A TREASURE OF HIDDEN LANGUAGE VARIETIES AND THEIR MEANING IN KARL MAY’S POPULAR NOVEL DER SCHATZ IM SILBERSEE Abstract This article demonstrates how Karl May systematically applies several stylistic devices to represent the diverse linguistic environment of America in his western novel, Der Schatz im Silbersee. This system, it is argued, supports, though not always consistently, May’s agenda of promoting good characters over bad, making the text more authentic, and helping German readers identify with the characters. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Linguistic developments of the last decade open new questions for interpretation of language use and language system. Sociolinguistics, in particular, the study of a linguistically diverse environments, has grown. Fowler explains the goal of sociolinguistics as “description, interpretation and explanation of language varieties” (544), a goal which would involve asking the following types of questions: Why are different language varieties used in particular situations? Who uses which varieties, and what attitudes prevail toward the different languages in the environment? These sociolinguistic questions can also be applied to literature, though we must be aware of the differences between literary language varieties and those spoken in a community. People speaking spontaneously usually do not think consciously about the forms of language they use, and many people with their own particular dialects and accents come together to create a diverse linguistic community. Literary language, on the other hand, is consciously manipulated and carefully constructed. So authors who use dialect and other varieties instead of the traditionally written standard language to enhance their characterizations have consciously selected those forms. A good example of an author sensitive to exactly these linguistic variances of concern to sociolinguistics is Karl May. One of his most distinctive stylistic devices in his popular novels, for example, is to incorporate different language varieties into the dialogue, including foreign language interjections, the German dialect of Saxony, and pidgins.1 Various critics address these stylistic devices: Schinzel-Lang evaluates May’s Chinese interjections (1991), Pinnow analyzes May’s Saxon dialect, and Mühlhäusler mentions May’s creation of pidgin German as an example of a literary pidgin.2 What none of them considers, however, is the combination of these stylistic devices as May intends them to create a reading experience. I believe that May combines foreign interjections, Saxon dialect, German pidgins, as well as two other devices – pronoun shifts and overt narrator comments about language – to create a linguistically diverse environment Neophilologus 82: 589–606, 1998.  1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 590 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe within his novels, even though he writes most of the text in German. Thus, his linguistically limited audience is nevertheless able to experience foreignness alternating with the familiarity of Saxon. May’s conscious choice to manipulate language varieties adds other, perhaps more interesting questions to the list given above for the sociolinguist: why does May want his readers to believe that different languages are being spoken in the text? How does his language system serve to strengthen the characterizations and how does it contribute to the overall meaning of the text? How do his choices relate to his audience? Based upon the example of May’s popular western, Der Schatz im Silbersee, I will propose three answers to these questions: May chooses to create a linguistically diverse environment 1) to emphasize the characters’ good and bad qualities; the more linguistically adept and culturally “fluent” a character, the more heroic and good he is; 2) to make the text as a Western seem more authentic to the German audience; and 3) to help German readers (and possibly himself ) identify with the characters. In my analysis, I will also argue that these goals are not all consistent with one another, nor is the use of language varieties throughout the novel consistent. These inconsistencies compromise the goals May sets out to achieve (above all, the evocation of a diverse linguistic environment for a monolingual audience), rendering them not wholly plausible, at least not for the modern reader. In order to understand the functions of the language varieties in the text, we must understand the larger contexts of the text, including May’s personal oeuvre and biography, as well as broader social and historical considerations. In widening circles, these contexts include the conditions May wrote the novel under, his series of western novels, his German westerns in the context of the literary tradition of westerns, May’s adventure stories as a whole within the context of his life, philological theories about language and dialect, corresponding popular attitudes about dialect, attitudes about American culture, and late nineteenth century German historical and political developments. These are not all of the contexts that helped to shape May’s novel, and even this list is too long to cover extensively in a paper of the present scope. Yet I will address each of these contexts where they seem relevant and appropriate in the following analysis of language in Der Schatz im Silbersee. The language system in Schatz im Silbersee Der Schatz im Silbersee (1890–1891) is one of many popular western novels Karl May wrote in his very prolific career. Although May was German, it was not unusual for Germans at the end of the nineteenth century to write Westerns. The genre had been popularized by American James Fenimore Cooper in the 1820s (Folsom 4) and copied in England, France and Germany. Each country used the western to promote its own unique agenda, Karl May 591 however. For America, Westerns created a territory where the conflict between tendencies toward progression and primitivism could be fought out (Folsom 6). In other countries, including England and Germany, Westerns were pedagogical novels intended to instill good moral values in the youth. Davis notes that Westerns