Speaking in tongues

[sistermagpie]

Today was S's last day in my Saturday ballet class, because she's been transferred back to Germany, which is where she is from. She said she hoped one day to get transferred to India because she speaks Hindi, which I thought was really cool. She said Hindi sounded something like German and English because they're all Indo-Germanic languages.

C, who is also in this class, is from France. So we started talking about speaking different languages and C said that she was much more outgoing about her feelings in English, that she was very shy in French but now sometimes got frustrated speaking to her family or her best friend thinking, "This would be easier if you understood English." She felt she was sort of hiding behind the language but also letting her true self show more...which made sense to me, somehow. I'm sure if I ever finally mastered another language well enough to communicate in it I might feel that way. It also made me think of a discussion about TTT where somebody said it was fake the way Elrond and Arwen switched from English to Elvish in mid-conversation, only to have some multi-lingual people say no, that was very realistic, that they often switched languages depending on the subject. Some things are more easily spoken about in different languages.

So I thought I'd throw this out to the amazingly polyglot people on lj--I know some of you speak more than one language...do you find differences in yourself from one language to another? Do you all often speak English or just write in it? I used to have a bookmark I made that said, "To speak another language is to possess another soul" or something like that--does it seem like that? Does what C said make sense to you?

Comments

[anoni.livejournal.com]

Before I throw in anything personal, I thought I might mention that language switching - to English in particular - is extremely commonplace in some Asian societies (and probably others, but I have little exposure to those). No, the people may not really understand much of English at all, and the way they use it may be rudimentary at best, but they toss words and phrases around quite frequently. And now that I actually think about it, not all of the usage is superfluous (or perhaps 'inserted to sound cool'). There are definitely concepts that are better (or only able to be) expressed in some languages than others, and the choice of switching can be something of a statement in itself. Which means the ultimate purpose of communicating oneself can generally be more easily fulfilled, or something.

I find English to be a more comfortable language to express emotions in (compared to other Asian languages), partly because the culture/s it evolved in tends to be more open in that respect. To go with the cliche of 'I love you', the Chinese equivalent would never pass through my lips. It would feel too odd; I'd skirt around it and fiddle with implications, as is the tradition. Most of the changes I do find when I switch between languages are culture-influenced.

Oddly enough, in moments of sudden blankness or shock, my first reactions would be in Chinese, and although I think primarily in English nowadays, I still stutter less in Chinese when I am nervous. Most of the time, however, I switch between languages frequently and without noticing it; that's probably one of the advantages of having several up my sleeve, because the total combination leaves me less restricted when I have things to say.

In relation to LotR, I have a tendency to switch... hmm. Out of 'common speech' when I have something more personal to say. With Cantonese being my mother tongue and English being the one I spent the last decade using in society, I have a feeling I'd end up switching to Japanese or something if I had a few more years of it under my belt. Otherwise, it would probably be to Cantonese or Mandarin. Depending on which feels more intimate with the person, I guess.

[ringwraithe.livejournal.com]

Yi, totally agreed on the emotion-expressing part. When I was a kid and my maid would be watching a completely Tamil movie and I'd be peeking over her shoulder, I'd involuntarily burst out laughing when the couple in the field went 'I lowe you' just because it sounded so...incongruous and...out of place in the situation, somehow, after all the perfect, high-class Tamil. Later, when I asked someone to tell me what 'I love you' was in Tamil, no one had a clue. The phrase is practically dead now that the English translation has been discovered. I finally got someone to tell me what the Tamil equivalent was, and it made me blink rapidly several times, because I can't even begin to say it.

Thing is, the 'I lowe you' is said with exactly the same gestures and expressions, and in the same situations, as the Tamil equivalent would be, and to an English-speaker, it doesn't fit in too well...just because it's so different from how it'd be done in English. If you get my drift.

Man, this whole discussion is so interesting. Makes you think, it does. *examines languages through Depp's eyeglass*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I was watching a documentary that was showing just what you described about Asian societies and languages switching--sometimes it was even English words but with suffixes attached that came from the native language. In this show they talked about how English was now more of a universal language, like French and Latin once were, and said how whenever this happened somebody tried to explain how the language in question had something about it to make it easier for others to speak it. But the reality, of course, was that the language in question was just connected to more advantages. It was the dominant language in finance and power and business.

Most of the time, however, I switch between languages frequently and without noticing it; that's probably one of the advantages of having several up my sleeve, because the total combination leaves me less restricted when I have things to say

That's exactly what it seems like--and now I am fascinated about this idea of Asian "I love you's." :-) Like I said, the woman in my class said she was more comfortable expressing her feelings in English--but her native language is French which is called "the language of love," so it's probably not for the same reasons. I don't think Je t'aime or Je t'adore are as little-used as their Asian equivalents. At first I couldn't imagine not having an expression in your own language for the phrase, but then I realized using an English expression just made it part of the language. There are lots of words in English that are taken from other languages, of course, but it's cool to know where they really come from, especially when the meaning changes a little.

This is a good question...

[ex-leianora730.livejournal.com]

I speak Korean, but not enough to construct well-thought-out age appropriate sentences. I do understand quite a bit, though. I've noticed that my mother, who was born and raised in south Korea, can swear with much more conviction and better results if she's swearing in her native tongue. :-) Korean is the language where her passion lies. She can make herself the center of everyone's attention much easier in Korean, and her advice, when given in Korean, is much easier to understand, and often more intensely delivered. Does that make sense? When she's having fun and talking in Korean, her animation and sense of humor, which is wicked at times, comes off much better than it does in English. Although she's been living in the states for almost thirty years now, there are still words she has a hard time really understanding on an abstract level.

