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Liesbeth Koenen had, among other things, a weekly language column for four years The Telegraph, which she ended in the summer of 2018. She confessed on the occasion that in all her contributions she had wanted to show essentially the same thing: “That is, what a wonder human language is. And what a wonder you and I are. We are dizzyingly good at language. And we know much more than we know than we realize. We just don’t know that. At least, not automatically. ‘
Cheerful language stories
“That was my sister all over,” says Marc Koenen. “The fact that children are born with a kind of blueprint and then effortlessly master a language, whether it is Dutch or Chinese, continued to fascinate her. Nor was she concerned with rules and grammar, with what would be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in a linguistic sense. Liesbeth saw language primarily as a wonderful tool for discovering the world and for communicating with each other. ” At the end of last year, Koenens Telegraphcolumns bundled in What you say goes without saying. 67 cheerful language stories.
Liesbeth Koenen, who studied Dutch in Amsterdam and later General Language Sciences, has worked as a journalist since 1986, including for NRC and Free Netherlands. In addition, she was an editor at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for a long time and she taught aspiring journalists. She has also written numerous books and was just working on a biography about Hugo Brandt Corstius: a writer and scientist who was just as crazy about language as herself.
‘Well bye then’
Koenen concluded her last column The Telegraph as follows: ‘I greet you and finally say goodbye in all styles, ages and (regional) languages I can come up with so quickly. Tabee. Farewell. The balls. Greetzzz. Bye. Adieu. Bye. Los ballos. See you. Arrivederci. Doeg. Tschüss. Until the plum season. Hi eh. Allahaismarladik. Au revoir. Byebye. Wave wave. See you. Ciao. So long. Goodbye. Cheers. Later. Well bye. ‘
“Well bye, then” were also the words above the obituary that her family released on Friday. It also featured the image of a blooming flower, with the text ‘Is there a better flower than the poppy? I do not think so.’ A quote from the writer herself, says her brother. Liesbeth Koenen also flowered profusely, but too short. She was only 62 years old.
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