were well suited to this purpose because “[the cowboy myth] provides the framework for an expression of common ideals of morality and behavior” (16). Presumably to promote German moral and cultural values rather than generalized, human ones, and to help German youth identify more easily with the heroes, Karl May’s western places German heroes in the middle of the American West rather than more plausible Americans. This juxtaposes Germans and their cultural values with the fictional tradition of the Wild West resulting in a complex cross-linguistic situation: people who speak German and dialects of it encounter people who speak only American English, British English (in one case), Spanish, or various American Indian languages. These language varieties, as noted above, are not immediately obvious from the surface of the text: May wrote almost the whole novel in Standard German with the exception of a few foreign interjections, examples of “pidgin German,” and some key dialogue in Saxon dialect. Yet the lack of any really different languages in the text does not negate the cross-linguistic situation. On the contrary, the interjections, pidgins, and dialect form part of a system that signals to the readers that different languages are being spoken. May clearly created this system to mark linguistic diversity without placing demands on his readers quite purposefully, because the narrator comments overtly on language at several points throughout the text. He underscores the fact that English is being spoken in a number of places: for example, a black man is described as speaking English “wie ein Weißer” (53).3 Most of the German heroes, including Tom, Humply-Bill, Old Firehand, Tante Droll and Fred, speak such good English that Watson, who is sent to find the German named Pampel among them (Droll) cannot distinguish any of them as being German: “Nach kurzer Zeit hatte er sie alle sprechen gehört; aber es gab keinen unter ihnen, der nicht sein echts Yankee-Englisch gesprochen hätte” (322). Significantly, Winnetou, the chief of the Apaches and comrade to the German heroes, is described as speaking very good English (268), and finally, Hobble-Frank, after speaking German with Old Shatterhand and Jemmy, makes a comment to a couple of nonGerman horse thieves “natürlich in englischer Sprache, um von den beiden Neuangekommenten verstanden zu werden” (374). The narrator draws the readers’ attention to other languages as well, including German and the Utah Indian language. Davy, a Yankee hero, is able to speak German because he learned it from the German hero, Jemmy: “Jemmy war ein Deutscher und Davy ein Yankee, doch hatte der letztere . . . von dem ersteren soviel Deutsch gelernt, daß er sich auch in dieser 592 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe Sprache genügend auszudrücken verstand” (33). The Utah Indian language genealogy is mentioned briefly when the Utah Indian chief, Great Wolf, begins to speak: “[Er sprach] in der Sprache der Utah, welche ein Glied der shoshonischen Abteiling des Sonorasprachstammes ist” (373). Doubtlessly, May wanted to make readers aware of the different languages in the text and represent the varieties in the Wild West, while making these differences overcomable for his audience in a way that real language bridges are not. Next to these narrator comments about language, interjections of foreign words are the most apparent part of May’s system signalling which language variety is being spoken in any given dialogue. If May intends for the characters to be speaking English, then English words appear sprinkled in the German dialogue; if the intended language is Spanish, then Spanish words appear, and so forth. Throughout most of the first chapter, “Auf dem Arkansas River,” for example, May intends for the characters to be speaking English,4 and in the first five pages alone, the words “harvesters,” “well,” “behold,” “pshaw,” “all devils,” and “good day” appear in the dialogue. Even more English interjections appear in the narration including “Dogfish” (the name of the steamboat), “bed-and-board,” and “drink,” all of which are clearly marked as foreign by the use of italics or quotation marks. Other languages are indicated early on as well. When Droll “speaks” Spanish with the Indians, Old Bear and Young Bear, Spanish phrases are inserted, though curiously, unlike the English interjections, they are translated into German: “Mira, el oso viejo y el oso mozo – siehe da, der alte Bär und der junge Bär!” (48). When Young Bear5 speaks Tonkawa to his father, the shift to his native language is marked by Tonkawa phrases: “Tiakaitat; schai schoyana – bleib stehen; ich werde schwimmen” (36). As would be expected, these foreign interjections are absent whenever the German heroes are supposed to be speaking their native language. Instead, German speech is differentiated from non-German languages which are represented largely in Standard German by the use of Saxon dialect, another important part of May’s language system. Not all of the German characters speak in dialect, only Tante Droll and Hobble-Frank, so it seems that dialect could not indicate the use of German in every case. Interestingly, however, at least one of these characters is present nearly every time situational German (as opposed to narrative German, representing other languages) is spoken. In the first half of the book, making sure one of these characters is present for German situations is not difficult, because only one German conversation occurs. In fact, until Old Shatterhand and his companions, Jemmy, Davy, and Hobble-Frank, enter the story in the sixth chapter, the dialogue takes place primarily in situational English, even though the other heroes (Old Firehand, Tom, and Tante Droll), are also ethnically German. The one example of German situational speech from the first half occurs 593 Karl May when Old Firehand discovers that Droll is German. Still speaking situational English (he does not yet know that Droll is able to speak and understand German), Old Firehand asks Droll about his real name “Pampel”: “. . . das Wort is Deutsch; Ihr seid wohl auch von deutscher Abstammung?” “Ja.” “Und in den Vereinigten Staaten geboren?” Da