It is very unnerving to hear her switch from Korean to English in the middle of a sentence, but sometimes, there really aren't words to replace the ones you want to use when in the midst of a conversation. Most of the time when she switches, though, she's doing it to directly quote from an American person.

Re: This is a good question...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of an acting class I took once where we had to do an exercise where we made an "impassioned speech." This one woman was able to do that in English, but when she had to do something similar where she was speaking to her parents she had a lot of trouble and finally asked if she could do it in Spanish (I think it was Spanish that was her native language at least...now I can't remember). Made sense, and even if you couldn't understand what she was saying from an acting standpoint you could still tell it did the trick. You could tell she was impassioned!

Things like humor would definitely work that way, I'd think, and I can definitely see how certain words would just always give you trouble if you weren't brought up with them. I met a guy once whose grandmother had named her two cats after two words in English she couldn't grasp the meaning of just that way. I think they were something like, "Likely" and "Definitely." LOL! It's especially interesting when somebody speaks the language well--like, I knew a guy who was Polish but when I met him I didn't realize it.

See, it really does sometimes seem like a person has a slightly different personality depending on what language they're speaking, if they are fluent. I know I've felt so frustrated trying to communicate in a language I can't speak--it's like a character in a book I read once said, "In English I am stupid boy. In Polish I am not stupid." You can know, intellectually, that the person really is smart but they can't communicate it.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i switch between languages depending on subject. i cannot talk about math in any sophisticated way in english and have a hard time expressing myself about my work or childbirth in german...different experiences and parts of my life are thus connected to different languages.

on the emotional front, i don't think it is english per se that is easier but rather that a foreign language fails to hold these deep-seated gut level connotations. there've been intersting debates by german fen about writing smut in english and how it is easier...some argued that english is a better language for it but others (myself included) strongly believed that it is rather a matter of distance. i think and read and speak and dream in english and there's rarely a moment when i default into german (sometimes i still mistranslate idioms or proverbs...), but i still "feel" more strongly in german, i.e., the german phrases and terms have more weight for me.

example: i was talking in a german's lj and used the term sex toy in german. not only was i uncertain it was the right term..it felt and sounded utterly obscene to me!

as for feeling differently/being a different person: when i first came to the states i totally felt like that. it was like the new country and the new language allowed me to create a new person...but we bring ourselves along with us wherever we go, and after 12 years here, i don't think my german self is much different from my american self...but it certainly felt that way early on (part of it was simply the vacation aspect of a year abroa, but the language did feel liberating in away, b/c it lacked all the connotations and different levels of meanings your own held...boy did i swear...not having any sense for the impact or sense of the words :-)

i never switch back and forth, and i've had this pet theory for a while that there are two types of bilingual speakers...those that are fluent in two languages independently and those that can think in both simultaneously. with a few awkwardnesses here and there i get back into german fairly quckly and easily and i speak english with little enough of an accent to have students wonder whether i'm from up north or canada or some other weird place with weird accents :-) but i could never be a translator, b/c the two languages exist independent from one another...there's nothing worse than having to do on the spot translations for family.,..i suck at it, which they have a hard time understanding. i wonder whether the age when you learned the languages has sth to do with it, b/c children who were raised bilingual seem to have easier simultaneous access...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes--like I said above, I defintely think in C's case it wasn't a case of English being more suited to emotional language than French but that psychologically speaking in a foreign language made her more comfortable saying these things. She described it perfectly in English by saying she was both "hiding behind the language" and showing her true self.

I had wondered also about exactly what you described, if different experiences of your life were just naturally connected to the language you were speaking at the time. The closest I come to something like that is when I'm talking about a book I read in French rather than English and I realize my impression of it isn't really the same as it is with an English book because I'm a little more removed from it. Usually I'll throw in disclaimers like, "At least I think this is what happened because maybe I mistranslated!"

part of it was simply the vacation aspect of a year abroa, but the language did feel liberating in away, b/c it lacked all the connotations and different levels of meanings your own held...boy did i swear...not having any sense for the impact or sense of the words

Heh! I love this--just like leianora said above, but reversed. I was once doing a French immersion weekend which was very stressful--they put me in a level that was probably too far over my head because they placed you via a written test rather than an oral one (which was really dumb of them) and I somehow seemed to come out with the French word for "fuck," which I didn't know I knew. In my desperation to communicate I'd borrowed a word I'd heard in Shakespeare and I think its meaning might have changed since then. Oy.

i wonder whether the age when you learned the languages has sth to do with it, b/c children who were raised bilingual seem to have easier simultaneous access...

This whole line of thought fascinates me and I think you're right--some people switch back and forth and some people are one or the other. I have some friends where the father is American and the mother is Japanese and the kids, especially the older one who is 5, often has to translate. But what's funny is when you ask him to tell you the Japanese words for things he won't because in his mind everything must be ordered and he knows which people get the Japanese words and which ones get the English words. But he does translate for his mother too, so I think that will be a skill he will grow up to have. I'll bet kids growing up bilingual do usually wind up with a different relationship to languages than a kid who learns one and then learns the other.

