Etgar Keret Quotes About Language
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I think that, in Hebrew, it's like the language creates a more unique and specific universe even before the story.
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Hebrew is this unique thing that you cannot translate to any other language. It has to do with its history.
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In Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.
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When I started writing my stories, I thought that not only nobody outside my language, but nobody outside my neighbourhood would get them.
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What happens when you speak colloquial Hebrew is you switch between registers all the time. So in a typical sentence, three words are biblical, one word is Russian, and one word is Yiddish. This kind of connection between very high language and very low language is very natural, people use it all the time.
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When my books were translated, it was always about the characters, because the unique language aspect was lost in translation.
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People in Israel would write in a high register, they wouldn't write colloquial speech. I do a special take on colloquial speech. When I started writing, I thought [the language] was telling the story of this country: old people in a young nation, very religious, very conservative, very tight-assed, but also very anarchistic, very open-minded. It's all in the language, and that's one thing that doesn't translate.
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You don't need to use the language of God to ask where the restrooms are.
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