Interviewer: What difference in usage would you point out in these three languages [Russian, English, French], these three instruments?
Nabokov: Naunces. If you take framboise in French, for example, it’s a scarlet color, a very red color. In English, the word raspberry is rather dull, with perhaps a little brown or violet. A rather cold color. In Russian it’s a burst of light, malinovoe; the word has associations of brilliance, of gaiety, of ringing bells. How can you translate that?
- Vladimir Nabokov, Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews and Letters to the Editor. Bryan Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy, Eds.
Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.