Words, words, words. Just how much do they matter?

The importance of words can be overstated, can’t it? I say that as someone who loves playing with them. But playing means not getting too serious about them.

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” claimed the philosopher Wittgenstein. A statement Tom Stoppard, one my favourite playwrights, twisted into “whereof we cannot speak, thereof we are by no means silent”. There are ways of communicating which have little or nothing to do with words.

That’s our theme for today, with a return to my neighbour Nacho’s stories.

Spain, as you probably know, went through a terrible Civil War nearly ninety years ago. Plenty of Spaniards alive today had grandparents who were caught up in that awful conflict, and the deadly consequences that flowed from it. 

One story I heard was of a woman approaching a local businessman, after the war. He’d invested in a number of local businesses, including one for which he needed women  – it was always women – to do sewing work

She was the widow of a fighter for the Republican cause. That was the defeated side, and the winners were the followers of Franco, the dictator for nearly forty years, who was a strong believer in reprisals. A lot of men, and not a few women, were shot. Always in the nicest way, of course: one senior officer who was given charge of a prison full of republicans, liked to announce the names of those to be executed on a particular day, with a long pause between the forename and surname.

“José…” he might say and then let everyone in his audience who had that forename wait in dread for the surname, before finally announcing it.

Franco (hand raised) with his most important ally
Hitler hated Franco, a man he regarded as contemptible
(one of the only issues on which I agree with him)
but his assistance was crucial in getting Franco into power

Families of republicans – of ‘reds’ (‘rojos’) – might not be executed or imprisoned themselves, but they were kept in a state of subjection, often denied employment of any kind, with pressure on potential employers not to take them on.

The businessman seemed prepared to hire the widow. But she didn’t want to take a job on false pretences and be exposed later.

“You know I’m the widow of a rojo?” she asked him.

“Can you sew?” he asked in turn, and when she told him she could, “then you’re hired.”

Some people were above pressure and had a certain generosity that transcended political differences. The latter’s a quality we could do with seeing more of today.

Nacho’s father was from a family that suffered the deprivations the dictatorship heaped on its opponents. But he was clever. Extremely clever. His teachers told his parents that he was so bright that they really had to do whatever they could to help him get into university. And they did, at the cost of great sacrifices.

He became an agronomist. But he couldn’t afford to do the full four-year course that would have given him the title of ‘engineer’. Instead he did just two years and emerged as a ‘perito’, which roughly translates as ‘expert’ and is a less senior grade.

He was given a position in the Valencian region. Now that region has its own language, which its defenders are always keen to point out is not Catalan. And it’s true that the accent of its speakers is different from those of Catalonia (or so I’m told: I know next to nothing of the language and couldn’t tell). It’s also true that there are words that are different.

Well, it’s also true that Yorkshireman speaks with a different accent from a Cornishman, and probably has a number of different words too. But the language both speak is undoubtedly English. I’m afraid that Valencian and Catalan seem to stand in about the same relationship to each other. But you don’t say that to a keen Valencian speaker unless you want a long argument on the subject, which you’re extremely unlikely to win.

These days, all public servants in the Valencian region have to pass an exam in the language before being appointed. Nacho’s father probably wouldn’t get the job today that he held successfully back then. Because he was living proof that whereof we cannot speak, thereof we are by no means silent.

Nacho’s father was from Madrid. He never learned Valencian. But what he did learn was Valencia. He travelled up and down the region, with its three provinces, visiting farmers on their land and finding out what they did, how they did it and what problems they faced.

He was also completely straight. Many of the engineers expected bribes. Nacho’s father didn’t and never took one. 

The result was that when a farmer turned up in the regional capital, the city of Valencia, and asked the Agriculture ministry for help, he knew what he wanted.

“We can offer you the services of Engineer such-and-such,” an eager young administrator might say.

The farmer would shake his head.

“No,” he’d reply, “I want him.” 

He’d point at Nacho’s father.

“Him? But he’s not even an engineer. And he doesn’t speak Valencian.”

“It doesn’t matter. He understands what I do. And that means we can understand each other.”

See what I mean? It doesn’t always take words. Communication is about understanding, and understanding can go a lot deeper than language.

And I say that even though I enjoy words so much.