[trobadora]

i switch between languages depending on subject. i cannot talk about math in any sophisticated way in english and have a hard time expressing myself about my work or childbirth in german...different experiences and parts of my life are thus connected to different languages.

It's exactly the same for me. There are topics I have a very hard time talking about in German, and then I feel awkward about it.

Besides, there's this weird phenomenon of talking to another German in English - and I don't mean on LJ, I did that when I lived in England all the time. Context just sort of defines your default language once you're fluent enough in it to manage, and then you only switch if you have a reason. Then again, sometimes it even happens to me that I remember a specific expression but can't remember which language it was in...

i've had this pet theory for a while that there are two types of bilingual speakers...those that are fluent in two languages independently and those that can think in both simultaneously.

I find this really fascinating even if I'm not sure which type I am myself - it completely depends on the subject, and on my level of exposure to it in the respective language. (I was switching languages like mad when I was working on the Romantics.)

[ringwraithe.livejournal.com]

*is Indian* :D

Nonono, Hindi does not sound like German and English...at least to me. (Mum speaks a little German, so I've heard all three.) However, Sanskrit, the language Hindi was born from (all our old Hindu Scriptures and documents and hard-to-learn stuff are in Sanskrit) is supposed to be the mother language, and almost every language has some roots in Sanskrit. English, for one, French, for another. A whole buttload of them. Since it's required right now, I've completely forgotten any examples...typical. But Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world, so. Yeah. :D Pardon my incoherence.

My mother's North Indian (from two places) and my Dad's South, which means their native languages are completely different...we speak English at home, but I'm the only one who's not completely multilingual. I can read, write and understand a little Hindi, understand some Tamil, and I know some French. The rest of them all know at least three Indian languages and one foreign one...I feel like such a loser sometimes :D When my Northie relatives are down, they switch languages so fast I don't even bother trying to keep up at mealtimes. My uncle married a Frenchwoman, and he's lived in France for years...he teaches Hindi to the French people, especially army recruits. French-Hindi is so wonderful to listen to! <3 *much love for the French* I've stayed with them, and he and his (French!) wife switch between French and English, with a little Hindi thrown in. I asked him what language he thinks in, and he said French or English for big things, Hindi for the little things. It must be so damned confusing to be multilingual.

Sorry for the rather unrelated rambling parts :D

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--I admit I've never thought Hindi sounded anything like German or English to me either, whenever I've heard it. But when S said, "My name is..." in Hindi it sounded almost like English! I think it's more just that it sounds more like English than a romantic language or an Asian one. I'm probably more used to hearing romantic languages so it stuck out. It also makes me think of something I read once on cathexys's lj once, where people were asking what languages sounded like to a non-speaker. When asked what English sounded like somebody said it sounded, "Like German, but with less spitting and a lisp."

The rest of them all know at least three Indian languages and one foreign one...I feel like such a loser sometimes :D

You have found a home on this lj, then. I just listen longingly to people who are multilingual here.:-) But now, when you say you speak English at home, are you in India or someplace else? Your family sounds positively dizzying to listen to, I have to admit. But also cool-I love the differences in the way different groups speak languages, like the kind of French you'd speak depending on where you were from. Ramble more!

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

I love these kind of discussions!

I never truly appreciated my mother tongue, until I moved to France and had to get by in a different language -one that wasn't even English!- at daily basis. IMO, if I look at things "objectively" (and I use quotation marks around the word, because of course, when you talk about things like taste, nothing can never be truly objective), I think French is one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and Spanish one of the coolest, but after having lived abroad, I really, truly find Swedish beautiful as well, in a way I suppose I wouldn't have, if it didn't mean as much to me as it does. The fact that words simply mean more to me in my mother tongue, than in any other language, automatically makes a good poem, or other type of lyric, more beautiful then I would find it in English, French or Spanish. But at the same time, badly written Swedish poems/song lyrics/dialogue also makes me cringe infinitely much more.

do you find differences in yourself from one language to another?

Yes. If you ever want to learn to really speak, and not only understand, a second language, you need to throw away all those ambitions you may have of always being eloquent and always finding the exact right word for every single thing. Of course, it depends on how big your knowledge in the language is, but you have to accept the fact that you'll, at times anyway, sound stupid, can't be as witty, will sometimes sound like a three-year-old, because the thing of main importance is to make yourself understood at all. So, if I speak any other language, I always throw my inhibitions aside and I don't have the same standards on myself, which can really be relieving. At the same time, it can of course also be frustrating, especially if you live in the other country for a longer time, because sometimes you just really miss being able to express yourself on the same terms as everybody else. I've never lived in an English speaking country, though I spoke it quite a lot in Spain, since I didn't know any Spanish when I first came, and therefore was forced to make my first friendships in English. I tried to switch language later, when I'd learned more Spanish, but it was incredibly hard, because the friendships were already established in English, and it was hard to get back, since obviously both me and the other person, spoke better English and Spanish, so while switching language would have been better for us, from the "I'm here to learn Spanish" perspective, it obviously wasn't from the "I want to get to know you better" perspective. It was different in France, because while I couldn't speak French when I came, I had quite a decent vocabulary, having studied it for six years in school, so I could basically try to speak it from the beginning, and it ended up being the language I always used (except with Swedes), whether I was communicating with Americans or Norwegians. It would be interesting to take another six months in Spain for this reason, because this time, I could begin with Spanish, and thus have the friendships established in that language from the beginning. It would be interesting to see how I'd feel if I ever moved to a English-speaking country as well, if I would feel the same level of frustration, or if it would soon pass. I don't think I ever felt inferior to my Irish and American friends in Spain, though it was their mother tongue, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that there was another language there where I could feel a whole lot more inferior to everyone, so I think that if that were really THE language, I'd have just the same moments of frustration.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I must admit, it's hard for me to imagine you struggling to express yourself in English because you sound like a native on lj! In fact, I think I made a reference to you during the conversation with S&C because at one point S was under the impression, somehow, that *I* was Swedish. Don't know how that happened. Both S and C speak English fluently, but it was funny, for instance, that S, whose German accent is very noticeable, was complimenting C on the fact that she had no accent at all...but she does have one. It's not one you can immediately identify as French--it's very pretty, actually. But I guess it took a native speaker for it to stick out since it's so subtle.