machte Droll sein listigstes und lustigstes Gesicht und antwortete in deutscher Sprache: “Nee, das is mer damals gar nich eingefalle; ich habe mer e deutsches Elternpaar herausgesucht.” (71) So the first situational German words are marked as such by the use of dialect. This with the narrator’s overt statement that Droll responds in German make it doubly clear that a shift in language has occurred. Old Firehand continues this conversation with the comment “Was? Also ein geborener Deutscher, ein Landsmann?” He is speaking German, but this question and the one that preceded Droll’s shift to German are linguistically indistinct: do they represent situational German or situational English? We only know that he is speaking German at this point because Droll continues to respond in dialect. When the novel’s other dialect speaker, Hobble-Frank, arrives in the sixth chapter, the introduction of German speech is again marked clearly by dialect and overt narrator comments: The four characters Old Shatterhand, Jemmy, Davy, and Hobble-Frank are described before any language is spoken. The narrator first explains how Davy learned German from Jemmy (353) (see quote above, p. 5), and finally, Hobble-Frank, the only one of the four to speak dialect, begins a conversation: “[Frank fragte] seinen Nachbar[sic] im heimischen Dialekt: “Also am Elk-fork soll heute übernachtet werden? Wie weit ist es denn eigentlich nach dortenhin?” (353). It cannot be a coincidence that both introductions of situational German begin with dialect. From here to the end of the novel, Hobble-Frank’s and Tante Droll’s speech shifts regularly between dialect and Standard German, indicating shifts from situational German to situational English conversation. Closely related to the use of dialect to distinguish German speech situations from foreign ones is the contrasting use of pidgin and Standard German with most of the Indians to mark shifts between their attempts at English and their native Indian languages.6 The best example of this occurs in the final chapter, “Am Silbersee.” Two Timbabatschen warriors capture Ellen, an American girl who has been travelling with Old Firehand and his men. In trying to communicate with her, they say a number of things “in gebrochenem Englisch” (586): “Still, sonst tot!”, “Wer – geben – dir? . . . Richting sein . . . Wer – Männer – dort?” among others. But when Winnetou arrives to protect Ellen, they explain their actions to him quickly and fluently, even using complicated grammar such as genitive and sub- 594 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe junctive forms: “Dieses weiße Mädchen besitzt das Totem des ›kleinen Bären‹ . . . wir wußten nicht, . . . ob die Männer, . . . unsre Freunde oder Feinde seien” (588). The narrator does not clarify that a language shift has occurred or specify which Indian language they are speaking, but the increase in their ability to express themselves implies such a shift to the reader. As mentioned above, only two characters speak dialect in the text which makes it impossible for dialect alone to mark every example of German in the text. Therefore, May incorporates a second device to distinguish specifically between English and German: the differential use of the German pronouns, “du,” “Ihr,” and “Sie.” The narrator explains fairly late in the book that the”Ihr” (always capitalized) represents the English “You” while “Sie” and “du,” and the plural form, “ihr,” retain their normal functions of distinguishing between formal, respectful address and familiar address in German: Es muß erwähnt werden, daß sich die Umgangsform zwischen [Old Shatterhand] und seinen drei Gefährten in der Weise herausgebildet hatte, daß er sie mit dem vertraulichen Du anredete, während sie bei dem achtungsvollen Sie, oder falls englisch gesprochen wurde, dem gebräuchlichen You, Ihr, geblieben waren. (365–366) This distinction is used somewhat regularly, both before and after this overt clarification, to denote which language is being situationally spoken, and particularly, to indicate a shift between English and German. Shortly before the first situationally German conversation described above, when Old Firehand discovers that Droll is German, Droll addresses his companions with the English-marking pronoun “Ihr:” “Ich weiß wohl, daß Ihr gern wissen wollt, was ich jetzt im Westen treibe . . . .” But after he switches to German (and to dialect), he addresses them with “Se:” “Das ham Se sich nicht denken könne? Könne Se vielleicht errate, wo ich meine erschten Kinderstiefel angetrete und abgeloofe habe?” Old Firehand, likewise, answers him with the possessive adjective of the “Sie” form, confirming at last in a visible way that he, too, is continuing the conversation in German: “Natürlich!” Ihr Dialekt sagt es mir.” (71–72) A later example demonstrates the differential use of pronouns in combination with other aspects of the language system when Hobble-Frank meets Tante Droll for the first time. As in the preceding example, neither character knows yet that the other is German, so they converse in English. Tante Droll rides backwards in his saddle out of boredom, and Frank exclaims, “Heavens! Was soll das heißen? . . . Wollt Ihr Komödie spielen, Sir?” (489). But when they discover that they are from the same part of Germany, Frank switches immediately into dialect, “Herrjemerschneeh!”’ fiel da der Kleine in seinem heimatlichen Dialekt ein,” and to the “Sie” form, “Hören Sie, dort gibt’s aber Kirmsen, im Altenburgischen” (491). The English interjections, “Heavens” and “Sir” complement the use of “Ihr” Karl May 595 to mark this as an English conversation while the overt narrator comment and use of dialect complement the use of “Sie” to denote the shift to German. May’s systematic combination of foreign interjections, Saxon dialect, overt narrator comments, pidgins and pronouns, thus, creates an experience of a diverse linguistic community for his readers without inhibiting their understanding of the text. The different aspects of the system overlap to make the language shifts more apparent. The functions of the language varieties in the text By showing that several different languages are systematically “being spoken” in the text, we have created a new object for interpretation of the moral of the text. How do particular language varieties function within the text: How do they help to characterize the heroes and villains? Moreover, we can also pursue why May incorporated such languages variants into the text from a text-external perspective. How would language varieties be received by his audience? What were the audience’s expectations about the language situation in America and of May’s novels in general? In the following section, I will suggest three answers to these questions based on evidence from within the text as well as from secondary sources about Karl May and his environment: He used language varieties 1) to differentiate between the good and bad characters: good characters have control over the language environment while bad characters do not; 2) to make the text seem more authentic to the German audience; and 3) to help German readers identify with the German characters, and thus, with the educational/moral message of the text. “Cultural fluency:” A sign of a hero In their analysis of E. Marlitt’s Im Hause des Kommerzienrates, SchulteSasse and Werner argue that literary figures, especially in popular literature in which characters do not undergo much development, “können dadurch definiert werden, daß sie in semantischer Hinsicht aus einem Bündel von Merkmalen bestehen” (Schulte-Sasse 394). By reducing characters within the novel down to these “sets of semantic qualities,” they argue, the basic function and meaning of each character within the text can be readily clarified (Schulte-Sasse 394). This method of analysis is well-suited to May’s characters in Schatz im Silbersee, because, like those in Marlitt’s novel, they do not undergo much development but embody certain characteristics throughout the story. The heroes conform to one set of “good” qualities while the villains conform to one set of “bad” qualities. With the exception of Winnetou and Davy, all the heroes are German. They adhere to a Christian standard of morality,7 as when they mourn the unfortunate martyr death of Cornel[sic] Brinkley and his men in spite of their dislike for them (573). They also believe in a strong work ethic and friendship, and 596 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe they stick together sharing both triumphs and rare defeats. Old Firehand, for example, agrees to share the wealth from the silver mine he discovers, wealth that must be extracted by hard work and cooperation (582). Finally, they are reliable: when part of the group is in trouble, the others do what they can to help rather than save themselves as when Tante Droll and Hobble-Frank rescue the others from the Utah Indians (512). The Utah Indians and Cornel Brinkley’s men have the opposite qualities: they cheat for a living and do not trust each other or their leader. Two of the Cornel’s scouts, for example, discuss his plans, guessing that he will probably disappear with his best men (313). Rather than showing dismay over his dishonesty, they are pleased because they count themselves among these men. These qualities, taken from the plot structure of the narrative, distinguish unequivocally between the “good” and “bad” characters. The language varieties underscore the division between good and bad because linguistic ability is characteristic only of the heroes and not of the villains. In other words, good characters are fluent in many languages and aware of cultural differences, that is, they are culturally fluent, whereas bad characters’ abilities are more limited. For example, Old Shatterhand, the main hero, can speak a remarkable number of languages including English, German, the Utah Indian language (496) and the Utah sign language (537). Furthermore, he understands the Indian cultural traditions. When he and his men are captured by the Utah Indians, for instance, he is aware that the chief ’s power to decide their fates is limited by tradition. The chief, Great Wolf, must make an agreement with other chiefs before he can allow the White Men to go free. Old Shatterhand smokes the peace pipe with Great Wolf (397) and speaks to him respectfully in the third person as the Indians do to one another (496), hoping that by showing sensitivity to Indian culture, he can save his men. Other good characters demonstrate their cultural fluency as well. Winnetou understands the culture and language of the White Men almost as well as Old Shatterhand understands the Indians. Though he does not speak German in the text, he speaks very good English, and even shows a sensitivity for French: “Wir suchen den Ingenieur Mr. Charoy’ antwortete [Winnetou] in geläufigem Englisch, wobei er sogar den französischen Namen richtig aussprach” (276). In addition, he can speak a variety of Indian languages, including the Utah language (565), Tonkawa (590), and Timbabatschen (588). Tante Droll similarly demonstrates his cultural fluency when he speaks Spanish to Big Bear and Little Bear without ever speaking English to them. He is simply aware that they will not speak English very well, and adjusts his language to make them more comfortable (48). Even the engineer’s daughter, Ellen, shows cultural fluency when she shows the Timbabatschen warriors Little Bear’s totem and calls out his name in Tonkawa to make them realize that she is their friend (587). A significant part of cultural fluency, then, involves a willingness on Karl May 597 the part of the heroes to conform to the standards of the people they are with rather than forcing their cultural values on them. All the bad characters lack this aspect of cultural fluency. Cornel Brinkley and his men, for example, insult Big Bear on the steamboat, a move which would have caused their deaths if the Utah Indians had not managed to kill them first. Old Firehand is aware of Big Bear’s need to defend his honor: “Seit dem Augenblicke, daß der Cornel den Indianer in das Gesicht schlug, ist sein Tod eine beschlossene Sache” (26). Further, the Cornel and his men show themselves to be thieves because they do not know how to ride without leaving a trail, as every good Westerner should (545). The other main bad character, Great