Re: CHAT: Multi-Lingos

Hey, everybody...

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> I do it at home all the time. <rueful look> For some reason or
> other I stopped speaking Korean in the house after we'd
> moved back to the U.S. So my mom speaks to me in Korean,
> and I reply in English, and everything works out fine.
This, actually, I've seen a lot, with a lot of different languages. Immigrant
parents understand English but speak their native language to the children,
while the children understand that language but speak to their parents in
English. I assume it's probably typical with immigrant familes, in whatever
country.

> had people who assumed my mom was stupid or just not fluent
> enough to understand what they were saying in English be
> unpleasantly surprised. <sardonic g>
> I've learned *never* to assume a heavy accent/English
> difficulty means stupidity...
Oh yes, I've seen this too. One of my best friend's parents immigrated to the
US from Romania (and actually they're ethnically Armenian!) and they're both
fluent in English in terms of understanding it,  knowing English grammar, and
having a wide vocabulary at their command; they just *pronounce* English
words with a think Romanian accent, which for some reason they never lost.
But I've seen this lead other people to talk down to them, or speak
deliberately and obviously "more simply" to them than to other native
English-speakers who were present, that sort of thing. Having an accent and
having a command of the structure and lexicon of a language are two entirely
separate things, though many people don't seem to realize this...

>> I say we should make everyone in the world learn Icelandic
>> and make that the "official Germanic language of the world" ;-)
> Any particular reason for Icelandic?
Oh, just because I think it's a really beautiful language and I've been
fascinated with it for years and years now. Though, sadly, after all this
time, I can hardly speak any. A situation I do intend to rectify during the
remainder of my lifetime!

> I think I remember one of Mario Pei's books stating that Danish
> was very easy to learn to pronounce for an English speaker,
> but I won't swear to it
This is purely my personal opinion: there are definitely some Danish sounds
that are difficult for an English speaker to learn to pronounce, but I do
think that overall the sounds of Danish seem closer to English than those of
Norwegian or Swedish do.

> ...and from hearing a Dane at my HS read
> the names in the Norse creation myth (while the rest of us
> mangled 'em), I wouldn't bet on it.
Now, the sounds of Danish are about as far removed from the sounds of Old
Icelandic as those of English are! Better to get an Icelander to pronounce
them :-)

> Actually, philosophy of religion was quite, quite interesting. We
> had a Greek who laughed at us trying to pronounce the Greek
> gods' names, and....
OK, I'll grant that although the phonology of modern Greek has changed quite
significantly from that of Ancient Greek, it's still probably closer (and
more "authentic") than our method of pronouncing Ancient Greek as if it were
English!

Thomas