Perpetual Change

Anatomy of a language

This post was originally intended as a bit of a diatribe about the impressions of the West vs. the East in Ukraine and the world, but I posted most of those sentiments in an entry so named and dated (12/18). So you can go back and read them there.


I want to comment now on the interesting aspects of language as a tool, because that is what it really is, although it can also be poetry and literature. They asked me a long time ago if I think in Ukrainian, and after much pondering, I have concluded that yes, I do, except when I don’t understand or when I hear cognates. It is really an incredible feeling, and more accute, because I decidedly don't think in Italian, but now I may be thinking in Ukrainian or English when I translate into Italian. These are my impressions of language learning:



At first you are reduced to an imbecile and very insecure, often using pictures and gestures to communicate imprecise meanings.


Then you get to a point where you always feel as if you are about to drown as you frantically tread water in a pool of understanding. Sometimes your lucid, sometimes your mouth and ears are full of water.



Next you get to a point where you want to speak in the language, but the other person, confident that you may now actually exchange some real ideas, wants to speak your language. Often they want practice with a native speaker or they realize that you will understand better in your own tongue. So then you both end up speaking your non-native tongue. Although better than drawings, it is still amazingly inefficient because your passive language, or what you understand, is always much greater than your active, even in your native tongue.



I started this post when I got to this next step. At this point, the native speaker realizes that you can now talk and understand faster in Ukrainian than with the slow, ennuciated beginner language of either English or Ukrainian. It is quite liberating when you realize that it is easier for you to talk to natives in their own language than in yours, and you don't have to speak so slowly and clearly. I realized one day when I switched into Ukrainian and my speed of speech picked up dramatically. I initially thought, "how odd."



This is the point where you start to add foreign vocabulary without the help of your native language and you may understand a word perfectly well but because of unique context or conotation, you may find it difficult to translate into your native tongue. This is the point where people that aren’t used to speaking with foreigners don’t have trouble understanding you and you don’t them. It doesn't mean your grammar is wonderful, but it does mean that most of your mistakes are in the range of mistakes that natives make too. If you think of English, we often don't speak grammatically correct, but foreigners often make simple mistakes that grate on our hearing. It is an interesting trick to learn where the margins of error are greater or worse.

So, my only thought about East vs. West, is that people will always continue to speak the language of least resistance. And so it is a great testament to a man generally not well liked in the West, Yanokovich, the prime minister, that he learned to speak Ukrainian in a year for his government work.



And finally, a short anecdote about the humor of words with to meanings. While we were at the mushroom restaurant in San Remo, which will be recounted in a few posts by a guest writer, Kristyn Tobey, one of my old friends wanted a photo with some of the non-italian speakers with their tongues out, pretending to drink from the Grappa dispensers that had been deposited on our tables. In our slightly inebriated state, her direction in English came out as, "Put your language there!"

posted by jjs @ 9:26 AM