Wolf, shows his lack of cultural awareness in believing that English is the only language of the White Men. He says haughtily to Old Shatterhand, “Du weißt, daß ich die Sprache der Bleichgesichter spreche,” (421) only to be taken aback by German when Davy and Jemmy speak together. In his confusion, he screams accusingly, “Was hast du mit diesem Manne zu sprechen? . . . Warum redest du mit ihm in einer Sprache, welche wir nicht verstehen?” (464). Thus, good characters are continually escaping dangerous situations by their awareness of cultural differences and knowledge of various languages while bad characters land in such situations by their lack of awareness. Although the characteristic cultural fluency emphasizes a fairly black and white division between good and bad characters, there are some grey areas. Great Wolf cannot be wholly bad, because he is shown to be capable of speaking English. At the end of the story, Old Shatterhand and the heroes forgive him for his actions, understanding that he acted at least in part for his people who were badly mistreated by other White Men (642). Even the heroes are not equally culturally fluent. Old Shatterhand is able to read the signs of Brinkley’s trail better than Old Firehand (547). This hierarchy is supported by the fact that Old Firehand’s men speak English together and Old Shatterhand’s men speak German, at least until the two groups come together. Thus, the characteristic “cultural fluency” helps to differentiate between the good and bad as well as between the good and better and the bad and worse. Finally, cultural fluency supports the goodness of the heroes because they are powerful enough to force their culture on others, but consciously choose not to, as long as they are being treated fairly. They speak English when English speakers are present and Indian languages to the appropriate Indian groups, reserving German for when they are alone. However, when their good will and cooperation are taken advantage of by the Indians, they become impatient and show their power by asserting their own cultural values and language. Thus, the dominant language shows the domination of the good. Tante Droll, who kindly spoke Spanish with the Tonkawa Indians to make them more comfortable, shows a less tolerant side to the Indian chief, Long Ear, who had taken advantage of him by stealing his 598 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe bullet bag. Droll demands that he speak English: “Rede englisch, alter Boy! Ich habe deinen Dialekt nicht gelernt. . . . Ich weiß, daß du ein ganz leidliches Englisch sprichst” (592). Although the Indian repeats “No, no, no,” Droll insists until Long Ear conforms to his wishes. Likewise, Old Shatterhand loses his patience with the Utah Indians after trying to work with their lengthy rituals and finding that they repeatedly lied to him and tricked him. He insults the Indian chief Old Thunder by interrupting him: “Da konntet ihr die Reden halten, so lang es euch beliebt . . . Die Bleichgesichter aber lieben es, sich kurz zu fassen, und dies wollen wir jetzt thun” (611). The rejection of cultural tolerance when such tolerance would enable “bad” behavior to prevail asserts the superiority of the heroes and their values, and essentially, those of Germans. Looking at this way of marking heroes in the larger context of all of May’s adventure stories makes their cultural fluency even more impressive. Old Shatterhand, for example, is not only the hero of many of May’s western novels, but also of his Oriental novels. Here, the reader finds out that Old Shatterhand has mastered Chinese in addition to all of the languages he speaks in Schatz im Silbersee, and is working on developing skill in the Peking dialect (Schinzel-Lang 290). If we add all of Old Shatterhand’s linguistic and cultural abilities from one novel to the next, he becomes an even more heroic figure than he appears in any one novel alone. His superhuman ability to adapt to such diverse cultures and languages makes him a model of tolerance, and consequently, of goodness. Language varieties for authenticity Around 1894, Karl May entered a phase during which he claimed that he was Old Shatterhand, and that he had experienced all of the adventures he depicts in his novels. Adamant in his position, he told a friend that anyone could see from the stories, “daß ich solche Studien unmöglich in der Studierstube gemacht haben kann . . . Die Gestalten, welche ich bringe . . . haben gelebt oder leben noch und waren meine Freunde” (Heermann 240). He manufactured a history for his characters: Winnetou, for example, purportedly lived from 1840 to 1874 when he was shot (Koch 105). Further, May changed the designations of his books from “Reiseromane” to “Reiseerzählungen” to strengthen the impression that what took place between their covers was actually a report of reality rather than the result of his imagination. This phase began just three years after he completed the writing of Schatz im Silbersee, so it is likely that his concern for presenting his stories as authentic events had begun to take hold as he wrote this novel. To make it as authentic as possible, he needed to represent the American environment in ways familiar to Germans at that time. The diverse linguistic environment was one thing Germans were learning about America in the late nineteenth century from friends and family who emigrated there and from the news. Between 1880 and 1890, German immi- Karl May 599 grants to the United States wrote over four million letters home every year (Kampfhoefner 27). The language difficulties they encountered were an important topic in them, making those at home aware of the need for linguistic competence in order to get by in the New World: “. . . no one likes it here at first . . . if you don’t speak the language, you can’t understand anyone” (Kampfhoefner 477). At the same time, sensationalized news stories about Indians made their way slowly to Europe, bringing an awareness, however faulty, of American Indians and their culture to the Germans. The language varieties in May’s text thus make it seem more authentic – and also more educational, more directly useful than “mere” fiction would be – by representing the complexity of the language situation in North America. The German heroes, like the real German immigrants, have to learn English to get by, and because they interact with Indians, they must learn their languages and cultures as well. That May developed his linguistic system in part to authentically represent the situation in America in several dimensions is supported by other authenticity markers in the text. His involved descriptions of the landscape and rituals of the Indians, such as smoking the peace pipe and the martyr deaths of the “bad guys,” are May’s attempt to authentically represent the geography and traditions of the Wild West, however much he is informed by myth and sensationalism. Surely, May incorporates these authenticity markers, including the language varieties, not only to support his claim to be Old Shatterhand, but also to make the “otherness” or exoticism of the environment more apparent to the reader and thus, make the text more exciting and his own survival more heroic. May’s concern for authentic representation of the cross-linguistic situation in America is worth noting because it is rather unusual among popular texts and genres. Many popular genres ignore cross-linguistic situations altogether. In science fiction, for example, although the futuristic characters travel throughout the galaxies encountering many different life forms (for which we would expect many different languages), authors still must write for a linguistically limited audience. They must confine the dialogue to a single language. Douglas Adams makes this limitation seem almost plausible in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: he posits the existence of “the Babel fish” which feeds on brain wave energy with the fortunate side effect of translating everything into the language which the wearer understands (Adams 59–60). The fish keeps Adams from having to address real cross-linguistic communication and misunderstanding. Star Trek: The Next Generation inconsistently addresses the language issue. Writers invented Klingon and Romulan languages for the program (although this situation supposes that an entire race shares one language, as is clearly not the case on Earth), but most of the weekly episodes ignore cross-linguistic situations. Most of the aliens encountered, provided they speak at all, speak English. Nevertheless, the development of Klingon and Romulan languages marks 600 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe an increase in cultural diversity and tolerance of difference over the original Star Trek in which a diverse crew was considered to consist merely of humans from different nations on Earth, who all spoke English with regional accents. Some popular German novelists, as well, ignore cross-linguistic situations. Like May, Courths-Mahler places German characters in America in Trotz Allem Lieb’ ich Dich, published in 1930, yet these characters never speak English or even take part in what would have to be an Englishspeaking encounter. They merely speak to the other German characters in the United States. Authenticity and realism were not an issue for her which shows that May’s quest for authenticity was a personal choice, not a requirement of the genre. Dialect for audience identification Whereas the functions of the pidgins and foreign interjections in May’s novel are to make it more authentic and emphasize the goodness and skill of the heroes, the function of the German dialects may well be primarily to help May’s German audience identify with the characters and thus, learn the value of appropriate cross-cultural behaviors. Rather than speaking an exotic, far-away language, Tante Droll and Hobble-Frank speak the dialect of May’s home, Saxony. The dialect leads to audience identification in a couple of ways. As mentioned above, the dialect constitutes part of the language system that underscores the Germanness of the heroes and the relevance of the American cultural scene to their own. Without the dialect, this might be forgotten. But the identification function of the dialect is also emphasized by Droll’s and Frank’s discussions in the novel. Nearly every time they speak dialect together, they mention being German, or more particularly, Saxon. When they first meet, for example, they discuss at length the particular cities they are from (489). Later, as Droll and Hobble-Frank plan to free their companions from the Utah Indians, their cities of origin become an object of debate. Frank boasts: “Ich bin een Sachse. Verschstehste mich! Wir Sachsen sind schtets een schtrategisch amüsantes Volk gewesen . . .” and when Droll questions the truth of his claims, Frank becomes feisty: “Schweig! . . . Ihr Altenburger seid nur Käseachsen; wir aber an der Elbe sind die richtigen” (516). In other scenes they talk about being “deutsche Landsleute” (542), a “geborener Sachse” (586), and they dream of returning to their homeland (580). Of course, many of the dialect scenes, including the one above, have the further function of providing comic relief in a tense situation. Jokes about various Germans could be understood by May’s audience better than jokes about Americans or Indian tribes, but this is because they were able to identify with the characters. The goal of audience identification with the heroes as Germans as well as moral examples is further supported by external evidence. Heermann contends that May claimed to be friends with his heroes because he per- Karl May 601 sonally identified with them (240). If May created the characters in such a way that he could identify with them, then many of his audience members would be able to identify with them as well. Frigge, in fact, argues that May’s great success as a writer hinged upon his ability to match audience desires and expectations (332) which would include the creation of heroes that people could relate to. Furthermore, as an example of youth literature, the function of the novel was to provide stories in which the good and moral prevail to teach children to be good people. According to Biermann, May fulfils this didactic purpose by developing “klar und groß gezeichnete[] Helden, [mit denen] der jugendliche Leser sich