birth of roots designating various activities is explained by the sexual investment in different labor methods. We must necessarily acknowledge a period of roots primarily verbal in character. The hypothesis that all roots were originally related to sexual concepts is rendered plausible by the fact that the significant role of these concepts in the development of meanings can be demonstrated in the history of the Germanic languages.”

Arnaud DANIEL

Pus Raimons e Truc Malecx
chapten n’Enan e sos decx,
e ieu serai vielhs e senecx
ans que m’acort in aital precx
don puesca venir tan grans pecx:
al cornar l’agra mestiers becx
ab que traisses del corn lo grecx;
e pueis pogra leu venir secx
que’l fums es fortz qu’ieis d’inz des plecx.

“Since Raimon and Truc Malec
support Lady Ena and her orders,
I will first grow old and gray
before consenting to such requests
from which such a great impropriety could result.
For, to place his lips on that trumpet,
he would need a beak with which
to pull grains out of the pipe.
And then he could well end up blind,
for the smoke is strong that escapes from its folds.”

Ben l’agr’ops que fos becutz
e’l becx fos loncx e agutz,
que’l corns es fers, laitz e pelutz
e prions dinz en la palutz,
e anc nul jorn no estai essutz,
per que rellent en sus lo glutz
c’ades per si cor ne redutz:
e no taing que mais sia drutz
cel que sa boc’al corn condutz.

“He would indeed need a beak,
and that beak would have to be long and sharp,
for the trumpet is rough, ugly, and hairy,
and no day does it remain dry,
and the swamp is deep inside it:
that is why the tar ferments upward,
constantly oozing from it.
And it is not fitting that he
who places his mouth on the pipe
should ever be a favorite.”

Pro’i agra d’azaus assais,
de plus bels que valgron mais;
e si en Bernatz s’en estrais,
per Crist, anc no’i fes que savais,
car l’en pres paors et esglais:
que si’l vengues d’amon lo rais,
si l’escaldera’l col e’l cais;
e no’s cove que dona bais
aquel que cornes corn putnais.

“There will be enough other trials,
finer ones and of greater worth,
and if Lord Bernart avoided this one,
by Christ, he did not act cowardly
in being struck by fear and dread.
For if the stream had come down on him from above,
it would have scalded his neck and face entirely;
and it is not fitting for a lady to kiss
one who has blown into a foul trumpet.”

Bernatz, ges eu no m’acort
al dig Raimon de Durfort
qe vos anc mais n’aguessetz tort,
que si cornavatz per deport
ben si trobavatz fort contrafort,
e la pudors agra’us tot mort,
que peitz ol no fa fems en ort:
e vos, qui que’us en desconort,
lauzatz en Dieu que’us n’a estort !

“Bernart, I do not agree at all
with what Raimon de Durfort says,
that you were ever wrong in this:
if you had blown the trumpet for amusement,
you would have encountered a harsh obstacle,
and the stench would have killed you outright,
for it smells worse than manure in a garden.
And as for you, whoever seeks to dissuade you,
praise God that He allowed you to escape it!”

Ben es estortz de perilh
que retrag for’a son filh
e a totz aicels de Cornilh;
mielz li vengra fos en eisilh
que la cornes el enfonilh
entre l’esquin e’l pencenilh
per on se legon li rovilh;
ja no saubra tant de gandilh
no’l compisses lo groing e’l cilh.

“Yes, he has indeed escaped a great peril,
one that would have been a reproach
to his son and all those of Cornil.
Better that he had gone into exile
than to have blown into the funnel
between the spine and the perineum,
through which flow rust-colored matters.
He would never have known so much cleverness
as to prevent her from pissing on his snout and brow.”

Bernatz de Cornes no s’estrilh
al corn cornar ses gran dozilh
ab que’l trauc tap el penchenilh:
pueis poira cornar ses perilh.

“Let Bernart not resolve at all
to blow the trumpet
without a great dousil,
with which he will close the hole of the perineum;
then he can blow without peril.”