Who is really, really bilingual?
cant...@lycos.com
contexts. In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
(administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
influence the individual towards one language rather than the other."
This is from "The Oxford Companion to the English Language", Oxford
University Press 1992. I had never before seen it stated, though I
have often thought that it had to be that way. Do you think it is true?
Evertjan.
> "Bilinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> contexts.
> In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
> (administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
> influence the individual towards one language rather than the other."
Even monolinguals are NEVER equally fluent about all topics in all
contexts.
However, there is a clear divide between monolinguals and multilinguals,
the latter having or acquiring a feeling, that concepts are not expressed
similarly in different tongues, slangs and dialects.
This is so obvious in alt.language.latin, where the "please translate"
postings often contain English localized [geographically or community
wize] slang expressions, which are so wrongly expected, after litteral
translation into Latin, to contain the same meaning, relevancy and
jocular impact.
> This is from "The Oxford Companion to the English Language", Oxford
> University Press 1992. I had never before seen it stated, though I
> have often thought that it had to be that way. Do you think it is true?
1 No, the "rarely" expresses it would be true sometines. It never is.
2 Bilinguality/multilinguality does not mean fluency per se.
PERHAPS multilinguality could be defined as the ability to speak and/or
write more than one language without having to translate the sentence at
hand from another language AND being able to dream in those languages.
Such definition however would not include passive multilinguals, like
some well known ancient language scholars, whose "fluency" is only on the
receiving end, and who also would be at a total loss on the "correct"
pronuniation.
I met now Indonesians who, having been to Dutch schools before the
Indonesian independence, speak, write [and think in] Dutch fluently, but
it being the Dutch of 1947, is sort of a dead language they use. ;-)
--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)
Hans Aberg
cant...@lycos.com wrote:
"Monolinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
contexts. In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
(administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
influence the individual towards one sublanguage rather than the other." :-)
Hans Aberg
Leszek L.
news:Xns99777446...@194.109.133.242...
> However, there is a clear divide between monolinguals and multilinguals,
> the latter having or acquiring a feeling, that concepts are not expressed
> similarly in different tongues, slangs and dialects.
>
> This is so obvious in alt.language.latin, where the "please translate"
> postings often contain English localized [geographically or community
> wize] slang expressions, which are so wrongly expected, after litteral
> translation into Latin, to contain the same meaning, relevancy and
> jocular impact.
Many years ago, it sent me chewing on the rug when I witnessed
a native (and probably monolingual) speaker of English go into
a hairsplitting analysis of this New Testament verse:
...I was in prison and you came to Me...
The man pointed out that the exact word used is "prison"
rather than "jail", so it refers to a state, rather than federal,
penitentiary facility. He went on to list the types of offences
for which you can be sent to the one or to the other,
and drew conclusions as to the precise sorts of "bad guys"
towards which one should or should not be charitable.
Cheers,
Leszek.
Evertjan.
> Many years ago, it sent me chewing on the rug when I witnessed
> a native (and probably monolingual) speaker of English go into
> a hairsplitting analysis of this New Testament verse:
>
> ...I was in prison and you came to Me...
I thought that was from Monopoly, the American version that is.
=======================
Main Entry: jail
Etymology: Middle English jaiole, from Anglo-French gaiole, jaiole, from
Late Latin caveola, diminutive of Latin cavea cage — more at cage
Date: 13th century
Main Entry: prison
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin prehension-,
prehensio act of seizing, from prehendere to seize — more at get
Date: 12th century
Élise Hendrick
>> "Bilinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
>> contexts.
> "Monolinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> contexts. In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
> (administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
> influence the individual towards one sublanguage rather than the other." :-)
Quite. I knew something was striking me as odd about that quote, and
that was it. To be "equally fluent" about all topics in all contexts in
even ONE language, you'd basically have to know everything. Even in the
languages I grew up speaking (German, Spanish, English), I can't claim
to be as fluent when speaking of topics I know nothing about as I am
when I'm speaking of things I've studied for years. Similarly, even
highly trained specialists rarely have equally detailed specialised
knowledge about all topics in all contexts, and knowing how to drive a
car does not automatically qualify one to fly a multiengine aircraft. :)
Élise Hendrick
(new here)
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>Main Entry: jail
>Etymology: Middle English jaiole, from Anglo-French gaiole, jaiole,
Portuguese gaiola = English bird cage = Dutch kooi
from
>Late Latin caveola, diminutive of Latin cavea cage — more at cage
Dutch kooi is also from Latin cavea.
--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com
Evertjan.
Quod significat Linguae Belgicae "lichtekooi"?
Cave, ne cade cum canem in cavem aut in caveam aut in caveolam!
Hans Aberg
=?ISO-8859-15?Q?=C9lise_Hendrick?= <erhen...@cinci.rr.com> wrote:
> >> "Bilinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> >> contexts.
> [...]
>
> > "Monolinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> > contexts. In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
> > (administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
> > influence the individual towards one sublanguage rather than the other." :-)
>
> Quite. I knew something was striking me as odd about that quote, and
> that was it. To be "equally fluent" about all topics in all contexts in
> even ONE language, you'd basically have to know everything.
This is in fact a good comment:
Basically every type of subculture, like different professions, has a way
of developing its own lingo, or "sublanguage", that in part has the
function of being efficient with respect to the context at hand, and in
part to show that you are the right kind of fellow.
> Even in the
> languages I grew up speaking (German, Spanish, English), I can't claim
> to be as fluent when speaking of topics I know nothing about as I am
> when I'm speaking of things I've studied for years. Similarly, even
> highly trained specialists rarely have equally detailed specialised
> knowledge about all topics in all contexts, and knowing how to drive a
> car does not automatically qualify one to fly a multiengine aircraft. :)
And knowledge alone may not be enough: if one does not know the lingo, one
may still be an outsider.
Hans Aberg
phog...@abo.fi
> Hans Aberg schrieb:>> "Bilinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> >> contexts.
>
> [...]
>
> > "Monolinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> > contexts. In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
> > (administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
> > influence the individual towards one sublanguage rather than the other." :-)
>
> Quite. I knew something was striking me as odd about that quote, and
> that was it. To be "equally fluent" about all topics in all contexts in
> even ONE language, you'd basically have to know everything.
Yup, this is the very point. That's why professional translators must
know something about everything, or know lots of different specialists
personally.
Harlan Messinger
transformation seems unique.
Peter T. Daniels
Do you think that (in accordance with the opening quote) there are
topics you can discuss better in one of your three languages than in
the others, or can you talk about anything you can talk about in all
of them?
Élise Hendrick
>
> Do you think that (in accordance with the opening quote) there are
> topics you can discuss better in one of your three languages than in
> the others, or can you talk about anything you can talk about in all
> of them?
>
Not that I've noticed, in any case. I use them all quite regularly in
written and oral conversation, and the only thing that makes one flow
more readily than the others in any given case is my mood. Each language
has slightly different associations for me, so my emotional state will
often bias me in favour of one or another default language (i.e., the
one I'm thinking in and/or that would come out of my mouth if I didn't
give it any thought).
Élise
Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)
<erhen...@cinci.rr.com> skribis:
Most of my schooling and my home life was in English. However, I
attended Spanish-only schools in Venezuela for a few years. Then I
worked there as an adult for almost 10 years, most of the time
surrounded only by Spanish-speakers. So my formal knowledge is
English, but lots of my informal knowledge and job experience (in the
office and on a shop floor ) was in Spanish. For a long time there
were things that I thought of only in English and others only in
Spanish.
--
Steven M - spa...@hal-pc.orgwax.invalid
(remove wax and invalid to reply)
"It's a damned fool mind that can only think of one way to
spell a word." -- attributed to Dizzy Dean
cant...@lycos.com
wrote:
> wrote on 24 jul 2007 in sci.lang.translation:
>
> > "Bilinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> > contexts.
> > In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
> > (administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
> > influence the individual towards one language rather than the other."
>
> Even monolinguals are NEVER equally fluent about all topics in all
> contexts.
Yes, I had not thought of that.
>
> However, there is a clear divide between monolinguals and multilinguals,
> the latter having or acquiring a feeling, that concepts are not expressed
> similarly in different tongues, slangs and dialects.
.... so that they are always out there looking for how things are
said.
>
> This is so obvious in alt.language.latin, where the "please translate"
> postings often contain English localized [geographically or community
> wize] slang expressions, which are so wrongly expected, after litteral
> translation into Latin, to contain the same meaning, relevancy and
> jocular impact.
And remember the translations of Shakespeare or Cervantes.
>
> > This is from "The Oxford Companion to the English Language", Oxford
> > University Press 1992. I had never before seen it stated, though I
> > have often thought that it had to be that way. Do you think it is true?
>
> 1 No, the "rarely" expresses it would be true sometines. It never is.
>
> 2 Bilinguality/multilinguality does not mean fluency per se.
>
> PERHAPS multilinguality could be defined as the ability to speak and/or
> write more than one language without having to translate the sentence at
> hand from another language AND being able to dream in those languages.
I do not understand why you include dreaming.
>
> Such definition however would not include passive multilinguals, like
> some well known ancient language scholars, whose "fluency" is only on the
> receiving end, and who also would be at a total loss on the "correct"
> pronuniation.
What about multilinguals who grow up in one language and then live in
another language for a long time? Their first language becomes a dead
asset.
cant...@lycos.com
> In article <1185262576.137265.178...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>,
Evertjan.
sci.lang.translation:
> Most of my schooling and my home life was in English. However, I
> attended Spanish-only schools in Venezuela for a few years. Then I
> worked there as an adult for almost 10 years, most of the time
> surrounded only by Spanish-speakers. So my formal knowledge is
> English, but lots of my informal knowledge and job experience (in the
> office and on a shop floor ) was in Spanish. For a long time there
> were things that I thought of only in English and others only in
> Spanish.
You give a good description, Steven.