identifizieren kann” (403). Other contexts supporting May’s pragmatic goals include the historical period and the prevalent attitudes about language and dialect. The novel was published during a period of great political growth resulting from imperialism (Townson 56). Germany’s new power engendered strong feelings of nationalism, and the German language became closely associated with the German nation. Grimm defined a nation as “the totality of people who speak the same language” (Townson 80) which supported a movement toward a unified, standard language. Dialects, however, were not completely discounted by this nationalism because they were thought to reflect the pure, natural form of the national language as argued by Grimm in his Deutsche Grammatik of 1819 (Arens 198). In an effort to preserve many of the dialects and to act on this belief, Grimm wrote many fairy tales in dialect, thus setting a precedent for and validating the use of dialect in other genres. With this combination of pride and purity, dialects became the linguistically pure expression of a people’s being, a mark of identity. May’s use of dialect in his Western novels within this climate of acceptance thus clearly demonstrates that he was arguing for a common humanistic culture that valued both differences and the community. System breakdown: Inconsistencies in the language system Up to this point I have presented a fairly consistent picture of a pragmatic language system that distinguishes several language varieties in May’s novel, Der Schatz im Silbersee, and a few possible significations of those language varieties. The language system and its functions, however, are not consistent throughout the novel. It seems that May only sometimes focused on his language system, causing him to contradict narrator statements about language or mix his language clues. In addition, May emphasized his functions of authenticity, identification, and cultural fluency to varying degrees at different points in the novel. At times, these functions counteract each other, as well. Many of the examples given above to support the language system come in clusters in the text, and these clusters form around overt narrator statements about language in the text. Whenever the narrator explains the 602 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe language system, we can assume that May was thinking about it at the time of writing, and properly incorporated it into the dialogue. One such cluster occurs when the new German heroes, Old Shatterhand and his friends, are introduced, marking a shift in the dialogue from being primarily situational English to primarily situational German. For about twenty pages, the narrator comments regularly on language shifts between English and German, and the other four elements of the language system, interjections, dialect and pidgins, the use of “Ihr” vs. “Sie,” and plot structure clues, all conform to the language system. Yet between such clusters, gaps in the language system abound. There are contradictions and inconsistencies for nearly every element of the language system including narrator comments, foreign interjections, dialect and pronoun usage. The narrator [May] contradicts the system, seemingly forgetting which language the characters are speaking in a couple of instances. On the very first page, for example, he comments, amidst numerous English interjections, that the Cornel’s men, who clearly must speak English “nannten einander »du«” (9). Much later, the narrator translates the Indian name, Tschia-nitsas “zu deutsch »langes Ohr«” (588), addressing the German audience directly, though in other instances, he translated into German that was supposed to be situational English. Foreign interjections occur, like the overt narrator comments just discussed, in clusters. Chapter One is full of them, while Chapter Seven is so devoid of them that it is often difficult to tell which language is being spoken. In Chapter Seven, dialect is also used incorrectly. Though we have no cause to believe that the English Lord can speak German from his previous exchanges in the novel, Hobble-Frank carries out a conversation with him using dialect (566). Unlike other examples of dialect, this one is not intended to signal a language shift. May simply may have forgotten which characters spoke which languages. The “Ihr” vs. “Sie” and “Du” distinction that he made such an issue of on pages 365–366 causes May the most trouble, perhaps because he wants to incorporate his native formal/informal and plural/singular distinctions, even when English or Indian languages are the situational languages of the dialogue. These distinctions, though not adequately expressible with the English You/Ihr (at least not to a German audience), remain important because interpersonal relations, and particularly social hierarchies, are central to the novel. Aside from the comment about the Cornel’s men addressing each other with “du,” May often switches pronouns in the middle of a conversation. Jemmy, for example, addresses Old Shatterhand as “Sie” in one sentence, but as “Ihr” and “Euch” in the next, although no switch to English has taken place (414). Not just the language system has inconsistencies. The three functions attributed to May’s use of language varieties are inconsistent with one another as well. May’s quest for authenticity, in particular, is compro- Karl May 603 mised by both of the other functions, cultural fluency and audience identification. For audience identification with the heroes, May makes them German which could be considered less authentic than having American heroes of the West, though not impossible. Nonetheless, these heroes have mastered all the customs and languages of the West even though they are only visiting!8 They are utterly assimilated, successful emigrants who have not lost their German roots, despite the temporary nature of their stay in the new world. We know they will not stay because Droll and Hobble-Frank discuss their plans to return home, and many of the other heroes including Old Shatterhand appear in other novels. These facts, coupled with the phenomenal linguistic skill of the heroes (as noted above, Old Shatterhand