The other thing where C is a great example is where you were talking about how you're just trying to be understood so you can't always be so precise...often that can lead to a person speaking really beautifully. Maybe English is a language that lends itself to that sort of thing since it's not very rigid in the way people are expected to talk--in America especially. Like, I love listening to young children try to communicate something that's just a little above their heads because they'll often come out with something really poetic that works. For instance, once I was walking down the street and a little kid and his father were walking near me. As they passed McDonalds the boy asked if they could go there for dinner and the father said no. So he asked if they could go there for dinner "sometime," obviously meaning "sometime soon." So the father said, "Sure. How about June 18th, 2067?" Totally taking advantage of the kid's not expressing himself perfectly. So now I'm listening closely as the kid frowns and tries to think of how to respond. He said, "No. I mean, can we go there sometime..." And I know the correct phrase he's looking for is, "sometime in the near future" but he won't know that. But finally he comes up with, "Can we go there for dinner sometime around now?

For some reason I just loved this. It wasn't like listening to somebody inarticulate, it was like listening to somebody who spoke creatively. I think the same thing can happen if someone starts with a different native language. If they get to the point where they're very fluent in the adopted language the more interesting influences of the original language can start to shine, you know?

The fact that words simply mean more to me in my mother tongue, than in any other language, automatically makes a good poem, or other type of lyric, more beautiful then I would find it in English, French or Spanish.

Yes! I don't know how young you have to be when you become bilingual for words to have the same weight in both languages. Heh. Makes me wonder if the porn experience is slightly different for native English-speakers on lj than it is for people writing in a second language. Like, cathexys said the word for "sex toy" in German sounded obscene, but I wonder if a lot of the words commonly used in porn sound significantly less obscene to non-native English speakers.

[(Anonymous)]

"But at the same time, badly written Swedish poems/song lyrics/dialogue also makes me cringe infinitely much more."

Oh, I'll second that!

And I think that's part of the reason why sex scenes or porn often sounds more natural in a second language as well. Lots and lots of it is amazingly badly written, really really incredibly cringeworthy, and the purple language that suddenly appears and hijacks the style of otherwise sane authors... Having a buffer of non-native language competence can help you connect with a scene in spite of bad writing in a way that is very difficult in your mother tongue.

- Clara

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

I seldom speak English (or French), and I only learned to write in English to write Porn. So, the only thing I can tell you about the difference of my writing in Portuguese and English is that in English I can write words like "cock" and "arse" without blushing... In Portuguese I not only blush but sometimes I simply can't write them, and I use circumlocutions instead. (Oh, and I know I must sound very funny in English, me and my big words!)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ah! Yes, that's just what I was thinking in writing to go_back_chief above, that probably a lot of this stuff sounds more pornographic to native speakers because yeah, "cock" is really not something I write easily. You get used to it, of course. If all porn was written in Portuguese you'd probably use the Portuguese word for it more easily, but it would probably always have more kick to it than it would in English. I mean, in mainstream erotica in English, romance novels and such, I don't think you'd ever see the word cock ever. In fact that's one of the jokes about them, that they come up with so many circumlocutions for it.

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

Other than my native language, I speak German, English and Spanish (although not as good as the other two, but good enough to speak and understand). And yes, I agree with your French friend - I personally find it easier to speak about certain things in a foreign language than in my own.

When I was 18, I visited Germany for the first time, and even though I spoke German well at that time, I still didn't speak it as good as I do now. I remember having a conversation about sexuality with a group of foreigners and a single German guy, and I remember using the word 'Muttermund' (which means uterine orifice in English - sorry if you already knew that) without blushing or without thinking that it was a big deal. The German guy was the only one who looked uncomfortable - the others regarded this word usage as normal as I did, except of the native speaker. It just sounds more harmless to use such words in another language, even though you know what they mean - it's a funny phenomena, but with the years spent here, I've only convinced myself that it's so.

The thing that horrifies me most, however, is the fact that I've started not to be able to express what I want to say in my native language - often, only the German or English word occur to me, or if the Bulgarian one occurs after all, I find it strangely sounding and completely inappropriate for what I want to say. It's horrible, because I remember that I used to laugh at my English teacher for having exactly the same problems in class then, and I mocked her because I thought that she'd just wanted to show off.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

First, I am flattered you'd think I'd know the German word for uterine orifice.:-)

But I completely understand just what you mean--I can well imagine being that German guy having a bunch of non-Native speakers throw around a word that just isn't used that easily. You know, I'd even suspect that if we all got together a lot of you guys would toss around words that I read all the time on the net and I'd be blushing! That's the whole thing about words in your native language is they just have that kind of power, like giving something its "real name" or something, while in another language it's more like a symbol of the real word. There's a scene in the movie Sophie's Choice, for instance where the character Stingo comes home late and has a drink with Sophie. She admires his suit, which is the type that's called a seersucker suit. She says, "You look very nice, you are in your cocksucker." Okay, it's an easy joke, but the whole thing is of course no native English-speaker could possibly make that mistake because that's not a word you're going to say by accident.