The strange way monolinguals think and communicate verbally is beond
comprehension to us multilinguals ["us" as I suppose is the norm in this
NG], like it is for the seeing to comprehend the visual imaging of the
permanently blind.
cant...@lycos.com
> Hans Aberg schrieb:>> "Bilinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> >> contexts.
>
> [...]
>
> > "Monolinguals are rarely equally fluent about all topics in all
> > contexts. In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
> > (administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
> > influence the individual towards one sublanguage rather than the other." :-)
>
> Quite. I knew something was striking me as odd about that quote, and
> that was it. To be "equally fluent" about all topics in all contexts in
> even ONE language, you'd basically have to know everything. Even in the
> languages I grew up speaking (German, Spanish, English),
That is three. Are you using all three in everyday life? I have those
three plus French, and I know I cannot maintain all four. So by now I
can't anymore speak French (that I love and spoke as a kid) and German
(that I grew up in), except by making an effort and sitting up
straight and spelling things out by telling myself that this is a
Dativ and that is a Mehrzahl.
cant...@lycos.com
> In article <1185262576.137265.178...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>,
>
> contexts. In each situation, there may be pressures of various kinds
> (administrative, cultural, economic, political, and religious) which
> influence the individual towards one sublanguage rather than the other." :-)
>
> Hans Aberg
Now I remember:
They say that even spies betray themselves by calculating in their
native language.
So "deep down" there would be only one....??
I cannot speak German anymore, but for instance to check the waiter's
bill I have to use German.
cant...@lycos.com
>
> Many years ago, it sent me chewing on the rug
what does it mean?
> when I witnessed
> a native (and probably monolingual) speaker of English go into
> a hairsplitting analysis of this New Testament verse:
>
> ...I was in prison and you came to Me...
>
> The man pointed out that the exact word used is "prison".
What universe do you live in? All Bible interpretation and most
religious strife goes like that and has been going like that for 2000
years, and many people lost their head, not just figuratively.
Recently I saw there is even a pretty name, "Hapax legomenon"" for a
word that occurs only once in all of the Bible so that the scholars
cannot fight each other with quotations.
As far as I remember "Behemoth" is one of them and "Lilith" is
another.
phog...@abo.fi
<spam...@hal-pcwax.org.invalid> wrote:
> Je Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:42:40 -0400, Élise Hendrick
>
>
>
> >Peter T. Daniels schrieb:
>
> >> Do you think that (in accordance with the opening quote) there are
> >> topics you can discuss better in one of your three languages than in
> >> the others, or can you talk about anything you can talk about in all
> >> of them?
>
> >Not that I've noticed, in any case. I use them all quite regularly in
> >written and oral conversation, and the only thing that makes one flow
> >more readily than the others in any given case is my mood. Each language
> >has slightly different associations for me, so my emotional state will
> >often bias me in favour of one or another default language (i.e., the
> >one I'm thinking in and/or that would come out of my mouth if I didn't
> >give it any thought).
>
> >Élise
>
> Most of my schooling and my home life was in English. However, I
> attended Spanish-only schools in Venezuela for a few years. Then I
> worked there as an adult for almost 10 years, most of the time
> surrounded only by Spanish-speakers. So my formal knowledge is
> English, but lots of my informal knowledge and job experience (in the
> office and on a shop floor ) was in Spanish. For a long time there
> were things that I thought of only in English and others only in
> Spanish.
I was brought up by my grandparents in Finnish, but my university life
has been exclusively in Swedish. The result is, that I am a much more
conservative and stubborn person in Finnish than in Swedish. I used to
write articles in a leftist-ish intellectual weekly in Swedish, but
now that I have become a columnist in Finnish I have adopted a
moderately conservative stance. (Moderately conservative of course
only in Finnish terms. It translates into leftist liberal in America.
An American conservative in Finland would be perceived as belonging to
the neonazi-esque extreme Right.)
Leszek L.
news:1185351588.2...@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 24, 12:10 pm, "Leszek L." <lles...@iitis.gliwice.pl> wrote:
>>
>> Many years ago, it sent me chewing on the rug
>
> what does it mean?
Upset me. Made me fall down and bite the carpet in helpless,
desperate fury.
>> a native (and probably monolingual) speaker of English go into
>> a hairsplitting analysis of this New Testament verse:
>>
>> ...I was in prison and you came to Me...
>>
>> The man pointed out that the exact word used is "prison".
>
> What universe do you live in?
I live in a small country that does not perceive its language,
its institutions, or its legal system, as a universal structure
underlying all thought both human and divine.
And a Roman Catholic country where the Bible is interpreted
by sophisticated scholars versed in Hebrew, Greek, Latin,
and occasionally Aramese, in public lectures which I seldom miss.
As well as by bigoted morons of course, but I rarely choose
to listen to them.
Cheers,
Leszek.
phog...@abo.fi
> On Jul 24, 12:10 pm, "Leszek L." <lles...@iitis.gliwice.pl> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Many years ago, it sent me chewing on the rug
>
> what does it mean?
>
> > when I witnessed
> > a native (and probably monolingual) speaker of English go into
> > a hairsplitting analysis of this New Testament verse:
>
> > ...I was in prison and you came to Me...
>
> > The man pointed out that the exact word used is "prison".
>
> What universe do you live in? All Bible interpretation and most
> religious strife goes like that and has been going like that for 2000
> years, and many people lost their head, not just figuratively.
Nope. There is a difference between naive and learned Bible-
interpretation. A learned interpretation of the Bible is based on an
informed understanding of the original text, which has been written in
Hebrew and Koine Greek. A naive interpretation of the Bible does not
even take into account the fact of the original language of the Bible.
>
> Recently I saw there is even a pretty name, "Hapax legomenon"" for a
> word that occurs only once in all of the Bible so that the scholars
> cannot fight each other with quotations.
It is Greek and means something like "once said". (Disclaimer: I do
not speak, read, write or understand much Greek, ancient or modern,
beyond a couple of Classical phrases in Ancient Greek and a couple of
tourist phrases in Modern Demotic Greek.) It does not refer to the
Bible alone, but is a more widely used philological term - "hapax
legomenon" is simply a word that is found only once in a particular
text, text corpus, or a language.
Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)
<exjxw.ha...@interxnl.net> skribis:
I have thought that way for a long time! The world is divided into
monolinguals and multilinguals. I thought it was just me, but then I
started meeting other translators and interpreters, both online and at
my local association, who had observed the same thing.
It was great.
--
Steven M - spa...@hal-pc.orgwax.invalid
(remove wax and invalid to reply)
"It's a damned fool mind that can only think of one way to
Oliver Cromm
Sure, and it is a serious omission should this fact not be discussed in
the original. Still, I think the meaning of the original may be
different: For bilinguals, they are often more fluent in one of the two
languages than in the other when it comes to certain topics or contexts.
I knew a Luxemburgian who had received her schooling mostly in French
when it comes to Maths and Sciences, but in German for manhy other
subjects. She could discuss literature more easily in German, but had to
fall back to French when counting.
I am not bilingual from childhood, but even I am at a loss for words
when discussing certain scientific topics in my mother tongue, because
nearly all I have read about them was in English.
--
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Robert R. Coveyou
Terence
That's a good point. Even after 30 years in Germany, I have revert to my
native language to do mental arithmetic or memorize phone numbers.
Terence
mb
...
> Now I remember:
>
> They say that even spies betray themselves by calculating in their
> native language.
> So "deep down" there would be only one....??
Not necessarily in "native language", whatever your definition of it;
but by all reports the language you learned elementary reckoning in
(to go by my own example, I do the counting mostly in the elementary
school language acquired after age 5, not one of the first; all
reports where the situation allows a judgment do check on that point).
> I cannot speak German anymore, but for instance to check the waiter's
> bill I have to use German.
Now that is even more of a wonder: German is [one of] your mother
tongue[s] but you cannot speak it anymore? How come?
Evertjan.
> Evertjan wrote:
>> PERHAPS multilinguality could be defined as the ability to speak and/or
>> write more than one language without having to translate the sentence at
>> hand from another language AND being able to dream in those languages.
>
> I do not understand why you include dreaming.
Do you never dream in different languages?
Peter Twydell
<exjxw.ha...@interxnl.net> writes
>cant...@lycos.com wrote on 25 jul 2007 in sci.lang.translation:
>> Evertjan wrote:
>>> PERHAPS multilinguality could be defined as the ability to speak and/or
>>> write more than one language without having to translate the sentence at
>>> hand from another language AND being able to dream in those languages.
>>
>> I do not understand why you include dreaming.
>
>Do you never dream in different languages?
>
in Dutch. Not sure if I dream in German, though. I know I once dreamed
in COBOL (at least I think I did), but that was an exception.
SWMBO has lived in the UK for 32 years, but still counts in Dutch. I
find it awkward, but not impossible, to do mental arithmetic in Dutch.
Conversations with bilingual English friends in NL are usually in
English, but the odd Dutch word appears when the speaker can't think of
the appropriate English word. Especially at the rugby clubhouse when the
Grolsch has been flowing.
I agree with the other posters' comments about the difference between
monolinguists and bi/multilinguists. Almost a separatespecies. I think
that living in another country (even California) for a time makes a
difference in that respect, especially if you speak the local language
with any fluency. Gives you other viewpoints on many aspects of life.
--
Peter
Ying tong iddle-i po!
cant...@lycos.com
> Uzytkownik <cantu...@lycos.com> napisal w w
> >> Many years ago, it sent me chewing on the rug
>
> > what does it mean?
>
> Upset me. Made me fall down and bite the carpet in helpless,
> desperate fury.
Yes. I should have guessed.
>
> > What universe do you live in?
>
> I live in a small country that does not perceive its language,
> its institutions, or its legal system, as a universal structure
> underlying all thought both human and divine.
Yes, I think I know the country that you mean, but I do not
understand why you define it negatively ("a country which does
not...") as if you meant to set it apart from other countries in these
regards.
