the maestro sez English is a fucked up mutant hybrid mess and that's why he loves it
[edit] if you're seeing this post without @NoelBWrites' followup, please read that as well for some important context that I left out
(for context, this was during the dictaorship in Argentina, Borges is pretty much doing PR for the Junta here)
I resonate a lot with his observations on the physicality of English and the two "registers" that it has. I especially relate to how exciting it is, as someone who loves words, to be able to play with phrasal verbs. Like that's a thing it took me a long time to master and when I did, it unlocked everything for me. What's the difference between "look around" and "look through"? "look over" and "look down on"? When I was learning I kind of memorized some of the more common combinations, but it was hard and clunky and they felt kind of arbitrary. Then someone explained it to me in terms of changing the direction of the verb (there's the physicality of English) and it suddenly made sense to me. It was no longer arbitrary.
Spanish has nothing like that. You can't just add a preposition to a verb to change its entire meaning.
Spanish allows you to do other things, though.
And that's the subtle PR move.
"English is far finer than Spanish"
It's hierarchical. Your language, the language of the empire, is superior. Because the empire is superior. Because we should all aspire to be like the empire, we should recognize our shortcomings and submit to our betters as we try to imitate them. The dictatorship was financially backed by the US and its main project was eradicating communism and all left-wing thought. It was the privatization of industries and the sale of our country's resources and lands to foreign investors. It was neoliberalism. Enforced in the most brutal way. Which is what the US wanted and why they did Operation Condor in the first place.
Now I don't think Borges was gung ho for the torture, murder and disappearance of political dissenters (this was the second year of the dictatorship, when part of the population could still comfortably lie to themselves about the violence of the State). But he did agree with the neoliberal project. As far as I know, he later recanted his support.
And I don't even think he was of comparing English to Spanish specifically as a PR move. I think he was sincere. Because this is, sadly, a very common mindset among Argentines and has been since before we were a country: eurocentrism in general, anglocentrism in particular, which eventually was displaced into uncritical admiration of the US.
There is a specific kind of Argentine, a not uncommon kind, that believes in their heart of hearts that all of their problems and all of their grief stems from the fact that they were born in Argentina and not the US (or somewhere in Europe). They see the results of US interventionism and they ascribe it as an inherent fault with our culture. They insist the reason for every economic crisis is that "we're lazy", not like the US. They start working when they're teenagers there, you know? They don't have as many holidays up there. They don't have unions going on strike. Our country simply doesn't want to work and that's why the only way to get ahead in life is to emigrate elsewhere.
And Borges was one of those Argentines. It's evident in a lot of his stories. I still love them, though. He's clever and imaginative, he's intellectually compelling and, at times, emotionally impacting. And, going back to the language: his mastery of Spanish is evident as well. He has an incredible precision of language. He picks the exact perfect word to convey meaning and mood. He plays with rhythm and sound, with slang and humor. He uses a single word to connote entire histories and it's a delight to read.
I know I have a lot of nerve writing this in English, from my home in the US, as I earn a living writing in English. I have thoughts and feelings about that and I'm drafting a post about it. It's just a lot to get into here.