That's actually another interesting thing...the in-between language of someone struggling to communicate in a language they don't quite have. Like, let's say one was watching Sophie's Choice in Poland. The scenes in Polish would not need the subtitles they have now in English, but the English would need to be subtitled. Only if you subtitled Sophie's English speech you'd have to find some way of recreating the mistakes or you'd miss a big part of the character. I guess one movie that does that well is Love, Actually where Colin Firth's marriage proposal in Portuguese is translated literally so you see how little sense he makes.:-)

I mocked her because I thought that she'd just wanted to show off.

LOL! But of course it would be hard to imagine it happening unless you experienced it! Actually, that's even a weird thing in a way in HP fandom I have actually gotten used to English expressions (just as I'm sure a lot of non-Americans get used to American ones) and start to use them instead of what I would really say. The weirdest confession: I've gotten to where the word "pants" sounds wrong to me. It sounds like underwear and I want to say "trousers." But that would be so affected in American English. So I still say pants but after I say it I'll have a split second of weirdness. It's very strange.

[pauraque]

Just so you know, "Indo-Germanic" is an outdated and misleading name for what we now call the Indo-European group. And while there are certainly compelling structural similarities between Hindi and the Germanic languages (of which German and English are two) -- compelling to someone who knows about linguistics -- I think it's pretty far-out to suggest that they "sound alike".

Contextual language switching is a very common phenomenon. Sometimes it has to do with perceived language prestige, as anoni suggests. Switching may also occur to exclude certain listeners, of course -- that's the only kind I can recall doing myself.

People who are very fluent in two or more languages do report that they'll switch based on conversational topic, but as far as I know there are no "universals" for this. It has to do with the cultures connected to the respective languages, and the way the speaker perceived what is appropriate to each language/culture. I know nothing about LotR, but the switching you described would have seemed very clever and realistic to me.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think it's pretty far-out to suggest that they "sound alike".

It may have been that she just happened to use a phrase that did so we all jumped on it. It's like certain German phrases that sound almost like English for whatever reason. I know nothing of Hindi at all so I couldn't begin to say what it had in common with anything, but S may have been trying to just say there were some structural similarities and I over-simplified what she was saying. I don't know if she speaks any other languages, so she might have been comparing it something else as well.

I know nothing about LotR, but the switching you described would have seemed very clever and realistic to me.

It did very much seem realistic to me at the time. I assume the scriptwriters went with their instinct about when to use it--and Viggo Mortenson loved speaking Elvish so they could be pretty free with it. Iirc, I think they used the Elvish either when a character was trying to show a connection to elves (like when faced with angry elf sentries Aragorn would speak to them in Elvish to seem more like a friend) or to express more intimate feelings. Like in the scene in question, Elrond outlines the tragic consequences of his daughter marrying a mortal in Englsh, but the switches to Elvish to basically say, "And I really love you and want you to be happy." The Elvish was more intimate and was probably connected to her childhood.

[trazzie.livejournal.com]

I've often listened to the elder generation here in southern Louisiana speak french, and there are many times they switch into english throughout the conversation. Most of it comes from an older language that doesn't have a french translation for more modern words. But I asked one of our french speaking patients one time about how to say "have a good weekend" and she said it was just "bon weekend", but another patient said it was "bon fin semaines" (sp?) although it's not really used. The first patient explained that english was used so much more these days that she, who was raised speaking french, was forgetting some of it. It makes me sad to see our heritage dying out...I wish I could speak it! I'm limited to a few phrases like "come here" or "come eat" and especially "lassez les bon temps roulez!" (you know, the important things) ;)

But this is quite different from those in other countries where english is a secong language. A very interesting subject!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

My boss is from LA and I love listening to things her grandfather says. I don't know if he even really speaks Cajun French so much as he's just always spoken English very heavily influenced by it. When her second baby was born I remember her trying to ask the Alliance Francais about the word her grandfather and neighbor would use to describe her--I think it was the French word for meatball, but was more commonly used in Lousiana French so it wasn't like a common expression.

Of course his pronounciation was probably very different. Like the way he always called his wife what sounded like, "Ma Shaaaaeuh" meaning, "Ma chere."

[tata-the-troll.livejournal.com]

My native language is Russian, but I live in States now and speak English outside of home.

I will second most that was said re: obscenities. I swear in English with much less embarrassment than in Russian. However, this may be due to different "weight" assigned to swear words in these languages. You routinely hear "f***" in the movies, yet when comparable words in Russian are used in the media it is rather an exception. There is a lot of swearing in oral informal speech, but it is considered a taboo in formal setting, in "cultured" environment, in front of the opposite sex, and in most of media.

Medical topics, especially touchy ones, as well as sexuality and the like are also easier for me to talk about in English. In any case, if I want to mentally distance myself from the subject, if the subject is embarrassing or too "close to home" I use English, even with Russian-speaking people.