Élise Hendrick
> [...] Even in the
>> languages I grew up speaking (German, Spanish, English),
>
> That is three. Are you using all three in everyday life? I have those
> three plus French, and I know I cannot maintain all four. So by now I
> can't anymore speak French (that I love and spoke as a kid) and German
> (that I grew up in), except by making an effort and sitting up
> straight and spelling things out by telling myself that this is a
> Dativ and that is a Mehrzahl.
>
I use them pretty regularly in my everday life. Spanish and English more
so than German lately, though I use German all the time in my work. I
find that some words spring to my mind more quickly in some languages
and others in others. Just yesterday, in a conversation with some people
at a café, an example made its appearance. "Yeah, and plus, now he's
just completely in...Bedrängnis". It took me a minute and a half to come
up with an English word that did a decent job of expressing it. I
imagine that I'm not the only bi/multilingual person to find that the
tendency of some languages to express certain things more precisely
sometimes biases my immediate-recall vocabulary.
Élise Hendrick
cant...@lycos.com
> On 25 heinä, 11:19, cantu...@lycos.com wrote:
>
>
> > What universe do you live in? All Bible interpretation and most
> > religious strife goes like that and has been going like that for 2000
> > years, and many people lost their head, not just figuratively.
>
> Nope. There is a difference between naive and learned Bible-
> interpretation. A learned interpretation of the Bible is based on an
> informed understanding of the original text, which has been written in
> Hebrew and Koine Greek. A naive interpretation of the Bible does not
> even take into account the fact of the original language of the Bible.
I know. But the power of the Bible comes from that "naive"
interpretation.
>
>
>
> > Recently I saw there is even a pretty name, "Hapax legomenon"" for a
> > word that occurs only once in all of the Bible so that the scholars
> > cannot fight each other with quotations.
>
> It is Greek and means something like "once said". (Disclaimer: I do
> not speak, read, write or understand much Greek, ancient or modern,
> beyond a couple of Classical phrases in Ancient Greek and a couple of
> tourist phrases in Modern Demotic Greek.) It does not refer to the
> Bible alone, but is a more widely used philological term - "hapax
> legomenon" is simply a word that is found only once in a particular
> text, text corpus, or a language.
Yes. I know.
Élise Hendrick
> They say that even spies betray themselves by calculating in their
> native language.
> So "deep down" there would be only one....??
>
> I cannot speak German anymore, but for instance to check the waiter's
> bill I have to use German.
I imagine that swearing would be another example of that. In my case,
the language of both swearing and calculating/counting depends entirely
on my mood. Some days, I'll be inclined to mutter "Arschgesicht" when
someone almost runs me over whilst crossing the street, other times,
it's "huevón" that comes out. For me, anyway, the default language seems
to be determined more by emotional associations (if I am remembering
someone I was once in love with, it's always Spanish) than by subject
matter. For example, I'm equally inclined to discuss law in German,
Spanish, and English [or others, come to that]; which one I choose
depends on the company I'm in, or, if I'm alone, what I just read and/or
how I'm feeling.
Élise
cant...@lycos.com
How come?! Impossible to know. I am Swiss. My first language was
Swiss German, a dialect that differs very very much from High German
in all regards (grammar, vocabulary, phonetics). My town was
bilingual, so I also spoke French as a kid. I did my studies in High
German, but found English much more useful, and once I left the
university and went abroad, I never spoke German again.
Some time ago I had to call the Embassy. The conversation began like
this:
(I'll cut here, and continue in about 10 minutes)
Evertjan.
> I dream mainly in English, but occasionally in Dutch. It regularly think
> in Dutch. Not sure if I dream in German, though. I know I once dreamed
> in COBOL (at least I think I did), but that was an exception.
I even once dreamed I dreamt in 1950 Singapore Chinese Pidgin English,
counting: tutti-wan, tutti-too, tutti-ti.
... and in my assembler days,
feverishly counting in binary zeros and ones
was a unrelenting nightmare.
cant...@lycos.com
> > bill I have to use German.
>
> Now that is even more of a wonder: German is [one of] your mother
> tongue[s] but you cannot speak it anymore? How come?
(continuation of message sent in 10 minutes ago:)
As I recall now, the Embassy called me.
¿Quiere hablar español o alemán?
Alemán. (I said so without thinking twice)
Guete Tag, me händ do vo Ihne es Schriibe übercho wo Sie säged dass
Sie Aschpruch händ uf a Revision vo de Schtürunterlage womer Ihne
gschickt händ und wo....
Sorry. Könnten Sie bitte Hochdeutsch sprechen? Ich verstehe nämlich
nicht...
Jo natürli, gerne. Entschuldigen Sie, bitte. Wir haben von Ihnen ein
Schreiben erhalten, wo Sie uns mitteilen, dass Sie auf eine Revisión
der Steuerunterlagen Anspruch ...
I am very very sorry. I understand, but I do not think I can answer in
German. Could we speak English...?
______________________
(I can write High German, probably without mistakes, but very very
slowly while looking for the safest way to get around the difficult
spots, exactly as a fairly advanced learner would do.)
cant...@lycos.com
wrote:
> cantu...@lycos.com wrote on 25 jul 2007 in sci.lang.translation:
>
> > Evertjan wrote:
> >> PERHAPS multilinguality could be defined as the ability to speak and/or
> >> write more than one language without having to translate the sentence at
> >> hand from another language AND being able to dream in those languages.
>
> > I do not understand why you include dreaming.
>
> Do you never dream in different languages?
No. I never remember my dreams for more than a second after I wake up,
and I think they are all soundless.
cant...@lycos.com
> cantu...@lycos.com schrieb:
>
> > [...] Even in the
> >> languages I grew up speaking (German, Spanish, English),
> I use them pretty regularly in my everday life. Spanish and English more
> so than German lately, though I use German all the time in my work. I
> find that some words spring to my mind more quickly in some languages
> and others in others.
Of course. I live in Spain; at home we speak English. On my way to
the gestoría I'll get pan. I went to Marcadona, and at the caja there
was a señora who was trying to colarse ("buck"??? the line), so the
señorita at the caja had to call the encargado to settle the dispute.
> Just yesterday, in a conversation with some people
> at a café, an example made its appearance. "Yeah, and plus, now he's
> just completely in...Bedrängnis". It took me a minute and a half to come
> up with an English word that did a decent job of expressing it.
What word was it? I am asking because I think that in German words are
naturally much more dramatic than in English. It is wonderful to
watch American English frivolize every serious new word into yet
another joke. (I used to think that this would protect them against
ideologies of the rougher kind.)
> imagine that I'm not the only bi/multilingual person to find that the
> tendency of some languages to express certain things more precisely
> sometimes biases my immediate-recall vocabulary.
I thought that monolinguals tend to believe that things *are" one way
or another, whereas multilinguals believe that things *are called"
this or that.
A Spanish mother tells me that her kid "es muy vago". I ask her what
she means....
>
> Élise Hendrick
Leszek L.
> On Jul 25, 11:51 am, "Leszek L." <lles...@iitis.gliwice.pl> wrote:
>> I live in a small country that does not perceive its language,
>> its institutions, or its legal system, as a universal structure
>> underlying all thought both human and divine.
>
> Yes, I think I know the country that you mean, but I do not
> understand why you define it negatively ("a country which does
> not...") as if you meant to set it apart from other countries in these
> regards.
Just apart from the mindset of the homegrown exegete whose
analysis of "prison" as opposed to "jail" I had been quoting.
To imagine that in Biblical times there would have been
a distinction between federal and state penitentiary is the kind
of error for which I would be hard put to find a Polish equivalent.
Which is not to say that we are immune to error as such.
Cheers,
L.
Élise Hendrick
>> Just yesterday, in a conversation with some people
>> at a café, an example made its appearance. "Yeah, and plus, now he's
>> just completely in...Bedrängnis". It took me a minute and a half to come
>> up with an English word that did a decent job of expressing it.
>
> What word was it? I am asking because I think that in German words are
> naturally much more dramatic than in English. It is wonderful to
> watch American English frivolize every serious new word into yet
> another joke. (I used to think that this would protect them against
> ideologies of the rougher kind.)
I think what I ultimately came up with in English was something like "he
has his back against the wall". I wasn't terribly happy with it, but it
was the best that occurred to me spontaneously.
Élise
Leszek L.
<spa...@hal-pcwax.org.invalid> napisal w wiadomosci
news:3klea3l901lbntib8...@4ax.com...
>>The strange way monolinguals think and communicate verbally is beond
>>comprehension to us multilinguals ["us" as I suppose is the norm in this
>>NG], like it is for the seeing to comprehend the visual imaging of the
>>permanently blind.
>
> I have thought that way for a long time! The world is divided into
> monolinguals and multilinguals. I thought it was just me, but then I
> started meeting other translators and interpreters, both online and at
> my local association, who had observed the same thing.
By "multilinguals" do you mean only those people who can
be considered native speakers of more than one language (grew
up that way, or moved to another country and acquired a second
language that, with time, became "native" to them)?
Or does it also include people who are fluent in one or more
foreign languages, but to whom those languages are still foreign?
Curiously yours,
L.
Leszek L.
news:46a84efe$0$20596$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
> I imagine that swearing would be another example of that. In my case,
Partly for the fun of it and partly out of respect for my mother toungue
(and for my mother's ears), I once learned the names of some of the most
fiendish monstrosities of Nordic mythology and used them as swear words.
So I swore in Old Norse, a language I have otherwise never even thought
of learning.
Naglfar Angrboda Ginnunagap Ragnaroek!
(pardon my accent).
Cheers,
L.
phog...@abo.fi
> Uzytkownik "Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)"
>
> >>The strange way monolinguals think and communicate verbally is beond
> >>comprehension to us multilinguals ["us" as I suppose is the norm in this
> >>NG], like it is for the seeing to comprehend the visual imaging of the
> >>permanently blind.
>
> > I have thought that way for a long time! The world is divided into
> > monolinguals and multilinguals. I thought it was just me, but then I
> > started meeting other translators and interpreters, both online and at
> > my local association, who had observed the same thing.
