sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2004-12-11 10:27 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2004-12-11 10:27 pm
Speaking in tongues
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?
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?
no subject
Ooh, I can ramble. I could teach a college course on it. Let's see. No, no, I'm very much in India, and I've lived here all my life...two years in Bombay, and the rest in Madras. Umm...the thing is, in India, every state is like a seperate country. Every state has its own culture, language(s), traditional costume, dance, cuisine....race, even. India is like a group of small countries. The biggest difference is between the North and the South...the Northies who are mostly fairer are descended from the Aryans, who basically showed up and invaded eons ago. Southies are Dravidian, for a large part. Culture, language, etc = very different.
My mum is Northie (Goa and Kashmir) and my dad is Tamilian. See, my Mum's language would be Konkani or Kashmiri, but she grew up speaking Hindi. Dad, of course, knows Tamil. So, er, we speak English at home. Now Mum's become fluent in Tamil after living here sixteen years, but only lower level Tamil...because she deals in Tamil mainly with shopkeepers, servants, and the like. If she spoke her good Tamil to a Brahmin or someone else, they'd be pretty insulted. So many kinds of one language, but whatever. She took German in college, and adored it.
Both my grandfathers are professors, one in Russian (he and grandmum spent some years in Russia) and my dad's dad in English. So both my mum and dad speak excellent English...we probably speak better English than a lot of Brits. We just find it the easiest language at home, now...when my mum's parents come down they speak in Hinglish (Hindi+English, which after a point can be very annoying to listen to.) My uncle, I've mentioned in the last comment...staying in his home was so fun. His ickle ones are growing up fluent in all three languages.
When Northie relatives are down to stay, we have people shouting across to each other in Hinglish, Mum trying to speak to the maid in Tamil over them, and Daddy and me trying to carry on a conversation in English. It's a huge headache after a point. Only about once a year, thank God. Then everyone forgets what language they were speaking to who in, and I get addressed in Hindi, Tamil and whatever else, with everyone forgetting that I'm the ass who doesn't fully understand anything. Meh.
I think the non-English language I speak best is French. Being Indian, that's kind of lame. 800+ languages right here, and I can speak French and none of them :D At least I can converse avec ma petite cousine a Paris. Elle est tres belle...comme une poupee :D
I ramble occasionally in my journal about the 'Mallus' and 'Marus' and all the other different groups packed in here. Everyone's so very different, and we have to live together. When someone says I look or don't 'look Indian' or 'sound Indian' I have to laugh out loud. You can't look or sound Indian. You can only look or sound like the ones you're part of. Come here and inspect our language collection :D
Okay, my ramble on languagey things got rather long and unrelated. Sorry. Hope there was a sentence or two that was useful :">
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Yes! I think that was it. Her name was Sonja which is pretty European (don't know if there are any Indian names that sound similar), but it was the "Mera naam" that I think sounded surprisingly like "My name..." At least it sounded more like it than something like, "Je m'appelle."
I'm sitting here with my jaw dropped over your description of Indian languages. Different regions AND different levels of the same language. Wow. It's almost like...the idea that you're more fluent in English and speak it at home because it's easier seems almost like something you'd see in a Hollywood movie and everyone would think was ridiculous. You know, like, "If they're an Indian family why are they speaking Indian?" the way the bad guys in American movies always helpfully speak in accented-English so that the good guys can overhear them.:-) You know, now I think of it I think Anne Frank said her family often spoke English in the annex for a number of reasons.
But your family sounds hysterical, especially with of course everybody forgetting who speaks what. Makes my own loud family gatherings sound like something out of Brideshead Revisited by comparison!
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Yeah, there's generally a proper form and a vernacular form, like English...and there's the very colloquial form, and there's the uppish form. If you learn the language formally, you'll learn the latter. Very confusing.
It always makes me growl when someone asks me if I speak Indian, because there is no such language. In France, my uncle was writing the name for this Japanese/Indian duo's debut album in Hindi for them, and he asked what languages they sang in. The answer was 'Japanese and Indian.' Meh.
I frankly think LotR is a lot more realistic in some ways than some movies. The subtitled Elvish, for example. As opposed to accented English. :D
Not really...I live in the South where most of Dad's relatives are...and our family is slightly more serious-humourish, eccentric and all...and I take after them. My northie relatives are loud, cheerful and all talk at once, so they make me feel confused and lost...especially when Mum mixes up her languages :D Indian families are interesting when you're a hybrid.
Standard Disclaimer: Indian families you see on TV are not really us! Meep. Though Goodness Gracious Me is very funny.
no subject
LOL! Gotcha!
In fact, that makes me remember an article about how in a way the most realistic American family on TV was The Simpsons. So it was a show where sometimes people from other countries were like, "Wow, an American family that seems more like mine."
I'm glad to know there is no language of "Indian," because it sounded really strange to me to say it. Guess it's the same thing with "our" Indians--Native Americans I mean. Many nations, no one language.
I frankly think LotR is a lot more realistic in some ways than some movies. The subtitled Elvish, for example. As opposed to accented English. :D
LOL! Can you imagine them coming up with an Elvish accent--I mean, other than saying, "Okay, you elves are going to speak in a very formal English accent."