And finally, when speaking on professional topics, I find it easier to use English. English is more compact, and sometimes nice and precise English idiomatic expressions have no equivalent in Russian.(For example: "make a difference" cannot be translated with less than a full sentence, no way.) The opposite is true, too.
However, Russian idioms with no equivalent often refer to feelings, customs, motivations. English-only idioms refer more to actions, results, relations. Does it have to do with different mentality of the peoples? Do I shift between these mentalities? I hesitate to claim it, but it could be.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I was reading an article recently about the type of Russian that includes all the swear words...what is it called? It was definitely different from the kind of Russian one would be expected to use in polite company, but the article was about how it was very expressive in its way!

It does seem like using a second language would be really helpful for distancing yourself. I could easily read a paragraph that was completely obscene in another language and even if somebody told me what it meant it wouldn't matter. There's a psychological aspect to words in your own language that just doesn't translate.

However, Russian idioms with no equivalent often refer to feelings, customs, motivations. English-only idioms refer more to actions, results, relations.

That is so fascinating--and I can really imagine it fitting the different cultures too. There's probably a lot to be studied about idioms, since presumably you can say these things in either language, it's just a question of which language came up with an idiomatic expression for it.

[bochup.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm Singaporean-Chinese, and I speak and write and swear in English and Chinese. Personally, I don't find a difference in myself when I switch from speaking English to Chinese (and vice versa), but that's probably because I grew up learning both and hence do not see English as a 'foreign language'. Most of the time, the language I choose depends on who I'm speaking to. If I'm speaking to another Chinese who is well-versed in Chinese idioms, I'll be able to express myself better in Chinese and with fewer words. Otherwise, speaking Chinese or English really don't matter all that much.

And about switching languages in mid-conversation? Happens all the time here. When I was in high school, my principal was a 'Nazi' and forbidded us from speaking in mixed English-Chinese-Whatever, but no one cared. It's very common to speak in a mixture of English-Chinese-Malay-Hokkein-Hindi-Cantonese-WhatHaveYou when you live in a multi-racial society. It helps to bridge the gap between cultural differences; it makes conversations more 'casual', and consequently, the best way to express myself (I guess) is to speak and think in a mixture of languages I know, choosing specific words/phrases/sayings/expressions that happen to express my thoughts and feelings most accurately. I'm not sure if I've articulated it well, but the connection between language and the self has a lot to do with the individual's own attachment to certain words/sayings of a particular language. For example, I may speak English most of the time, but I find myself inserting Chinese, Malay, or dialects in instances where they will make my point (in the conversation) more succinct.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ah, that seems to fit it with what a lot of people have been saying. If you grow up speaking both languages it's very different than if you learn one later-or perhaps it's more accurate to say if you start speaking one later. That is, you might learn a language from an early age in school, but only use it regularly when you move to a different country when you're older.

For example, I may speak English most of the time, but I find myself inserting Chinese, Malay, or dialects in instances where they will make my point (in the conversation) more succinct.

That does make sense--and also fits with the idea that growing up as bilingual is a different experience that learning one language and then another, or having the languages separated into what you speak in one place or another. I love the idea of creating a third language that mixes the two together. It's both more personal (since each individual might have a different preference for what expressions they like in each language) and a standard language (because I'm sure some expressions naturally get used by everyone).

Indian-sounding English

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, I'd like to comment on the Indian (Hindi?), German and English issue.


I'm sorry that I can't pinpoint what kind of Indian language I'm talking about, but English spoken with an Indian accent sounds remarkably like English spoken with a Welsh accent. The melody of those two versions of English is very similar, and I would guess that some kinds of Welsh and Indian might sound alike to someone who can't understand either of the two languages.

I actually spent weeks following a vintage radio drama before I realised that the "Indian" character was in fact speaking with a heavy Welsh accent.

The similarities between the two for me, are rooted in the fact that they both sound almost musically melodic compared to other varieties of English, RP, for instance, often sounds monotonous and flat, as do some American dialects.


As for the LotR-switches, I found them quite natural sounding, the Arwen ones annoyed me, but then all scenes with Arwen annoyed me, quite unrelated to which language she spoke ;-)
That Legolas and Aragorn have a heated discussion in Elvish is much more believable to me than to have them shout in English. I would assume that all their conversations would be in Elvish unless somebody from a different race was present and part of their conversation, and the same would go for Elrond and Arwen. I realise that would be unlikely in a film like that, but I think that non-native English speakers that are used to watching subtitled films might have a higher tolerance for language switches in films.

I am not bilingual, but have reached the level of knowledge in English that makes me start to switch, and although it is kind of pleasing to start to really think in a different language, there are disadvantages like sounding like an idiot in your mother tongue when you start to spout English words and idioms, either roughly translated, or worse, not translated at all. To people who do not switch, you'll sound affected or stupid, but other switchers will just respond in kind.


- Clara

Re: Indian-sounding English

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I have never made that connection between Indian (of whatever type) and Welsh. I have heard Welsh accents, but when I think of an Indian one it's more that very stereotypical Apu-style one.:-)

My friend from New Jersey was constantly mistaken for Irish when she was working in England. Now--are you saying that your mother tongue is German or English?

I'm pretty with you on the Arwen factor in LOTR. I liked her in some scenes better than I thought I would--usually when they stuck to her actual story, but I still cringe at some of her moments. Notably the "ranger caught off his guard" line and the idea that she's dying. WTF?