>
> By "multilinguals" do you mean only those people who can
> be considered native speakers of more than one language (grew
> up that way, or moved to another country and acquired a second
> language that, with time, became "native" to them)?
>
> Or does it also include people who are fluent in one or more
> foreign languages, but to whom those languages are still foreign?
I don't know about Steven, but personally, I would say that there is
no very sharp limit between those for whom the languages are acquired,
and those for whom they are native. The point is the frequency of
usage. By frequency of usage, you can become more proficient in an
acquired (I prefer not to say foreign) language.
Personally, I distinguish between "intimate languages" and "foreign
languages". The first ones are those which come to me naturally and
without a particular struggle. the second ones are those which still
feel like a straitjacket.
phog...@abo.fi
> Uzytkownik "Élise Hendrick" <erhendr...@cinci.rr.com> napisal w wiadomoscinews:46a84efe$0$20596$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
>
> > I imagine that swearing would be another example of that. In my case,
>
> Partly for the fun of it and partly out of respect for my mother toungue
> (and for my mother's ears), I once learned the names of some of the most
> fiendish monstrosities of Nordic mythology and used them as swear words.
> So I swore in Old Norse, a language I have otherwise never even thought
> of learning.
>
> Naglfar Angrboda Ginnunagap Ragnaroek!
> (pardon my accent).
Ár var alda
thá er ekki var
var-a sandur né saer
ne svalar unnir,
gap var Ginnunga
en gras hvergi.
Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)
>(continuation of message sent in 10 minutes ago:)
>
>As I recall now, the Embassy called me.
>
>¿Quiere hablar español o alemán?
>
>Alemán. (I said so without thinking twice)
>
<confusion>
>I am very very sorry. I understand, but I do not think I can answer in
>German. Could we speak English...?
I once lived next door to a fellow who was originally from Jupiter,
Florida (also the hometown of actor Burt Reynolds). He had what I
considered to be a very universal "American" accent, with no regional
distinctions that I knew of. Several years earlier, he had worked on
the training simulator for the F-16 fighter jet.
Once he went to England for a training assignment, to teach Royal Air
Force technicians how to maintain and update the simulator system.
The students came from every corner of the British Isles. In the
classroom, he was concerned about the very wide variety of accents,
and asked his students if they could understand him. Yes, he was
fine, they cheerfully told him.
Later, in the pub, they explained that they were very familiar with
American English through movies and TV shows. It was easier in some
cases for them to understand him than to understand their own
classmates.
At several points he found himself in the middle, interpreting English
to English. The tech on one side was from someplace in the outer
Hebrides while the other one was southern England. They did not
understand each other at all.
This has been a fascinating thread, BTW.
--
Steven M - spa...@hal-pc.orgwax.invalid
(remove wax and invalid to reply)
"It's a damned fool mind that can only think of one way to
Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)
<lle...@iitis.gliwice.pl> skribis:
I meant the former, the ones whose second language is nearly a first.
My experience with the latter is less consistent. They might reach a
level of understanding of what bilingualism is, and an appreciation of
cultural differences beyond the fact that "they use different words
than we do." On the other hand, they might be (a) convinced that the
world would be better off if the world just spoke English, or (b) smug
and superior because they have a skill that their coworkers don't.
--
Steven M - spa...@hal-pc.orgwax.invalid
(remove wax and invalid to reply)
"It's a damned fool mind that can only think of one way to
Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)
>An American conservative in Finland would be perceived as belonging to
>the neonazi-esque extreme Right.)
True. On the other hand, there are "conservatives" in the USA who
despise the current government. For them, conservatism means no
intrusion in foreign affairs, nor in personal lives, strict separation
of church and state, smaller government, balanced budgets, and I'm
sure I'm forgetting a few.
They might have more in common with a European "liberal", if I
understand that term correctly.
mb
> Guete Tag, me händ do vo Ihne es Schriibe übercho wo Sie säged dass
> Sie Aschpruch händ uf a Revision vo de Schtürunterlage womer Ihne
> gschickt händ und wo....
>
> Sorry. Könnten Sie bitte Hochdeutsch sprechen? Ich verstehe nämlich
> nicht...
Das gsehn I auso o zm erschte Mal, nämli öpper wo ds Schwyzerdütsch
perfekt cha schrybe aber nit cha rede, das gits ja nit! Looks like you
are a compendium of exceptional behavior.
> (I can write High German, probably without mistakes, but very very
> slowly while looking for the safest way to get around ...
No surprise there; it's not part of the discussion. What I can't
explain is keeping the vernacular as a... written language.
phog...@abo.fi
<spam...@hal-pcwax.org.invalid> wrote:
> Je Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:47:46 -0700, phogl...@abo.fi skribis:
>
> >An American conservative in Finland would be perceived as belonging to
> >the neonazi-esque extreme Right.)
>
> True. On the other hand, there are "conservatives" in the USA who
> despise the current government. For them, conservatism means no
> intrusion in foreign affairs, nor in personal lives, strict separation
> of church and state, smaller government, balanced budgets, and I'm
> sure I'm forgetting a few.
>
> They might have more in common with a European "liberal", if I
> understand that term correctly.
I guess the correct term is "small-government conservative". - You
are right, but the situation is somewhat blurred by the fact that in
Europe, "liberalism" is simply mainstream, and if someone bothers to
call him- or herself a "liberal", he or she most probably belongs to
one of the libertarian sects imported from the United States.
Libertarians are so marginalized, though, that they tend to drift into
some of the anti-immigration nationalist groups - simply because the
right-wing loony sectarian scene is so small: they and other kinds of
fringe rightists are simply part of the same world, and their
attitudes tend to converge.
Loekie Ratelkous
[...]
> To imagine that in Biblical times there would have been
> a distinction between federal and state penitentiary is the kind
> of error for which I would be hard put to find a Polish equivalent.
>
> Which is not to say that we are immune to error as such.
Every country is entitled to its own choice of error. Some have
chosen a dumb source of one-liners as president, some a raper, few
just have the previous head of state's offspring.
You have your twin brothers.
--
Loek
Leszek L.
news:46a8beab$0$735$3a62...@textreader.nntp.hccnet.nl...
> You have your twin brothers.
I thought it was groundbreaking: we're the first ever country
to have a backup copy of the president.
Cheers,
L.
Leszek L.
news:1185453756.9...@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> Ár var alda
> thá er ekki var
> var-a sandur né saer
> ne svalar unnir,
> gap var Ginnunga
> en gras hvergi.
Can somebody please tell me if I have just been insulted?
Cheers,
L.
Peter Twydell
<exjxw.ha...@interxnl.net> writes
>Peter Twydell wrote on 26 jul 2007 in sci.lang.translation:
>
>> I dream mainly in English, but occasionally in Dutch. It regularly think
>> in Dutch. Not sure if I dream in German, though. I know I once dreamed
>> in COBOL (at least I think I did), but that was an exception.
>
>I even once dreamed I dreamt in 1950 Singapore Chinese Pidgin English,
>counting: tutti-wan, tutti-too, tutti-ti.
>
>... and in my assembler days,
>feverishly counting in binary zeros and ones
>was a unrelenting nightmare.
>
nightmare while awake. Especially when changing from one manufacturer's
assembler to another's where the operands were the other way round. Plus
changing from 8 bits and hex to 6 bits and octal.
Peter Twydell
(remove wax and invalid to reply)" <spa...@hal-pcwax.org.invalid>
writes
I used to have to translate for American colleagues who couldn't
understand certain Londoners we were working with. OTOH I have
encountered the occasional fellow countryman I couldn't understand. One
from Somerset (despite the fact I was living there at the time), one
Geordie (every other word began with F, so I understood those), and one
from the Isle of Lewis (in the Hebrides!).
This happens in many countries that have distinctive regional accents or
even dialects. How on earth the Belgians get on with three languages in
such a small place I'll never know. One even had the nerve to tell me
how horrible my Dutch accent was.
Einde O'Callaghan
good one.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
Dominic Bojarski
> Uzytkownik <cantu...@lycos.com> napisal w wiadomoscinews:1185434122.9...@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Not immune is putting it lightly. The American "biblical scholar" you
met would hardly be out of place in Poland. The only thing that would
be unusual is his linguistic chauvinism.
I've been living in Poland for the last five years, and have to say
that I am not very impressed at all by the level of religious
discourse here. There are a thousand Fr. Rydzyks and Monsignor
Jankowskis (or, as Robert Biedro put it so well, fascistic
nationalistic Catholics) for every Fr. Boniecki, Fr. Musia , Fr.
Obirek, Fr. Barto , or Fr. Prusak. Maybe more now, that Musia is
dead, and Obirek and Barto left the priesthood.
Bishop Pieronek and Archbishop yci ski are well right of center, yet
even so are practically isolated from the bulk of the Episcopate
because of their "leftist" views. Nevertheless, even they are unable
to carry out an effective dialog with anyone to the left of them (or
to the right of them, for that matter). Archbishops Michalik,
Goc owski, Nycz and Cardinal Dziwisz may share their views, but all of
them are decidedly lackluster. And to put it as nicely as I can, I've
seen more intellectually stimulating potatoes than Primate Glemp.
Quite honestly, there isn't a single bright star in the entire Polish
Catholic Episcopate. Nor is there anything on the horizon, either.
Don't forget that only recently, hyper-Catholic MEP Maciej Giertych
made a laughingstock of the country with his creationist and anti-
semitic outbursts. A month ago, for six whole days, if you typed
"Poland" into Google News, the first article to pop up was on "Tinky
Winky", courtesy of hyper-Catholic Children's Rights' Ombudman Ewa
Sowi ska.
Neither Giertych nor Sowi ska are even close to uneducated. Giertych
is an Oxford-educated Professor of dendrology for the Polish Academy
of Sciences, and Sowi ska is a physician with an impressive 30-year
career behind her.
