Re: Vladimir Nabokov born (22-4-1899)

On 2024-04-22 11:42:42 +0000, Ross Clark said:

Now there's a linguistically interesting writer.
Grew up in an upper-class Russian family where of course much French was spoken. Also had an English-speaking nanny.
 "The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their household, and Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. He related that the first English book his mother read to him was Misunderstood (1869) by Florence Montgomery. Much to his patriotic father's disappointment, Nabokov could read and write in English before he could in Russian."

My youngest daughter could read and write in Spanish before she could in English, but I wasn't disappointed, and English and French weren't far behind. After all, Spanish spelling is much easier than English (or French).

 Every time Nabokov comes up, I want to refer to an exchange between him and the critic Edmund Wilson that I read long ago,

Likewise.

 in which N amusingly shows up the irreducible subjectivity of people's judgments about the "character" or "quality" of different languages.
Trouble is I can't find it any more. I've tried.

Likewise. There are lots of articles _about_ the letters on the web, but not the letters themselves.

 (...) it's late. Maybe somebody else will have some thoughts.

--
Athel cb