Anyway, I did think the times they chose to switch into Elvish always made sense and were consistent, and a nice touch.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a good demonstration of the way scholars believe that language connects. http://www.bartleby.com/61/indoeuro.html

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Wow! Thank you so much for that link it's wonderful!!

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Ever since this past summer, whenever I'm in aikido class or drinking, things start coming out in French, as it's the first foreign language I've learned to speak (and is now completely associated with those situations), with three others reading under the belt. This is going to make the intensive re-learning of German next year a lot of fun, because everytime I tried to pull up the German for something this summer, it came out in French. (Sprechen sie Deutsch? Nein, ich lese Deutsch, je parle anglais et un peu de francais...) Never mind the odd conversation earlier this fall where out of the three of us, they were speaking German (which I understand some of, but don't really speak), and I was speaking French, with a little English thrown in here and there...

Now, study enough Latin, and you'll start dreaming in it. Really.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

My Latin teacher would be so proud of my if I dreamed in Latin. ::sigh:: Mostly I just mutter "Gallia est omnis..." Six years of it you'd think I'd be better at it! It was very popular in my high school for some reason.

There is something really funny about associating aikido and drinking with French.:-)

[moonfruituk.livejournal.com]

I totally know what she means. I'm english, living in France this year, and I speak French pretty well - I can express most things I need to express, and I speak in French almost all the time, with the teachers I work with. In fact there's only one who I speak English with almost all the time. Most of the time, I do fine and I can express what I mean in French, but just sometimes, when I'm really wound up or really unhappy, I have to go back to English just because I can't manage in French. Like the other day, something happened that reminded me of when I'd been assaulted, and I couldn't explain how I felt in French - the words just weren't there.

However, there are some things that I can express better in French, just because the language has a neater way of saying them - little phrases and such things. And with some people I do switch in and out of French, or they do - especially when we're tired and neither of us can keep up the effort in a foreign language for that long.

As far as writing goes, I only write in English. I have a little notebook where I record random thoughts and stuff people say, and unless someone says something in French, everything in there is in English. I can't play with French the same way I can English.

As to possesing another soul, I suppose to an extent that's true. I do feel slightly different when I speak French, just a bit more, well, French. Foreign, I guess. Like I'm not my boring old English self.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I do feel slightly different when I speak French, just a bit more, well, French. Foreign, I guess. Like I'm not my boring old English self.

I think that's definitely part of the fun of speaking another language, particularly since it is almost like a costume you can hide behind. Sometimes you want to take it off because you have something to say you don't have the words for, but other times, like others have said, you can almost be more outspoken because you don't have the same attachments to the language.

[sleeplessmarea.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a great topic for discussion Magpie! Warning: the following will probably be a monster post. Sorry!

I grew up in a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual environment. Till age three German was my primary language (the others: Ukrainian, English, a bit of Polish). But once I started school at 4 1/2, English quickly outstriped the other languages, leaving my volcabulary/grammar basically stopped at 4 years of age, in preference to continuing development of my English. Which is the reason why I generally choose to express myself in English....

In my school French studies, which included some immersion stuff, I got so I could carry on a dining table discussion with native French speakers and have them understand pretty much understand me.

So... with this HUGELY definitive knowledge (not!) I have experienced the reality of certain concepts being more expressable within certain languages. My poliglot relatives knew this instinctively and mostly unconsciously - and it is not at all uncommon for them to start off a sentence in - say - German, switch to Romanian, and finish off in Polish. Handy for them, hard on the rest of us!

Sometimes I suspect this happened because they wished to deliberately obscure something spoken (like keeping talk of SEX out of Little Pitcher's Ears.) More often I imagine it was because they preferred to express themselves with colloquialisms and/or catch phrases that were untranslatable from language to language. Translation involves a lot more than changing words/grammar forms around; much of it depends on cultural context which is like the soil you put a particular seed into in order to grow something out of it successfuly. Sometimes you have to be able to literally see out of the mindset of a particular culture to understand the significance of a phrase - perhaps the most difficult thing for a language student to do... though possible for a person who learned an alternative language as a child.

And distinctions can exist even inside language GROUPS, apparently. I have heard writers fluent in both comparing the Slavic language group tongues Russian and Ukrainian compare then by saying that Russian is an excellent language to express analytical concepts, and would be a natural for anyone writing a detective novel. Ukrainian, by contrast, incorporates many words of vivid creative imagerary and would be ideal for writing fantasy/science fiction.

I can't attest to this with personal experience, but this makes sense to me. Linguistically for various reasons Ukrainian (like English) is more of a hodgepodge language, becoming the beneficiary of volcabulary acquired from conquests and trading relationships (with Turks, Greeks, Vikings, Tatars, Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews, Austrians & Russians themselves). I would guess that there are probably more "foreign" words incorporated into that language...and as such probably a larger available volcabulary in general as well as allowing for more ways to say similar things. All quite useful when writing fantasy or science fiction.

Russian language, arising from a more isolated environment with fewer "outside" influences, may have a smaller volcabulary, more striped down grammar, and probably simpler, more efficient expressions (mere educated guesswork on my part). If true, it sounds to me as though Raymond Chandler might transfer quite effectively into Russian.