But this is not surprising in Poland, where the President, who is a
Professor of Law, and his twin brother, the Premier, who is a Doctor
of Law, still haven't wrapped their minds around the legal basis of a
democratic society. Witness their positions on lustration, gay rights,
the environmental controversy surrounding the Rospuda Valley, and
church/state relations. Don't forget how their letter to the Polish
bishops during the presidential campaign even turned quite a few of
the bishops off.
I highly suspect that when it comes to sophisticated Polish
theologians and religious scholars, you will find that there are a lot
more FROM Poland than IN Poland. Most have departed for the west in
search of an environment in which they can freely pursue their
studies. The same goes for parish priests. Those with an open mind are
currently serving in parishes in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, the
Netherlands and Belgium, sometimes in non-Roman Catholic churches.
I attended sixteen years of Catholic schools in the States, eight of
then with the Jesuits, so I was not prepared to find the intellectual
wasteland that is the Catholic church in Poland today. Sad to say, I
am less likely to hear the voice of Jesus from representatives of the
Polish church than the voice of Goebbels, even from the likes of
Bishop Pieronek.
Say what you may, but this is something that Pope John Paul II had to
explain when he finally met Jesus. To say that he doesn't share in the
responsibility for the situation is absurd. He has sufficient
authority and power to put an end to Rydzyk, Jankowski and their ilk,
just as he muzzled Charles Curran and Hans Kueng. That he chose not to
do so reflects very poorly on his legacy. You cannot dump all the
blame on Card. Ratzinger/ Pope Benedict XVI for this.
If you're talking about the Poland where Prof, Ryszard Bender, Dr.
Jerzy Robert Nowak, and Prof. Ryszard Antoni Legutko are considered
leading Catholic intellectuals, you must realize that they would all
be considered extreme right-wing nutcases in the west. I'm not
particularly impressed by Terlikowski and the folks at Fronda, either.
The folks at Tygodnik Powszechny, Wie and Znak can be interesting at
times, but they represent a decidedly tiny portion of Polish
Catholics, at least as far as I can tell. I wouldn't be surprised if
they are read by more non-Catholics than Catholics. Most Polish
Catholic publications are either pap or, like Nasz Dziennik,
neofascist drivel. Sad to say, Rydzyk has his finger on the pulse of
Polish Catholicism far more than Boniecki does.
All in all, Polish Catholicism is rather unsophisticated in comparison
to Catholicism in western countries. In fact, in terms of intellectual
output and development, it most resembles...... Protestant
fundamentalism in the US. In fact, the similarities are quite
striking. Granted, something like "Jesus Camp" couldn't happen in
Poland, nor could Jonestown or Waco (the Sisters of Bethany
notwithstanding). Also, the obsession with militarism is not there,
either. But short of that, the mentality and language of Polska B and
the American Bible belt overlap to a large extent.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Leszek, but in the eyes of most observers
from the west, the Polish Catholic church is hardly a beacon of
intellectual enlightenment. The Catholic University of Lublin, the
only Catholic university in Poland, has sunk from second shelf to
third shelf.
Compare that to the situation in the States, where the Jesuits alone
run 28 universities and colleges, and more than fifty secondary
schools, many of which are top shelf. Besides these, there are at
least 125 other Catholic universities and colleges. There are also 24
Catholic law schools, and 7 Catholic medical schools.
Don't forget also that the number of practicing Catholics in the US is
only about twice as much as that in Poland, 30 million vs. 15 million
practicing adults. Of course I'm aware of the historical, cultural and
financial reasons for that, but the state of Catholic education has
been plummeting since 1989, and not improving, as I would have
expected. The fact that hyper-Catholic Vice Premier Roman Giertych is
Minister of Education has had a decidedly negative impact on Polish
education as a whole.
Again, sorry to be brutally honest, Leszek, but that is the situation
as I see it from ground level. You seem convinced that actual
sophisticated religious scholarship is being conducted in Poland. I
have seen little evidence of that, in spite of the fact that I
consider myself very informed on the Catholic church in Poland,
certainly more informed than most Poles.
I'd like to think that there are oases of Catholic intellectual
activity outside of the contributors to Tygodnik Powszechny, Wi and
Znak, and a few isolated Jesuits and Dominicans. If you've found such
an environment that I don't know about, please let me know. I'm highly
interested.
Dominic Bojarski
Peter T. Daniels
> I don't know about Steven, but personally, I would say that there is
> no very sharp limit between those for whom the languages are acquired,
> and those for whom they are native.
The difference is between languages acquired by a child's LAD and
languages learned by an adult.
I don't care to have the argument _again_ from those who think there's
no difference.
> The point is the frequency of
> usage. By frequency of usage, you can become more proficient in an
> acquired (I prefer not to say foreign) language.
You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
adult.
Loekie Ratelkous
> U¿ytkownik "Loekie Ratelkous" <l...@12move.nl> napisa³ w wiadomo¶ci
>
>> You have your twin brothers.
>
> I thought it was groundbreaking: we're the first ever country
> to have a backup copy of the president.
ROTFL...
BTW, not only of the president: your prime minister is covered as
well...
--
Loek
Loekie Ratelkous
> Je Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:00:11 -0700, cant...@lycos.com skribis:
>
>> (continuation of message sent in 10 minutes ago:)
>>
>> As I recall now, the Embassy called me.
>>
>> ¿Quiere hablar español o alemán?
>>
>> Alemán. (I said so without thinking twice)
>>
> <confusion>
>
>> I am very very sorry. I understand, but I do not think I can answer in
>> German. Could we speak English...?
>
> I once lived next door to a fellow who was originally from Jupiter,
He must have been of the third sex: men are from Mars, women from
Venus.
--
Loek
mb
> You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> adult.
Confusing a couple of things: Of course you can, as long as the
"fluency" is in a bookish standard dialect, with no vernacular of your
own. What you cannot get (never say never, though, there are rare
cases) is perfect mastery of one identifiable non-standard oral
dialect. Repeating slogans doesn't always help.
phog...@abo.fi
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Jul 26, 8:05 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > I don't know about Steven, but personally, I would say that there is
> > no very sharp limit between those for whom the languages are acquired,
> > and those for whom they are native.
>
> The difference is between languages acquired by a child's LAD and
> languages learned by an adult.
>
> I don't care to have the argument _again_ from those who think there's
> no difference.
I don't care to argue with you who think there's a sharp difference.
>
> > The point is the frequency of
> > usage. By frequency of usage, you can become more proficient in an
> > acquired (I prefer not to say foreign) language.
>
> You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> adult.
You can easily become more fluent in a language learned as an adult
than in your native language, if you simply move into an environment
where you do not hear your first language at all. As an English-
speaker, you have obviously never been in a position to personally
experience just how rapidly your native language atrophies if you are
utterly cut out from any possibility to use it.
phog...@abo.fi
In fact, a diligent study of recorded folklore and a frequent contact
with speakers of that oral dialect should do the job. The problems
begin if there is no extensive and accessible record of folklore in
the dialect.
phog...@abo.fi
No, I have just quoted from Hávamál. Sorry, it should be "né svalar
unnir", of course.
"It was early in time, when nothing was, there was neither sand nor
sea, nor cool waves, there was the Ginnungagap, and grass nowhere". I
hope you refrain from all predictable stupid jokes about Scandinavian
gods looking in vain for "some good stuff to smoke, man".
phog...@abo.fi
Monolinguals tend to think of any kind of bi- or multilinguals as smug
and superior anyway. There definitely is something you could call a
bilingual or multilingual identity, and I would say that identity can
be acquired by one who was raised a monolingual; but there are school
multilinguals for whom acquired languages are above all an
instrumental thing, and who still think in terms of a monolingual.
phog...@abo.fi
>
> > You have your twin brothers.
>
> I thought it was groundbreaking: we're the first ever country
> to have a backup copy of the president.
Poland leads in cloning technology? :D
Evertjan.
> Monolinguals tend to think of any kind of bi- or multilinguals as smug
> and superior anyway.
Most kinds of multilinguals are superior in this sense, however there are
so many subjects of superiority, that anyne on this planet is unique inhis
or her way.
I cannot see monolinguals to be superior by their status as monolinguals.
> There definitely is something you could call a
> bilingual or multilingual identity, and I would say that identity can
> be acquired by one who was raised a monolingual;
No, No, idenity is the total of a person's uniqueness.
> but there are school
> multilinguals for whom acquired languages are above all an
> instrumental thing, and who still think in terms of a monolingual.
Regrettably so.
--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)
phog...@abo.fi
I must say that I am very depressed and disappointed with this
development (but who wouldn't be?). When I made my first acquaintance
with Poland and Polish culture in the end of the eighties and in the
beginning of the nineties, I was impressed by the courage and
resolution with which more liberal and enlightened people seemed to be
shouting down the bigots. Above all, many of those people who
criticized the Rydzyks in the media made the impression of being of
great theological sophistication. So, while there was much talk both
in Poland and in other countries about the possible "khomeinization"
of Poland, I was really not very concerned, because I thought that if
Poles could finish that bloody Communism, they would doubtlessly be
able to do the same with stupid Catholic nationalism. And it smarts me
to hear people here in Finland speak disparagingly of Poland as a
benighted country of bigots and not to be able to contest them. I had
the best time of my wasted youth learning Polish, and Polish is still
one of my absolute favorite languages.
Leszek L.
wiadomosci news:1185485094.7...@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>> To imagine that in Biblical times there would have been
>> a distinction between federal and state penitentiary is the kind
>> of error for which I would be hard put to find a Polish equivalent.
>>
>> Which is not to say that we are immune to error as such.
> Not immune is putting it lightly. The American "biblical scholar" you
> met would hardly be out of place in Poland. The only thing that would
> be unusual is his linguistic chauvinism.
And it was the only thing I had in mind; after all, this thread started
as a discussion of mono- versus multilinguality. As for an error
of similar proportions - though not depending on the errant's
monolinguality - I was annihilated to hear, from a Polish mouth,
that "Yes, Jesus was _initially_ Jewish, but then He got baptised".
I would have chewed through both the rug and the floor,
had I been able to remember where my teeth were.
