Voyage

Voyage Collage

I always thought that French had a certain je ne sais quoi about it. Which makes me wonder if languages are capable of conveying different feelings and emotions. Of course, I am simplifying things with this statement as there are a myriad of conditions to consider. Nevertheless, love songs in Chinese never fail to strike a chord in me whereas I can't say the same for love songs in English. Even Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor once said "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse". Is an emotion tied to a language? If so, what emotion does French convey? Oddly, I immediately think of love and mourning. From Rimbaud to Verlaine one would be hard pressed to distinguish between the two emotions. Even the occurence of rain, be it on the city of Paris or just on Bastille square seems to convey this feeling. Perhaps love and mourning are so intrinsically link that they become one in the same. After all, in the absence of a love, there is mourning; a forbidding mourning.