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Pilgrim in the Palace of Words
Pilgrim in the
Palace of Words
A Journey Through the
6,000 Languages of Earth
Glenn Dixon
Copyright © Glenn Dixon, 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Michael Carroll
Design: Courtney Horner
Printer: Webcom
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Dixon, Glenn, 1957-
Pilgrim in the palace of words : a journey through the 6,000 languages of earth / by Glenn Dixon.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55488-433-9
1. Dixon, Glenn, 1957---Travel. 2. Sociolinguistics. 3. Language and languages--Philosophy. 4. Voyages and travels. I. Title.
P40.D59 2009 306.44 C2009-903002-0
1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
The Sappho translation is reprinted by permission of the publisher and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from Greek Lyric Poetry: Volume 1, Sappho and Alcaeus. Loeb Classical Library Volume 142, translated by David A. Campbell, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard University.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Published by The Dundurn Group
Printed and bound in Canada.
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The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein
Photograph Captions
All photographs were taken by Glenn Dixon.
Part One: Prayers at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
Part Two: A temple in the Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud, Bali.
Part Three: Bora Bora, the most beautiful island on Earth.
Part Four: Painted black with a stylized raven near the bow in white, this Haida canoe is called a t’luu. It is the same as the ones the Haida have used for thousands of years.
Contents
PART ONE At the Gates of the Western World
2 At the Gates of the Western World
3 And Empires, Too, Shall Splash Across These Pages
5 On the Roof of the World
6 The Heart of Darkness
7 One Thousand Words for Rice
PART THREE Under the Southern Cross
8 Islands of the Many-Coloured Waters
9 See You at Machu Picchu
10 The Headwaters of the Amazon
PART FOUR To the North
11 The Lost World of the Maya
12 Haida: The Surface People
13 May You Walk the Trail of Beauty
Epilogue: The Unimaginable Future
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
PART ONE At the Gates of the Western World
The airport security guard hauled me into a back room. “Step behind the curtain, please, and take off your clothes.”
“What do you mean?” I asked helplessly. “Everything?”
“Everything.”
I stripped clumsily, my two pale feet hopscotching behind the thin curtain. Outside I could hear the guard flipping through my passport. I was sure he was eyeing the stamps from the Muslim countries I’d been to, and could well imagine his lips pursing in disapproval.
It’s not so easy getting into Jerusalem. The whole place can be something like a war zone. The guard returned, took a quick look, and then asked me to dress and come out to identify my belongings. My backpack had already been hauled out of the plane and its contents had been placed on a long metal table. There was my toothbrush and my underpants neatly stacked in front of me. I’d flown in on the Israeli national airline — El Al — and it wasn’t taking any chances.