Also, remember that I was responding to the claim that _all_
religious dispute for 2000 years has been based on such
unwarranted misinterpretations, and to a question about
my universe. So I gave a description of the environment
I choose to live in.
I am aware of, as you put it,
> the intellectual
> wasteland that is the Catholic church in Poland today.
even though I will still plead for a qualifier like "a large part of".
Perhaps an overwhelmingly large part, but still only a part.
> If you've found such an environment that I don't know about,
> please let me know. I'm highly interested.
I certainly don't have your ability to recite an annotated list
of scores of leaders, intellectuals and/or clergymen. I cannot
even watch a movie without confusing the characters.
I have been attending the lectures that I mentioned previously
in my home town of Gliwice, but I cannot remember the name
of the speaker, or where he came from. I just _think_ he's
a Jesuit, but cannot be sure.
Another scholar I know who refers to the original languages
when interpreting the Bible is Father Wlodzimierz Zatorski,
a Benedictine from Tyniec (for the benefit of others on the list
I'll add it's an abbey near Cracow).
> Dominic Bojarski
I think we have met before, but sorry, I cannot quite place
your name. As you see, my memory for people is really
a case of CJD.
Sincerily,
L.
Leszek L.
> No, I have just quoted from Hávamál. Sorry, it should be "né svalar
> unnir", of course.
Naturally.
> "It was early in time, when nothing was, there was neither sand nor
> sea, nor cool waves, there was the Ginnungagap, and grass nowhere". I
> hope you refrain from all predictable stupid jokes about Scandinavian
> gods looking in vain for "some good stuff to smoke, man".
I wouldn't have thought of grass=cannabis if you had not mentioned it.
But I'll stick to my Christian imagery and ask:
- Why did the Three Wise Men only come on Epiphany Day (JAN 6)
and not on December 25th?
(answer below)
(answer coming up)
- They came from the East, right? So they must have been Orthodox!
Cheers,
L.
Élise Hendrick
Leaving aside the rather nettlesome question of how to define "fluency"
in this context, I tend to be sceptical of categorical negatives.
Something is absolutely impossible until such time as even a single case
is discovered that proves it possible. My own view of this - based in
part on my own experience and that of a few people I've known - is that
the language faculty and LAD can be made more flexible, and the
timeframe for language acquisition thus extended, if acquisition of new
languages never really stops.
Neuropsychological rehabilitation operates on the basis that even
functional deficits major organic brain disease and damage can be at
least improved, and sometimes completely eliminated, through intensive
cognitive, motor, and/or sensory exercise. By having the patient engage
in activities that have been made more difficult, if not impossible, by
the brain damage, the brain often uses its inherent (and somewhat poorly
understood) plasticity to circumvent the damage and find new ways to
achieve the same ends.
I, for example, have never fully exited the early phases of acquisition
of a language. Since the age of 5 (when the Cyrillic alphabet fascinated
me and I began seeking out everything I could find on the Russian
language), there hasn't been a year in which I haven't been immersing
myself in some new language or other (beyond my native languages). I
imagine that the ease with which I have acquired new languages well
through my teens and twenties is due to the intensive "workout" I have
been giving myself starting in early childhood. I'm actually learning
Korean - which I didn't start seriously studying until about two years
ago - more quickly and more easily than I learned Japanese (which is
structurally and in some respects lexically strikingly similar to
Japanese, with a somewhat more complicated verbal morphology), which I
started learning at age 9.
phog...@abo.fi
>
> I have been attending the lectures that I mentioned previously
> in my home town of Gliwice, but I cannot remember the name
> of the speaker, or where he came from. I just _think_ he's
> a Jesuit, but cannot be sure.
Are you from Gliwice! Oh my, oh my. I should have noted your e-mail! I
wrote my M.A. thesis about Horst Bienek!
phog...@abo.fi
> cantu...@lycos.com wrote on 25 jul 2007 in sci.lang.translation:
>
> > Evertjan wrote:
> >> PERHAPS multilinguality could be defined as the ability to speak and/or
> >> write more than one language without having to translate the sentence at
> >> hand from another language AND being able to dream in those languages.
>
> > I do not understand why you include dreaming.
>
> Do you never dream in different languages?
Dreaming means processing the previous day's events, and of course
everybody dreams in the language(s) he or she has been speaking,
writing, reading or hearing during the day.
Leszek L.
On 27 heinä, 11:41, "Leszek L." <lles...@iitis.gliwice.pl> wrote:
> Are you from Gliwice! Oh my, oh my. I should have noted your e-mail! I
> wrote my M.A. thesis about Horst Bienek!
Ever been to the place yourself?
Cheers,
L.
Dušan Vukotić
> Uzytkownik <phogl...@abo.fi> napisal w wiadomoscinews:1185522477.5...@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
He.he... "and grass nowhere"; I would not also have doubted that it
was hemp :-)
Ortodox Church (except in Greek and Romania, if I am not wrong) is
still fallowing the Julian calendar which is 14 days after Gregorian.
It means that Orthodox Church Christmas is occurring on the same day
as in other Christian Churches (Decembar 25)
DV
phog...@abo.fi
> Uzytkownik <phogl...@abo.fi> napisal w wiadomoscinews:1185530884....@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On 27 heinä, 11:41, "Leszek L." <lles...@iitis.gliwice.pl> wrote:
>
> > Are you from Gliwice! Oh my, oh my. I should have noted your e-mail! I
> > wrote my M.A. thesis about Horst Bienek!
>
> Ever been to the place yourself?
Regrettably no. :(
phog...@abo.fi
> On Jul 27, 10:59 am, "Leszek L." <lles...@iitis.gliwice.pl> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Uzytkownik <phogl...@abo.fi> napisal w wiadomoscinews:1185522477.5...@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
>
> > > No, I have just quoted from Hávamál. Sorry, it should be "né svalar
> > > unnir", of course.
>
> > Naturally.
>
> > > "It was early in time, when nothing was, there was neither sand nor
> > > sea, nor cool waves, there was the Ginnungagap, and grass nowhere". I
> > > hope you refrain from all predictable stupid jokes about Scandinavian
> > > gods looking in vain for "some good stuff to smoke, man".
>
> > I wouldn't have thought of grass=cannabis if you had not mentioned it.
> > But I'll stick to my Christian imagery and ask:
>
> > - Why did the Three Wise Men only come on Epiphany Day (JAN 6)
> > and not on December 25th?
>
> > (answer below)
>
> > (answer coming up)
>
> > - They came from the East, right? So they must have been Orthodox!
>
> > Cheers,
> > L.
>
> He.he... "and grass nowhere"; I would not also have doubted that it
> was hemp :-)
I told you not to smoke that stuff. It is not good for you. And it is
even worse for us, who have to read you chillum pipe dreams in the
sci.lang group.
jimbo...@gmail.com
I think this is a very surprising assertion. Perfect fluency? I
realise that you aren't being literal - after all perfect fluency
isn't always achieved in monolinguals in their cradle language. Even
so, I think given the mass of research on acquisition and learning of
languages (first and second) that you might tell us why you believe
this.
Since anecdotes seem to be the order of the day, I'll say that in my
own case, languages I learned post-puberty never got to be as fluently
spoken as languages I acquired in infancy.
I think fluency may be the wrong term here anyway. I have a number of
friends and acquaintances who speak really quite beautiful French.
It's fluent, the pronunciation is accurate, they have identifiable
genuine accents and pass easily. But if you know them you realise
after a while that they aren't native speakers: they have limited
command of register compared to most native speakers; they lack the
creative resources of native speakers in the acquired language; they
rely on routines which contrast with the innovativeness of native
speaker competence. I absolutely admire these guys - don't get me
wrong. I have a readily identifiable English accent when I speak
French despite it being a cradle language for me. For this reason
French speakers who listen to more than a snippet or two of my speech
sometimes assume that *I'm* a competent non-native. On one occasion a
few years back, a native French speaker recommended to me that I
emulate an English colleague to improve my French since he was, to
her, indistringuishable from a native speaker. Now, I think the guy
was truly impressive too, but if you paid close attention I think you
would eventually see that he didn't have native competence. The
relationship between first and second language competence is complex.
I am sure that there are non-native speakers of French who have larger
vocabularies than I do, for example, but that isn't really to the
point.
Well, I just said native competence when I was talking about
performance...oh well. I think the important point to be addressed
with respect to Peter's response is his observation that the
neuropsychological resources that underpin first and second language
acquisition/learning are assumed by many (most likely most) who have
studied them to be quite different and it seems unlikely that the two
(or more) processes would have identical outcomes.
Jim
Leszek L.
> > Ever been to the place yourself?
> Regrettably no. :(
Well should you ever come around here, let me know.
Just fire two short bursts and a green flare.
Cheers,
L.
Élise Hendrick
...that the
> neuropsychological resources that underpin first and second language
> acquisition/learning are assumed by many (most likely most) who have
> studied them to be quite different and it seems unlikely that the two
> (or more) processes would have identical outcomes.
This just reminded me of a study I remember reading in a second language
acquisition seminar a while back that indicated that the
neuropsychological resources actually weren't necessarily different, and
that L1 brain activity patterns have been seen in adult-acquired L2 in
some subjects. I'll have to see if I can dig up the article.
jimbo...@gmail.com
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Jul 26, 8:05 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > > I don't know about Steven, but personally, I would say that there is
> > > no very sharp limit between those for whom the languages are acquired,
> > > and those for whom they are native.
>
> > The difference is between languages acquired by a child's LAD and
> > languages learned by an adult.
>
> > I don't care to have the argument _again_ from those who think there's
> > no difference.
>
> I don't care to argue with you who think there's a sharp difference.
>
I might point out that Peter didn't qualify the difference and that,
in his defence, he was addressing the fact that this point has been
contended before at length: he's entitled to express a modicum of
weariness!