speaks five languages in this novel, and over forty languages in all) border on the ridiculous, and must seem inauthentic to even the most credulous readers. Aside from sheer unbelievability, the heroes’ foreign language skill compromises authenticity through inaccuracy as well. Schinzel-Lang’s article on May’s use of Chinese, for example, is largely devoted to pointing out his Chinese errors and lack of cultural awareness. May, for example, writes far-from-perfect Mandarin Chinese, the dialect of the north, although most of the novel (Blauroter Methusalem) occurs in South China (295). Similar minor errors occur in his use of English in Schatz im Silbersee (i.e. “Good lack” instead of “Good luck” (38) and “Myladies” written as one word (29)), and certainly, errors in the Indian languages must occur as well. Ironically, Pinnow maintains in his article on May’s use of Saxon dialect that May, who boasted of knowing so many languages, was not even proficient in standard German: “[May] sprach nicht neben seinem Heimatdialekt reines Hochdeutsch, sondern sein Hochdeutsch verriet sicher unverwechselbar seine sächsische Herkunft” (237). Thus, May himself was not able to join the greater German community he exemplified in his novels. Conclusion In the above, I have kept the discussion of the inconsistencies and faults in May’s language system to a minimum because their presence is not surprising, even to those who truly admire his work. When the KarlMay-Verlag prepared a collection of all his writings, the editors even planned to critically review every page and free them “[von] unleugbaren Schwächen, wie . . . Fremdwörtern und anderen stilistischen Mängeln” (Frigge 172). Such inconsistencies are expected in popular literature, and May, indeed, represents a not-altogether successful attempt at stylistic conventions beyond those customary to the genre. The conditions May wrote under provide one reason for any imperfections. He wrote Der Schatz im Silbersee in fifty episodes for the magazine Der Gute Kamerad under considerable time pressure, without being able to go back and change what 604 Patricia Casey Sutcliffe had come before when his priorities shifted. Similar slips need to be cleaned up in the works of other serial novelists, some of whose works are classified as high literature, such as Dickens. But perhaps May does not need any reasons or excuses. Fowler argues that texts can be considered language varieties in themselves, written in different forms and at different stylistic levels to communicate particular messages to specific audiences (544). Rather than judge literature as “high” or “low” as it relates to preconceived ideas of what “true literature” is, we should attempt to understand the social significance of stylistic choices. Not every piece of writing must or should be perfect, authentic, or even realistic. The popularity of May’s novels attests to the fact that many people seem to prefer texts that are not authentic and realistic. Fisher and Holmes humble academics by noting that “most people prefer the myth makers and legend makers to scholars; indeed, most people have never heard of scholars and would think them very dull if they tried to read them” (95). The purpose of this writing was not to restate the obvious, namely, that May’s work as an example of popular literature had weaknesses, but to further our understanding of both May’s stylistic complexity (his incorporation of a complex linguistic system in his novel Der Schatz im Silbersee) and the significance of his linguistic choices for understanding the novel. His linguistic system, I have argued, has the meaningful functions of emphasizing the goodness of the heroes through cultural fluency, portraying the “realistic” language situation of America, helping the audience identify with the characters, and stressing the moral superiority in individuals of different races and ethnic groups. May, as a “popular” author, made his linguistic choices in part to give the audience what they wanted, so the sociolinguistic analysis of the text also reveals parts of the society in which it emerged: German nationalism, the humorous evaluation of Saxons, and interest in the New World. I hope that this analysis provides an example of how fruitful sociolinguistic methods can be in interpreting literature, especially, as Fowler argued, in looking at popular literature without value judgments to find the particular messages it conveys to specific audiences while it reflects those audiences. May’s novel, Der Schatz im Silbersee, is a pragmatic, communicative situation, with its own distinct inner logic, worth study on its own right, even if it is not “high style” per se. University of Texas at Austin Department of Germanic Languages Austin, TX 78712 USA PATRICIA CASEY SUTCLIFFE 605 Karl May Notes 1. A pidgin is a reduced form of language spoken by non-native speakers, especially when their main contact with the language is with other non-native speakers. 2. May’s pidgin has engendered considerable interest among linguists because, although it is the imagined reduced form created by a native speaker, it shares many features with true pidgins (Mühlhäusler 46). 3. All unattributed numbers refer to May, 1989. 4. I have determined this by applying the complete language system being described. 5. The Indian boy is named Young Bear here and Little Bear elsewhere (cf. 306, 588). 6. Great Wolf, the Chief of the Utah Indians, is a striking exception. 7. Even though Winnetou is not Christian or German, he shares many of the semantic qualities of the other heroes. Koch points out that Winnetou became the symbol for “Edelmenschentum, Christentum, vielleicht sogar für Christus selbst” (106) in the course of May’s novels. 8. Schinzel-Lang makes a similar comment about the heroes’ Chinese abilities: “Die bewundernswerte Leistung, mit der sich die Helden Karl Mays aufgrund ihrer Sprachkenntnisse an sich schon auszeichnen, wird dann von Karl May noch durch die Einschränkung gesteigert, daß jene angeblich das chinesische nur beiläufig erlernt haben wollen . . .” (290) Bibliography Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 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