Je Est un Autre - Wordsmith.org

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Je Est un Autre

Can anyone translate this for me? Doesn't it mean "I (The Self?) is an Other"?

From Rimbaud.

That's what it looks like to this Foremost Fumbler of French. there are certainly others here better suited than I to offer you edification.

Translation: But I'm just Gene Autry

Forgive

Hydra, when I saw your subject line, before reading your post, I also thought of Gene Autry!

There's a set of nursery rhymes, written in faux French (or is it Latin?) but when read aloud sounds like English -- anybody know what I'm talking about?

Hydra,
From High-School French and a few trips abroad I agree that the literal translation is: I am the (an) other.

According to BabelFish , it is "I Is another"*

Dalehileman; Thanks for the laugh-out-loud

*Although, according to French rules of Grammar, the "e" in "Je" must be dropped. The proper way to say, "I am" in French is "J'est".

Mots d'Heures, Gousses, Rhames by Luis d'Antin van Rooten.

Un petit d'un petit
S'�tonne au hall
Un petit d'un petit
Ah! degr�s de folles
Un dol de qui ne sort cesse
Un dol de qui ne se m�ne
Qu'importe un petit d'un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.

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Hydra,
From High-School French and a few trips abroad I agree that the literal translation is: I am the (an) other.

According to BabelFish , it is "I Is another"

I am an other would be je suis un autre. This has got to be a usage of Je for something like Freud's Ego (das Ich).

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Hydra,
From High-School French and a few trips abroad I agree that the literal translation is: I am the (an) other.

According to BabelFish , it is "I Is another"

I am an other would be je suis un autre. This has got to be a usage of Je for something like Freud's Ego (das Ich).

I disagree. The verb "suis" means "to have", does it not?
It is proper in French to state your age by saying, "Je suis douze ans" (I have 12 years). But, the French verb 'etre' (to be) is conjucated as Je est (and properly becomes J'est).

The verb "suis" means "to have", does it not?

You might want to consult a French grammar. The verb �tre 'to be' is conjugated in the present indicative:

je suis
tu es
il est
nous sommes
vous �tes
ils sont

The verb avoir 'to have' is in the present indicative:

j'ai
tu as
il a
nous avons
vous avez
ils ont

What is the context of this text? If it is from an old French text, then "je est" might be grammatically correct (modern usage is "je suis"). If it is a philosophy text, then some of the abovementioned translations might be more likely.

BTW, the translation for "I am 12 years old" (J'ai douze ans) does indeed literally mean "I have 12 years"; but the verb for have is avoir.

Suis derives from the Latin sum. Je est was never grammatically correct.

What is the context of this text?

It is from a 19th century letter written by Arthur Rimbaud. Here's the context.

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What is the context of this text?

It looks like someone has identified a letter by Rimbaud; however, I ran into these words in a poem (a strangely paranoid poem) by Lawrence Durrell.

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Je Est un Autre

'Je Est un Autre'

�Rimbaud.

He is the man who makes notes,
The observer in the tall black hat
Face hidden in the brim:
He has watched me watching him.

The street-corner in Buda and after
By the post-office a glimpse
Of the disappearing tails of his coat,
Gave the same illumination, spied upon,
The tightness in the throat.

Once too meeting by the Seine
The waters a moving floor of stars,
He had vanished when I reached the door,
But there on the pavement burning
Lay one of his familiar black cigars.

The meeting on the stairway
Where the tide ran clean as a loom:
The betrayal of her, her kisses
He has witnessed them all: often
I hear him laughing in the other room.

He watched me now, working late,
Bringing a poem to life, his eyes
Reflect the malady of De Nerval:
O useless in this old house to question
The mirrors, his impenetrable disguise.

�Lawrence Durrell.

Arthur -- Autre. C'mon, guys, you need a good punster here:

I am an Arthur.

I am an Author?

This was actually written by his brother Jason, about whom it can be said he's always Jason Rimbauds.

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... you need a good punster here

I agree. Know any?

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What is the context of this text?

It is from a 19th century letter written by Arthur Rimbaud. Here's the context.

VQR � "RIMBAUD" EST UN AUTRE... his rendering of Rimbaud's mostfamous epiphany�familiar to most English readers even in its French original: JE est un autre�feels particularly clumsy. ...
www.vqronline.org/articles/2004/winter/grotz-rimbaud-autre/ - 37k - In cache - Gelijkwaardige pagina's

A little late, but lots of information.

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The verb "suis" means "to have", does it not?

You might want to consult a French grammar.

Or a Canadian. Many of us speak some French, even if only the cereal-box variety. Definitely "Je suis", not "J'est", unless the lovely BelMarduk can enlighten us as to some idiom we sesquilinguals are missing.

