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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Le dacquois Diglot Groupie France Joined 5647 days ago 54 posts - 69 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, German | Message 1 of 7 03 July 2009 at 10:58am | IP Logged |
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...is the title of a book by Georges Kersaudy that I'm currently reading. I have to say it's surely one of the most fascinating reads I've had in a long time. It's basically a thorough examination of all Europes's major languages (which the author narrows down the number of for convenience to sixty). He writes about others too but only in passing.
First of all comes an overview of the European situation, geography, politics, language families, etc. Then he launches into describing the languages of each European country, going into much detail not only about the principal language but also the minority languages, their status, future, how they relate to other languages and peoples in other countries, shared vocabulary..the total! It's supremely fascinating and I highly recommend it. I'm only halfway through but I can't put it down! What I read last night before nodding off made me say "aaahhh?!!" Here's a translation from French (Disclaimer: I'm NOT a translator so the wording of the English version is undoubtedly different, but here's the gist folks)... "So it is with vinum with its characteristic ending, which is recognised at first glance as a Latin word, while vino could be Spanish or Italien. On the other hand, "vin" pronounced nasally can only be French and pronounced non-nasally is undeniably Romanian, while vi is immediately identified as being Catalan owing to the absence of the last syllable, or while vinho bearing a "nh" immediately reveals its Portuguese nature, just as surely as wine is quite English, Wein has a distinctly German appearance, while wijn shows itself at first sight as a Dutch word and as gwin has very much the shape of a Breton word, etc" He then goes on to explain that the language learner need not fear learning two similar languages even side by side, since these distinctive characteristics are absorbed by the brain. He explains that's it's even improbable to get them mixed up unless in a brief moment of distraction or by simply not paying attention. Otherwise, he says there is NO problem. This gives me a bit of hope but I don't know the truth of it. I agree that French are Spanish for example are significantly enough apart for me to not get mixed up. However, I've heard other people getting muddled between the two. Also, while I have no fear about learning French and Spanish side by side, could I say the same for Spanish and Catalan? Or Spanish and Portuguese? I don't know because I've not yet tried. I'm wondering what the posters here think? Is there truth is what this author says? Or is he on the optimistic side? Edited by Le dacquois on 03 July 2009 at 10:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 03 July 2009 at 11:28am | IP Logged |
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It sounds like an interesting read. But it is definitely possible to mix different languages, - not in the sense that you loose track of the individual character of each language, but in the sense that you use words and constructions from one language in another. This is not necessarily a bad tactic between related languages because with a bit of circumspection you will be right more often than not, but sometimes a certain word or construction is really common in one language and totally absent from its nearest neighbour, and one of the most difficult things in language learning is to identify the things you can't say in a language. Edited by Iversen on 03 July 2009 at 11:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5643 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 3 of 7 09 July 2009 at 1:42pm | IP Logged |
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One possible exception: I found learning Modern Greek started to seriously degrade my Classical Greek.
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| Sprachbund Octoglot Newbie Denmark Joined 5632 days ago 15 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Spanish, French, Dutch Studies: Italian, Latin, Arabic (classical), Russian | Message 4 of 7 10 July 2009 at 2:31pm | IP Logged |
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It is definitely possible to mix up even the languages that you know best. After many years living in Sweden and many years in Denmark, with native fluency in Swedish and near-native fluency in Danish, and a daily use of both languages in speech and writing, I keep catching myself mixing up prepositions (in Swedish you listen "on", in Danish you listen "to" someone), grammatical genders (in Swedish 'wine' is "ett vin", in Danish "en vin"), derivational endings, items of vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and so forth. I'm sure others will have similar experiences, and that the problem is far greater with languages that one is less familiar with.
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| Caveben Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5665 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Romanian, Slovenian | Message 5 of 7 13 July 2009 at 5:54am | IP Logged |
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I began learning Italian when I had a strong base in French. I am not aware of ever transporting a foreign word between either of these two languages without conscious consideration. If I had to try to describe why this is I would say that as well as the often times obvious difference in pronunciation the words seem to have a different feel to them. Like Kato Lomb's tuning fork in your head is playing the note in a different octave. I am sure someone more poetically gifted than me could describe it more eloquently.
Of course if I find myself lost for words in Italian, as Iversen says, taking an educated guess and substituting a French one often means you are understood in my experience. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Vilcxjo Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 5639 days ago 21 posts - 29 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Esperanto, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Latin, Ancient Greek, Modern Hebrew, Russian, German, Biblical Hebrew | Message 6 of 7 23 July 2009 at 4:14am | IP Logged |
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The examples that Kersaudy gives in the quote are signals in the written language. And when a person is working in the written language I think that he's probably correct. From what I've been able to observe, the spoken language is somewhat different.
Here's an example, just in a single language. I do a good deal of lecturing at the university level, and I've found from experience, that it's not a good idea to use the regional speech from parts of the US that students aren't familiar with. When I moved to the midwest (of the US) from the west coast, I had to work at avoiding west coast expressions and turns of phrase. If I slipped and did use west coast speech, the amount of student nudging and buzzing increased quite a lot. Even after several years in the midwest, when I'm lecturing I'll think of something in west coast speech and can't think of the midwest way to say the item. When that happens I usually mentally rewrite what I was going to say to avoid the whole issue. That was an example just within one language. I can cite other examples involving two different languages. I think that when a person is interacting with others there is a lot more going on than just speaking and then the brain can play strange tricks in mixing codes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 7 of 7 23 July 2009 at 12:09pm | IP Logged |
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Looks interesting, I'll definitely buy the book. Here's an interview with the author:
http://www.freelang.com/mag/interview_kersaudy.html ( in French ) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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