First, as I've said elsewhere, the issue of 'fluent performance' may
not be helping us here. There can be very 'fluent' non-native
speakers. It seems to me both a priori and on the evidence in the
research literature overwhelmingly unlikely that anyone who acquires a
language post-puberty (to set a generous upper bound) will have a
_competence_ anything like a native (infant acquirer) and my anecdotal
experience is that familiarity with skilled non-native speakers most
often leads to clues that they are in fact non-native. On limited
exposure some French speakers mark me as a non-native (I have a
foreign accent which strangely only natives usually detect). On
limited exposure most Spanish speakers mark me as a native (I have no
obvious foreign accent and a few salient markers of regional speech
(marked aspiracion, etc) and I have a good repertoire of routines for
everyday interaction. Now, OK, in my case it doesn't take long in for
judgments to be reversed, but I do know people who can pass in much
less casual and prolonged exposures to native speakers.
But suppose that we found a non-native who in performance out ranked
some non-native speakers? The fact remains that we 1) couldn't assume
that the underlying neuropsychological situations were identical and
2) would have to address the evidence from the psycholinguistic
literature that suggests that the differences are real.
>
>
> > > The point is the frequency of
> > > usage. By frequency of usage, you can become more proficient in an
> > > acquired (I prefer not to say foreign) language.
>
Practice makes better but is there really evidence that in this case
it makes perfect?
> > You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> > adult.
>
> You can easily become more fluent in a language learned as an adult
> than in your native language, if you simply move into an environment
> where you do not hear your first language at all.
I don't think this is so. I have plenty of experience of first
language atrophy (some of it personal some professional) but even in
the best cases I know of, the level of competence *and* performance in
the host environment language(s) hardly ever approaches that of the
first language pre-atrophy - let alone outstrips it. The rare cases
where I think this may have happend involve children who switched
environments around puberty or a very little later.
> As an English-
> speaker, you have obviously never been in a position to personally
> experience just how rapidly your native language atrophies if you are
> utterly cut out from any possibility to use it.
You have the impression that there are no English speakers who haven't
experience language atrophy? With respect, I suspect this is simply a
prejudice of yours. While it may be rare in a world where English is
an established language of wider communication, it happens!
Jim
jimbo...@gmail.com
> > On Jul 26, 8:05 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > > I don't know about Steven, but personally, I would say that there is
> > > no very sharp limit between those for whom the languages are acquired,
> > > and those for whom they are native.
>
> > The difference is between languages acquired by a child's LAD and
> > languages learned by an adult.
>
> > I don't care to have the argument _again_ from those who think there's
> > no difference.
>
> I don't care to argue with you who think there's a sharp difference.
>
I might point out that Peter didn't qualify the difference and that,
>
>
> > > The point is the frequency of
> > > usage. By frequency of usage, you can become more proficient in an
> > > acquired (I prefer not to say foreign) language.
>
Practice makes better but is there really evidence that in this case
it makes perfect?
> > You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> > adult.
>
> You can easily become more fluent in a language learned as an adult
> than in your native language, if you simply move into an environment
> where you do not hear your first language at all.
I don't think this is so. I have plenty of experience of first
language atrophy (some of it personal some professional) but even in
the best cases I know of, the level of competence *and* performance in
the host environment language(s) hardly ever approaches that of the
first language pre-atrophy - let alone outstrips it. The rare cases
where I think this may have happend involve children who switched
environments around puberty or a very little later.
> As an English-
> speaker, you have obviously never been in a position to personally
> experience just how rapidly your native language atrophies if you are
> utterly cut out from any possibility to use it.
You have the impression that there are no English speakers who haven't
jimbo...@gmail.com
> jimbo.ty...@gmail.com schrieb:
There are certainly people who deny there's a difference publishing
research but the situation you outline (though I accept it's off the
cuff) wouldn't be relevant: the patterns of activity post-acquisition
could be similar but that wouldn't demonstrate 1) identity 2) anything
about the process of *acquisition*. I haven't myself seen any studies
comparing brain activity observations comparing infants acquiring
native competence and adult learners - it's hard to see who one would
set that up.
Jim
Élise Hendrick
> There are certainly people who deny there's a difference publishing
> research but the situation you outline (though I accept it's off the
> cuff) wouldn't be relevant: the patterns of activity post-acquisition
> could be similar but that wouldn't demonstrate 1) identity 2) anything
> about the process of *acquisition*. I haven't myself seen any studies
> comparing brain activity observations comparing infants acquiring
> native competence and adult learners - it's hard to see who one would
> set that up.
>
True, and I would add to those caveats that neuroscience isn't very
useful to prove any of this at the moment, because much of it remains
poorly understood. Neuroscience has made some major strides over the
past few decades, but it is still very much in the rudimentary stages.
However, I would also point out that it isn't entirely impossible that
the same result could be achieved by more than one means. Even if the
process of acquisition differs, there is still the possibility that the
ultimate result in terms of competency and performance could be the
same. In fact, given what little we do know about the plasticity of the
brain, it wouldn't even be terribly surprising. If a person can have
normal brain function despite having a brain 10% normal size due to a
lifelong massive intracranial cyst, and others can undergo a
hemispherectomy with no significant lasting functional deficit (both
cases have been reported; the first is a popular teaching case in
neuropsychology courses), then it strikes me as entirely possible that
there is more than one way to acquire "fluency"/"native fluency" in a
language. In any case, we certainly don't know nearly enough yet to deny
the possibility out right.
Peter T. Daniels
Why do you agree with me and pretend to disagree?
phog...@abo.fi
wrote:
> On Jul 27, 8:41 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > On Jul 26, 8:05 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > > > I don't know about Steven, but personally, I would say that there is
> > > > no very sharp limit between those for whom the languages are acquired,
> > > > and those for whom they are native.
>
> > > The difference is between languages acquired by a child's LAD and
> > > languages learned by an adult.
>
> > > I don't care to have the argument _again_ from those who think there's
> > > no difference.
>
> > I don't care to argue with you who think there's a sharp difference.
>
> I might point out that Peter didn't qualify the difference and that,
> in his defence, he was addressing the fact that this point has been
> contended before at length: he's entitled to express a modicum of
> weariness!
That is as may be, but as so often, Peter defines his concepts in a
way that makes them practically useless.
> > > > The point is the frequency of
> > > > usage. By frequency of usage, you can become more proficient in an
> > > > acquired (I prefer not to say foreign) language.
>
> Practice makes better but is there really evidence that in this case
> it makes perfect?
It might make you a pass-for-native for any practical (social)
purposes, if not exactly a native.
> > > You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> > > adult.
>
> > You can easily become more fluent in a language learned as an adult
> > than in your native language, if you simply move into an environment
> > where you do not hear your first language at all.
>
> I don't think this is so. I have plenty of experience of first
> language atrophy (some of it personal some professional) but even in
> the best cases I know of, the level of competence *and* performance in
> the host environment language(s) hardly ever approaches that of the
> first language pre-atrophy - let alone outstrips it. The rare cases
> where I think this may have happend involve children who switched
> environments around puberty or a very little later.
Well, I think first language atrophy in adults is quite common with
dying minority languages, when closely knit communities are disrupted
by social change and new mobility patterns.
>
> > As an English-
> > speaker, you have obviously never been in a position to personally
> > experience just how rapidly your native language atrophies if you are
> > utterly cut out from any possibility to use it.
>
> You have the impression that there are no English speakers who haven't
> experience language atrophy? With respect, I suspect this is simply a
> prejudice of yours. While it may be rare in a world where English is
> an established language of wider communication, it happens!
That is as may be, but in my opinion Peter's categorical opinions on
these issues can only be explained by the fact that he has never
experienced the native language atrophy himself.
Dušan Vukoti
I also think that it is impossible to learn perfectly foreign language
so that you could speak it as fluently as a native speaker. For
instance, I understand Hungarian but whenever I tried to speak that
language it caused uncontrollable salvos of laughter by native
Magyars. Simply. I am not able to differentiate a great number of
Hungarian vocalic allophones.
On the other side, there are only a few of Hungarians (among many that
I know) who are able to speak Serbian as a native speakers; but they
have attended Serbian schools from kindergarten.
I have a similar problem with Russian (not so visible, of course),
although it is a Slavic language and intelligible even to those Serbs
who have never studied it seriously. Nevertheless, I have more
difficulties to pronounce certain Russian words correctly than in case
of those from German vocabulary.
I think, only language that Serbs could learn (as adults) to speak
close_to_perfect is Italian, because Serbian and Italian phonemic
systems are practically almost the same. Stresses are different:
Serbian pitch accent is not easily learned by foreigners, but Italian
stress is almost always on the penultimate syllable; i.e. there are
not many words which are stressed on the last syllable and it
alleviates the pronunciation significantly.
DV
Evertjan.
> Dreaming means processing the previous day's events, and of course
> everybody dreams in the language(s) he or she has been speaking,
> writing, reading or hearing during the day.
That is just your idea, my dear anonymous.
"A 'dream' is the experience of a sequence of images, sounds, ideas,
emotions, or other sensations during sleep"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream>
phog...@abo.fi
>
> I also think...
Please don't. Or if you do, keep it to yourself.
jimbo...@gmail.com
> On 27 heinä, 13:50, "jimbo.ty...@gmail.com" <jimbo.ty...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jul 27, 8:41 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > > On Jul 26, 8:05 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > > > > I don't know about Steven, but personally, I would say that there is
> > > > > no very sharp limit between those for whom the languages are acquired,
> > > > > and those for whom they are native.
>
> > > > The difference is between languages acquired by a child's LAD and
> > > > languages learned by an adult.
>
> > > > I don't care to have the argument _again_ from those who think there's
> > > > no difference.
>
> > > I don't care to argue with you who think there's a sharp difference.
>
> > I might point out that Peter didn't qualify the difference and that,
> > in his defence, he was addressing the fact that this point has been
> > contended before at length: he's entitled to express a modicum of
> > weariness!
>
> That is as may be, but as so often, Peter defines his concepts in a
> way that makes them practically useless.
But he isn't defining concepts in any particularly non-standard way:
he's defending what is at least a candidate for scientific orthodoxy.