My insight into French is that the language follows a cultural tendency to "prettify" things other cultures wouldn't bother with. I keep thinking of the (probably antiquated) polite expression for a woman's monthly menses, "J'ai me fleurs" (right?)meanomg "I have my flowers". Just the existence of such a phrase says two things to me. Therein, a clinical reality is replaced with a poetic one. This implies that one CAN talk about such subjects in public, or else why would there even exist a pretty, polite version? I suspect this elasticity of expression is a lot of the reason French became a lingua franca.

A fascinating long book could be written exploring the means various languages evolved to handle difficult or taboo concepts. There seems to be various ways to do it... leaving only the lucky poliglots among us to pick and choose.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Wow--that was a great monster post covering all sorts of language-switching things. I love that I now have this picture of your family switching languages when kids are present.:-)

But I especially understand almost needing to swtich languages to get into the mindset of what you're saying, or describe things from that country. I think that's why I always prefer in movies when people actually speak the language and with subtitles when they go to other countries. Something like Sophie's Choice, I think, works better because the characters speak the language they would be speaking, even if as an English-speaker you feel just slightly left out knowing that the subtitles aren't giving you the exact flavor of things.

I'm sure languages do tend to have tendencies like prettifying or not, like you said about French...especially since it stands to reason that some cultures find some things more taboo than others. It's always surprising, for instance, when a word somebody uses a lot in one language translates into a word you would never say in our own, for instance. Or like the above posters said, where what people say in their own language in a certain situation translates to something that would be silly to say in English ("I like you a lot" instead of "I love you"). It's a direct translation, maybe, but with totally different associations.

And now I'm all interested in Ukranian vs. Russian and jealous of your background.:-)

[sine-que-non767.livejournal.com]

(For the record, my foreign languages are French and German. Oh, the good old standbys!)

I have had those 'switch' converations - felt awfully pretentious doing it, but really it's just so you can get your meaning across fully if the other person doesn't understand, or to put across subtleties. And some things just don't translate, or sound stupid in another language other than the original.

C said that she was much more outgoing about her feelings in English, that she was very shy in French

Partly the more outgoing side does come out in another language for me, but mainly I get v. frustrated in my languages - I've studied them to a very high level, but have a natural affinity for writing rather than oral expression, so my oral communication skills are the worst part of it. That doesn't mean I can't hold long conversations on difficult topics, but certain areas like arguing are v. hard for me. They're also hard, emotionally speaking, in English, but somehow the emotions get in the way of language even more in my non-native languages. Gah, it's really annoying.

What I ultimately felt when spending quite some time abroad, was that I couldn't express my personality in another language. It was like I remained on the same surface level and just couldn't break through...partly vocab, partly people, I guess, partly cultural differences... all of those combined made it very isolating. I didn't feel people got the 'real' me, because my personality is so tied to fluency of expression and the beauty of words and feeling at home in them, playing with/on words. Though I love my adopted languages, and the unique words that they contain, which you can't translate into English, well... it sounds awful and cheesy, but - my heart expresses itself in English. I can't change that, and just have to accept it.

"To speak another language is to possess another soul"

Yes - I do feel I change somewhat, different parts of me come to the fore when communicating in another language - and I do feel the ability to do so, adds something to my soul. It's also getting further into another culture, that allows you to share in it and possess something more than the heritage you grew up with.

Just browsing through the comments - the swearing and porn thing is interesting. Since I don't have a problem with swearing in English anyway, it's almost a moot point - but it's very easy to swear in other languages because the words just don't have that instant emotional effect. Porn, on the other hand... When people were trying to help me with career choices, they would say 'Well, you could...write books in 2 languages!' I'd be like, er...NO. I can write creatively in other languages - perhaps it's more practice than anything that I need - but on a regular basis? OMG how the fuck do you people do it? Let alone write porn? For me, part of the joy of writing, and of writing porn, is the weigh of the words, the titillation, the visceral shock of something like 'cock'. Esp. when someone like Snape says it, for whom it's a little incongruous. And that weight is there because I've grown up with English, because I love it and its breadth and depth and wheee! Can't express how much I love it, really. :D

/ramble

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That was wonderful! As strange as it sounds, I really *imagine* speaking another language the way you describe, where it's hard to put your personality across and that's so frustrating to me. Two examples I can think of, for instance. One was in high school when I had to give an oral report in French. Usually I've got no problem speaking in front of people, but the first time I tried it I just looked out and felt like nobody was getting a word I was saying and it must be so damn boring for them listen to be talk about nothing and I got so upset I fainted. I still remember this girl Heidi in the front row telling me how I just suddenly sort of looked up and was kind of green and passed out. V. embarassing. The next time I used some visual aids and got through it.

The other time was once doing an immersion weekend. They'd put me in a level that was really too high because I do better on written French, so I was the stupidest person in the group.:-) I was so frustrated all weekend not being able to really take part in conversations (as you can tell from my lj, I like to participate in conversations...). Then sometimes when the instructor would try to help me he couldn't because what I was trying to say just made no sense to him. Like, it was more than just the words, it was just I think he didn't get me either. I will always remember him asking us about food and he was asking me if I liked mushrooms. So I said I had never eaten mushrooms because I was afraid of them. It just happened that this was the true answer, but as I'm trying to say in French, "I am afraid of them because the King of the Elephants in Babar died from eating a bad mushroom and he was healthy in one picture and wrinkled and green in the next and so I never wanted to try them and anyway they seem gross."

I think I got about as far as, "Le roi des elephants...? (if that's even correct--it's been a while) before the guy was looking at me like I was crazy. Such a stressful weekend. Made my skin break out something terrible.