I've been thinking a lot about languages lately. My mother tongue is English, but with a little side lashing of French. It's gone down a lot in the last few years but once I'm immersed I pick it back up quickly. I also took 3 courses last year in Spanish and picked that up really quickly. I'm not fluent but I could get myself out of a jam and eat very well while in any spanish speaking country :) And now I'm working on some Korean...although this one provides much more of a challenge since it doesn't relate at all to anything I've ever learned or spoken.
The thing about language is that you don't realize what an important tool it is until you can't use it, or until you accidently exclude someone with its use.
Here is the situation: I have been excited for months about making a big painting for my livingroom. I've never painted in my life but heck those big expensive pieces of artwork are just swirls right? I must be able to swirl given the proper tools?! So off I go to the art store with my MD (momma Di...my secondary mom) to buy the biggest canvas I can afford. I was SO excited. Gleeful and giddy like a child at christmas. Hopping around the store with my canvas bigger than me. Then a lovely passerby says - Oh what are you working on? And I say - ART! Completely innocent and truthful...I have been excited for making this "art". To which she responds huffily - Well I guess I walked into that one - and promptly leaves the store!
I cannot believe I was so smartass and insulting! Art?! What was a thinking?! The trouble with language is that you develop a version of your own and then you exclude the people around you who don't know your dialect. If you don't know words like - spazzy, harrumph, spedley, psgetti - or sayings like - fill your boots, and take a boo at this - you really won't understand what's happening in my world half the time!
Does language bring us together? or keep us apart? Can words be unintentional weapons?
Lots of love
Pamela
Currently reading: A year of living biblically
Listening to: churchy songs and the sound of the washing machine
Words are eggs...
ReplyDeleteAh, language! Your story reminded me of a misunderstanding when I first started working as chaplain here. I read in a report that the pastoral care volunteers 'on occasion did the washing of individuals' in hospital. I was aghast! Not on my watch, you won't...volunteers bathing patients? I don't think so!
ReplyDeleteI was indeed relieved to be informed that it was the laundry of patients that our volunteers sometimes kindly assisted with, if folks didn't have family nearby to take care of it for them!
I think the big problem is that English is the worst language on the planet. There are a million ways to say something and that means 999,999 of those ways are going to be wrong, but only slightly. Then there's the body image cues and tone of voice. Obviously she thought you were being sarcastic...the best language to learn would probably be Lojban, but then again, I do live with four programers.
ReplyDeletePenguins