Zemhjzd has the right context.

'La formule est paradoxale et m�me, semble-t-il, contradictoire puisqu�elle identifie le sujet, le moi, c�est � dire le p�le d�identit� de la personne avec son contraire � un autre �, ind�fini, et �tranger.'

Loosely translated:'The formula is a paradox and even, it seems, contradictory because she (it) identifies the subject, the me , which means the antithesis of the person, with his opposite << someone else >>, non defined, and a stranger.'

Je est un autre then will be : I is someone else . (Split personality? )

Still pretty heavy philosophic, but then:

'When he who hears doesn't understand him who speaks, and when he who speaks doesn't understand what he himself means - that is philosophy.
-Voltaire

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Can anyone translate this for me? Doesn't it mean "I (The Self?) is an Other"?

Yes, I can. If any of you give a damn then you must know who it is that is giving a swinging damn. Is it your lingual self? That outward self of sensory information who exchanges information and action with the external world or is the self who directs his fleshy robot into mindless actions?

If you forget a name who is it that recalls that name while you are busy interacting with the outside world? Huh?
And who does the dreaming while you are asleep?

Think a bit. Are you merely a biological extention of a self that is you but doesn't speak in words but in biological imperatives?

Or is the we who are but operatives of our own sub-conscious who is the we?

I think maybe yes.

I hope that you all understand and that we, of the cognitive bent, do too.

I guess I know what you mean. We all have these two; the one who percieves, classifies and acts and the one who on a deeper level directs our actions and thinking more than we often would be willing to admit.
The part that creates the dreams when we sleep or half sleep.
(split personality was just a feeble joke, sorry).
Seeing it in French and isolated from the rest of the poet's letter made it maybe a bigger mystery than it is.

Speaking of driving forces, I did not mean to make this post as my early morning good sense told me there are lots of things to be done and yet I do. Your post touching the essense of the little phrase.

Awwww. Here I get busy with work for a couple, or nine , weeks and you discussed a subject that I could have had an authoritative answer for, and y'all get on positively well without needing me at all - with accents and everything no less.

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Mots d'Heures, Gousses, Rhames by Luis d'Antin van Rooten.

Un petit d'un petit
S'�tonne au hall
Un petit d'un petit
Ah! degr�s de folles
Un dol de qui ne sort cesse
Un dol de qui ne se m�ne
Qu'importe un petit d'un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.

C'mon, all you punsters, where are you?!

It's been done in German, too - see this little volume of Morder-Guss-Reims by Leberwurst

A machine translation

A small one of a small one
ASTONISHES ITSELF to the lobby
A small one of a small one
Ah! degrees of crazy ones
A dol of that does not go out stops
A dol of that does not take itself, That
Imports a small one of a small one
All Cheerful one of Reguennes.

Yes, now it all makes perfect sense.

"AH yes! The degrees of crazy ones."

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Yes, now it all makes perfect sense.

Ah, those crazy French.

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Yes, now it all makes perfect sense.

Ah, those crazy French.

"Why do you think I have this outrageous accent?"
[ -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail ]

"I is Another"

Maybe it is a psychological aberration, like the polar opposite of solipsism.

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Ah, those crazy French.

Heyy!!!

Um.

Well.

O.k., maybe we're a little coo-coo puffs.

It is actually used in Biblical French, it is often the way that Christ is represented as
"The I AM." Veiled religious themes come out in Rimbaud's work here and there.

The Je-Est is a reference to the Luciferean Christ of mythology, the trickster, the clown Loki,
and in a way a bridge between west and near-east religious symbols. A Lucky-Fire is in
Islamic astrology Alligafir - or Venus. Venus is the "morning star" and Christ is known to have said "Yea Verily I am the Morning Star" The clown is in many languages a pun on Crown, and kingship - and is the quality of this character, this Clown - known to us as Bozo.

In the Turkish language Bozo means I Am.

Oddly the question asked of Lucifer in the Bible is "How art thou fallen O Star of the Morning?"

This revelation really changes the nature of the father-son relationship we are all so familiar with.

For an even more paranoid look into Je Est Un Autre - there is a much longer version of it
going around the Usenet, posted by MadCap - it is an Mp3 - sounds a bit like Durrell, it been put to music. Searching the lyrics got me here. There is a reference in that version saying bluntly that Shelley (and Byron) were murdered. Did Dr. Polidori fix them too stiffly?

Tho' you found a really old thread to cling on to, or add to,
welcome nonetheless.

In the Turkish language Bozo means I Am.

I don't think so. The copula in Turkish is olmak 'to be', but it doesn't show up in the present indicative. One way to say 'I am' in Turkish is ben 'I'.

As for biblical French, do you have a particular translation in mind, and if so, could you cite some chapter and verse?