I think we should leave Peter (and me, qua me, etc) out of the debate
and concentrate on the issues.
>
> > > > > The point is the frequency of
> > > > > usage. By frequency of usage, you can become more proficient in an
> > > > > acquired (I prefer not to say foreign) language.
>
> > Practice makes better but is there really evidence that in this case
> > it makes perfect?
>
> It might make you a pass-for-native for any practical (social)
> purposes, if not exactly a native.
Quite - but we haven't had that point at issue here have we. My
response doesn't speak to this question at all. My question,
therefor, stands.
>
> > > > You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> > > > adult.
>
> > > You can easily become more fluent in a language learned as an adult
> > > than in your native language, if you simply move into an environment
> > > where you do not hear your first language at all.
>
> > I don't think this is so. I have plenty of experience of first
> > language atrophy (some of it personal some professional) but even in
> > the best cases I know of, the level of competence *and* performance in
> > the host environment language(s) hardly ever approaches that of the
> > first language pre-atrophy - let alone outstrips it. The rare cases
> > where I think this may have happend involve children who switched
> > environments around puberty or a very little later.
>
> Well, I think first language atrophy in adults is quite common with
> dying minority languages, when closely knit communities are disrupted
> by social change and new mobility patterns.
>
A very sound observation but not speaking to either the point
originally asserted nor to my response. Do you contend that in cases
of language atrophy. Maybe I misunderstood your original point, was
it that post-atrophy, a speaker may be left with a greater competence
in an acquired second language (which might nonetheless be quite low-
level) than in their atrophied first language? If that is the case I
apologise for misreading you and agree!
>
>
> > > As an English-
> > > speaker, you have obviously never been in a position to personally
> > > experience just how rapidly your native language atrophies if you are
> > > utterly cut out from any possibility to use it.
>
> > You have the impression that there are no English speakers who haven't
> > experience language atrophy? With respect, I suspect this is simply a
> > prejudice of yours. While it may be rare in a world where English is
> > an established language of wider communication, it happens!
>
> That is as may be, but in my opinion Peter's categorical opinions on
> these issues can only be explained by the fact that he has never
> experienced the native language atrophy himself.
I don't see much point in our debating Peter as an individual - the
issues don't depend upon anything about him (though his very real
expertise is pertinent). Did you really mean to say that you don't
believe that English speakers ever experience language atrophy?
Jim
Dušan Vukoti
Homo-gland, your excreting organs are not working properly! Your brain
begins to swell because of the unsolved problem of waste matter
discharging. Can't you feel the smell of your urine-soaked head?
DV
Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)
Cite, please? Or is this your personal experience.
It's not necessarily true. I have had vivid dreams about being back
in Venezuela, and speaking and thinking in Spanish.
Although I translate mostly from Spanish, I have not been there in 9
years. Some of these dreams have occurred after a long weekend in
which I was not working or thinking in Spanish.
--
Steven M - spa...@hal-pc.orgwax.invalid
(remove wax and invalid to reply)
"It's a Dog Eat Dog World out there, and we're looking for
a few Dobermans!" -- employment ad in Houston Chronicle
Peter T. Daniels
> mb schrieb:
>
> > On Jul 26, 3:00 pm, "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >> You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> >> adult.
>
> > Confusing a couple of things: Of course you can, as long as the
> > "fluency" is in a bookish standard dialect, with no vernacular of your
> > own. What you cannot get (never say never, though, there are rare
> > cases) is perfect mastery of one identifiable non-standard oral
> > dialect. Repeating slogans doesn't always help.
>
> Leaving aside the rather nettlesome question of how to define "fluency"
> in this context, I tend to be sceptical of categorical negatives.
> Something is absolutely impossible until such time as even a single case
> is discovered that proves it possible. My own view of this - based in
> part on my own experience and that of a few people I've known - is that
> the language faculty and LAD can be made more flexible, and the
> timeframe for language acquisition thus extended, if acquisition of new
> languages never really stops.
So if you're a D.P. child, moving from speech community to alien
speech community throughout your adolescent and teen years, you will
continue to acquire new languages and use them without a hint of a
foreign accent of any kind?
> Neuropsychological rehabilitation operates on the basis that even
> functional deficits major organic brain disease and damage can be at
> least improved, and sometimes completely eliminated, through intensive
> cognitive, motor, and/or sensory exercise. By having the patient engage
> in activities that have been made more difficult, if not impossible, by
> the brain damage, the brain often uses its inherent (and somewhat poorly
> understood) plasticity to circumvent the damage and find new ways to
> achieve the same ends.
We are not, of course, talking about cases of brain damage. Damaged
brains can do amazing things in assuming the functions of the damaged
parts.
> I, for example, have never fully exited the early phases of acquisition
> of a language. Since the age of 5 (when the Cyrillic alphabet fascinated
> me and I began seeking out everything I could find on the Russian
> language), there hasn't been a year in which I haven't been immersing
> myself in some new language or other (beyond my native languages). I
> imagine that the ease with which I have acquired new languages well
> through my teens and twenties is due to the intensive "workout" I have
> been giving myself starting in early childhood. I'm actually learning
> Korean - which I didn't start seriously studying until about two years
> ago - more quickly and more easily than I learned Japanese (which is
> structurally and in some respects lexically strikingly similar to
> Japanese, with a somewhat more complicated verbal morphology), which I
> started learning at age 9.
No one says you can't attain extreme fluency. But you will not be
indistinguishable from a native speaker.
Peter T. Daniels
"Of course"??
Do you have evidence, let alone proof, of that assertion?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On Jul 27, 5:41 am, mb <azyth...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 26, 3:00 pm, "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> > > You can never become perfectly fluent in a language learned as an
> > > adult.
>
> > Confusing a couple of things: Of course you can, as long as the
> > "fluency" is in a bookish standard dialect, with no vernacular of your
> > own. What you cannot get (never say never, though, there are rare
> > cases) is perfect mastery of one identifiable non-standard oral
> > dialect. Repeating slogans doesn't always help.
>
> I think this is a very surprising assertion. Perfect fluency? I
> realise that you aren't being literal - after all perfect fluency
> isn't always achieved in monolinguals in their cradle language. Even
> so, I think given the mass of research on acquisition and learning of
> languages (first and second) that you might tell us why you believe
> this.
>
> Since anecdotes seem to be the order of the day, I'll say that in my
> own case, languages I learned post-puberty never got to be as fluently
> spoken as languages I acquired in infancy.
See? You're normal.
> I think fluency may be the wrong term here anyway.
It's just an adjective for "perfect command of."
Well put!
Peter T. Daniels
> jimbo.ty...@gmail.com schrieb:
some patterns, some subjects ...
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On Jul 27, 8:41 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
> > You can easily become more fluent in a language learned as an adult
> > than in your native language, if you simply move into an environment
> > where you do not hear your first language at all.
>
> I don't think this is so. I have plenty of experience of first
> language atrophy (some of it personal some professional) but even in
> the best cases I know of, the level of competence *and* performance in
> the host environment language(s) hardly ever approaches that of the
> first language pre-atrophy - let alone outstrips it. The rare cases
> where I think this may have happend involve children who switched
> environments around puberty or a very little later.
This week's contestant on "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?" was a
42-year-old Chinese-American whose grade school photo (presumably from
fifth grade, age 10 or so) was from Horace Mann Elementary School. I
don't think they identified it as the one in NYC (which is associated
with Teachers College, Columbia University), but if that's where it
was, it's one of the most elite, selective schools in the city. There
were distinct traits of a Chinese accent in his otherwise completely
unremarkable English.
phog...@abo.fi
<spam...@hal-pcwax.org.invalid> wrote:
> Je Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:10:16 -0700, phogl...@abo.fi skribis:
>
> >On 26 heinä, 00:54, "Evertjan." <exjxw.hannivo...@interxnl.net> wrote:
> >> cantu...@lycos.com wrote on 25 jul 2007 in sci.lang.translation:
>
> >> > Evertjan wrote:
> >> >> PERHAPS multilinguality could be defined as the ability to speak and/or
> >> >> write more than one language without having to translate the sentence at
> >> >> hand from another language AND being able to dream in those languages.
>
> >> > I do not understand why you include dreaming.
>
> >> Do you never dream in different languages?
>
> >Dreaming means processing the previous day's events, and of course
> >everybody dreams in the language(s) he or she has been speaking,
> >writing, reading or hearing during the day.
>
> Cite, please? Or is this your personal experience.
>
> It's not necessarily true. I have had vivid dreams about being back
> in Venezuela, and speaking and thinking in Spanish.
>
> Although I translate mostly from Spanish, I have not been there in 9
> years. Some of these dreams have occurred after a long weekend in
> which I was not working or thinking in Spanish.
Well, I might have expressed myself a little too categorically. What I
wanted to say was, that the languages you are regularly involved with
usually invade your dreams too, and that there is nothing particularly
special about it. There is this faux-fatal and new-agey way some naîve
monolinguals ask a multilingual person what language his dreams are
in, in an attempt to find out what his or her "real" native language
is, or simply in an attempt to find out how it "feels" to be a
multilingual.
phog...@abo.fi
> On Jul 27, 3:44 pm, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > On 27 heinä, 15:26, Dušan Vukoti <dusan.vuko...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I also think...
>
> > Please don't. Or if you do, keep it to yourself.
>
> Homo-gland, your excreting organs are not working properly!
Homos, homos and again homos. You are obviously unable to think of
anything else than homos and homosexuality. That is precisely why you
should not think, or if you must, not to elaborate about it here.
mb
> mb schrieb:
> > Confusing a couple of things: Of course you can, as long as the
> > "fluency" is in a bookish standard dialect, with no vernacular of your
> > own. What you cannot get (never say never, though, there are rare
> > cases) is perfect mastery of one identifiable non-standard oral
> > dialect.
> Leaving aside the rather nettlesome question of how to
....
morphology), which I
> started learning at age 9.
That answer was long, interesting and all but had nothing to do with
the simple question being discussed.