can tarot be bilingual?

[Nevada]

I'm not bilingual, at least not with anything near fluency. Just a smattering of words and phrases.

But I think the Tarot is the ultimate polyglot!

Images speak all languages, as does music. I think the only rift might be in how different cultures would interpret the Tarot images. There was a discussion in another thread recently, I wish I could remember where, about how people in some cultures see cards, such as the Fool.

 

[Onyx]

This is a question that has been haunting me. I have been teaching a group of new tarot students and I have been trying to come up with an explaination of what "reading tarot" actually is.

Every sound we make in speaking, every word we use in writing are all symbolic. They represent an idea. We use these sounds and written symbols because they are part of set of symbols that can communicate ideas to others who are familiar with the representation of those symbols.

The closest thing I have been able to come up with is that a tarot deck is a symbolic language. It uses images and symbols to convey ideas and thoughts. We who use the cards are better understood as translators. We take a symbolic language represented on the and translate that into a verbal one for face to face readings and a literay language as I do mostly e-mail readings.

It is my belief that the cards speak clearly for themselves but those who have studied and understand better the symbolic images used and better translate that symbolic language.

Being bilingual allows for more symbolic understanding for thoughts. This would be an asset to understanding images and the tarot. In my limited experience there are some languages that simply capture an idea better than others. This would be helpful in understanding the Tarot.

I hope that this isn't too far off topic but this discussion seemed to be just what i have been thinking lately.

Onyx.

 

[Aerin]

Well, here we go to the eternal discussion....what is to be bilingual? Lately I do have this discussion very often, maybe something in the stars.... For me somebody that is bilingual is fully comfortable in all the languages they talk and can manage in all the aspects of life in both languages. If that is the case, then when we read tarot what happens is that the feelings that the cards wake up, are able to go out of our heads in any of the two languages. Most people master one of the languages much more than the other/s.

What I found interesting was that the person who told me he could handle emotional talk better in English was in fact a Frenchman by birth and upbringing. Which was weird to me at the time, and which made me think that there might be something extra going on than just facility with the language.

In fact, what Onyx said - some languages may well capture certain concepts better than others.

Aerin x

 

[Astraea Aurora]

some languages may well capture certain concepts better than others.

Aerin x

I guess there's a reason why French is called the language of love, German is called the language of science and philosophy, Italian is called the language of passion and so on. Some things can be said better in one language than in another one.

Astraea Aurora

 

[Basic Elements]

Tarot speaks in the language of symbolism, and symbolism, like music is a universal language..this is the essence of why tarot is effective. It connects with universal archetypal congregations of repeated experience throughout history. So long as the meaning of the inquiry is clearly known and understood by the querent, the actual words are somewhat arbitrary.

Of course this does not take into account the possibility that the reader and the querent are not the same person, then it is of course imperative that the reader be fluent in the language in which the question is posed. There is always the possibility of the reader misinterpreting aspects of a reading by not being familiar enough with the consciousness of the individual asking the question.