Re: Somewhat Off-Topic: thinking in conlangs

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 8:22 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

> This hasn't happened to me as such, but what happens often with me is that I
> cannot find my words in any of the languages I speak. Since I've been speaking
> fluently (or conversationally) three languages (which I use all nearly daily),
> plus three others at various other levels, I've discovered that I *don't* think
> in any specific language any more, but rather in free-form concepts, that get
> translated into words at the last moment, and only in the language I'm using at
> that particular moment. This means that:
I'm really fluent in two languages, and moderately fluent in three more,
but I still think most of my thoughts, except perhaps about math, are
still "made of language" so to speak -- at least as far as they're accessible
to introspection.

Sometimes I find myself deliberately switching languages or translating
my thoughts in order to clarify them.

> - I am not good at translating my thoughts from one language to another. I
> usually reformulate them in the other language, and the formulation is different
> enough that it cannot be called a translation any more.
If I'm translating my own work instead of someone else's, faithfulness
of translation doesn't seem to be a high priority.  The main thing is
to express my own ideas as clearly and persuasively as possible,
and if I come up with a better way to do it in the "translation", I might or
might not go back and revise the original version in another language
to use a corresponding improved expression.

Sometimes I write a first draft of a difficult passage of a story or essay
I'm writing (usually in English) in Esperanto or gzb.  Rewriting later
in English, I don't care particularly about faithfully translating the first
draft.

> - I often have concepts in my head that get blocked at the "translate into
> words" stage, whether because they aren't represented by any word I know, or
> because I just cannot find the right word at that time. And when the last one
> happens, it usually blocks me in every language I try.
That happens occasionally to me, but not often.  Usually I can come
up with something that at least approximately expresses my idea
in some language or other -- not always in a language my interlocutor
speaks, however.

> Perhaps contradictionally, I also code-switch very easily and naturally,
> switching from language to language when speaking with different people (or
I code-switch pretty frequently, among English, Esperanto, gzb, and
Toki Pona, when thinking or talking to myself (pretty frequent, since
I work from home and am often alone 4-5 days a week); not so much
when talking to other people primarily in English.  There are certain
contexts when I find myself wanting to say {sjum-van} though, and
have to make myself say "thank you" instead.

> sometimes with the same person) without thinking about it. The drawback is that
> I've often used the wrong language when talking to a particular person, only
> realising my mistake after half-minute when I noticed they looked at me with a
> weird face! ;)
That happens to me when I'm at an Esperanto event and have been
speaking Esperanto for a while, and then suddenly have to speak
to someone in English (usually a waiter or other service industry person).
But a few weeks ago I was at an Esperanto meeting, when I had been
working pretty intensely on gzb for the last few days, and occasionally
I found myself starting to speak to someone in gzb when Esperanto
(or English, sometimes) would be appropriate.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/fluency-survey.html
Conlang fluency survey -- there's still time to participate before
I analyze the results and write the article

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