LL-L: "Multilingualism" LOWLANDS-L, 27.OCT.1999 (06) [E]

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From: gvanmoor at aoc.nrao.edu
Subject: LL-L: "Multilingualism" LOWLANDS-L, 27.OCT.1999 (04) [E]

Responding to John Feather's:

> c. Is it easier or more difficult learn a language closely related to
> one's
> mother tongue than a linguistically  more remote one? I was told by a
> German
> with almost perfect English that French is much more difficult for
> German-speakers because of the lack of common roots of words. She argued
> that English is a good place to start learning both Germanic and Romance
> languages because of our "mixed" vocabulary. I don't really believe that
> this is an important consideration. As soon as we think we recognise words
> in French we find (or don't!) that a lot of them are "false friends".

Ron Hahn wrote:

> My overall
> conclusion is that, using appropriate learning/studying methods, you could
> reach your goal in about the same amount of time irrespective of which type
of
> language you study.

I am with Ron on this one.  Vocabulary may at first seem the most
daunting (and sometimes even the *only*) hurdle on the way to com-
mand of a language, and a certain overlap in vocabulary is then
seen to be an bonus which saves an enormous amount of time.  But
my experience has been that acquiring a working vocabulary is the
easiest step after which the true difficulty - and the beauty -
of the new language really starts.

The language I feel I have made most progress on in the shortest
time is Russian (that was 20 years ago and most of it is gone),
whereas (High-) German for many Dutch people is the most difficult
language to master properly.  If I hadn't lived there for 7 years
my German would be much poorer than it already is ...

Gustaaf

----------

From: Muhammed Suleiman [suleiman at lineone.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Multilingualism" LOWLANDS-L, 27.OCT.1999 (04) [E]

Dear Lowlanders,

 Ron said :

> I have studied languages that are closely related to my own, and I have
> studied those that could hardly be farther removed from my own.  My
overall
> conclusion is that, using appropriate learning/studying methods, you could
> reach your goal in about the same amount of time irrespective of which
type of
> language you study.

Being a Damascan Turk who spent his whole childhood moving from one country to
another, acquiring languages as others do childhood diseases, I concur here
with Ron. To begin with, NO language is essentally any more difficult than
another. Whatever the language, you invariably get natives with the lowest to
the highest IQs speaking it; you get literate speakers and totally illiterate
ones; you get small children mastering it with apparent ease, even though they
may initially falter (just as we shall) with the occasional pronunciation or
grammatical construction.

I always think that the learner of a new language has to overcome two hurdles
: firstly, he needs to disabuse himself of the idea that the new tongue is
DIFFICULT, or that it is too late to teach an old dog new tricks. Secondly, he
needs to abandon his self-consciousness, and be prepared to laugh with native
speakers at his inevitable faux pas.

It is interesting, incidentally, to note the varying attitudes of native
speakers towards those learning their language. Some will jump indefatigably
on the slightest mistake on the part of the novice: a practice which ought to
be helpful, but all too often shatters one's self-confidence. Others
(this is especially the case with lingua francas, where a variety of speech
variance is tolerated) will be indulgent with you, as long as the words coming
out of your mouth bear a passing semblance to their native vocables!

Some languages (Witness Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Russian, and even
German) seem to be overencumbered with 'Grammar', because of their elaborate
declensional and conjugational systems; Languages such as Chinese, and
English, on the other hand, are often said to have a 'simple' grammar
(notwithstanding the many irregular verbs in English), but this is all
deceptive. The Grammar is there, whether it is immediately apparent or not.
Some languages are morphologically heavy, and some are syntactically heavy,
and at the end of the day, those which have visible grammatical markers are
easier to master than those whose grammar, consisting largely of syntax, is
almost invisible.

The world importance of English has already been mentioned, yet, phonetically
speaking, the very varieties of English which have become accepted as
'standard', and hence leaders on the world stage, happen to be those which are
devilish in their complexity and subtlety. The Scots variety
of English, for instance, would have been much easier for the majority of
non-native (and probably a good many native) speakers. Chinese might have a
number of difficult consonants, but its vowels are actually similar in their
degree of difficulty to those of  'Received Pronunciation' English.

Exotic scripts can pose a problem, but here too much of the difficulty lies in
overcoming the mental barriers. Almost every script on earth has been honed
down until it has become a practical medium for the languages it
represents.Some, such as Korean script, could have been designed by
phoneticists; others, such as Cyrillic for Central Asian languages, and Latin
for African languages, are remarkably good vehicles for the languages in
question.Certain difficulties are faced, however, in the case of languages
with historical spelling (Urdu,Bengali,Cambodian, Thai and, last
but not least, English, immediately jump to mind), but these problems are by
no means insurmountable. It would be interesting, too, to know how the number
of 'irregular' and 'illogical' spellings in English compares to the number of
characters necessary for everyday Chinese use. Inreality, I believe Chinese
would win hands down, but the English irregularities would
not be few in number.

Ron continued :

"...and some people couldn't even *hear* the differences at
> the beginning, leave along produce them. "

In some cases, the natives themselves cannot *hear* the differences. In China
this is very common, where the National Language is based on the northern
dialect of Beijing, which is a very eccentric variety - phonetically speaking.
In the languages of Northern India, there is a series of aspirated consonants,
and after many years of communicating in Urdu / Hindi, I am becoming convinced
that native speakers do not always aspirate these consonants as they should
do. This may have something to do with the lingua franca effect I mentioned
above : 'Mandarin' Chinese in China, and
Urdu in the Subcontinent both serve as lingua francas for populations speaking
a wide variety of other languages and dialects, but in such cases the
foreigner often has an advatage, in that he does not speak a related or
contiguous tongue which is likely to interfere with his mastery of the new
one.

This brings us to the problem of interference. Ron has already mentioned the
difficulty of a High German speaker learning Low Saxon; or, indeed, of a Low
Saxon speaker learning Standard _Nederlands_.  In my opinion, learning a
closely related language to one's own probably requires a much greater effort
( not an equal one) than merely learning a totally unrelated one. (I should
qualify this statement, however, by saying that this is the case if we are
aiming to master the other language with a high degree of fluency. Just to
speak a related language in everyday circumstances would probably require less
effort.) This is because you must devote extra time to identifying and
classifying all the 'faux amis', and even more to learning off by heart all
the idioms and expressions peculiar to the new speech variety. In a
non-related language you will pick up idioms almost
unconsciously, but in a related one you will encounter resistance, merely
translating the expressions of your native tongue into the new one.

If there is any drawback to being multilingual, it must lie in the
(inevitable?) inequality of one's linguistic ability. We tend to become used
to using one language in one context, and another in another; this means that
our command of vocabulary is not equal in each language.

I hope I have not been unnecessarily prolix in the above discussion, and I
hope it has helped to shed some light on a complex series of problems.

Regards,

Dr M. Suleiman

----------

From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Multilingualism

Dear Lowlanders,

I'd like to thank Gustaaf and Muhammed for their supportive elaborations
above.

I wish there were a way of orthographically representing applause.  Muhammed
not only elucidated many points but also made some additional ones, dealing
with aspects I had consciously avoided for fear of complicating matters.  He
pulled it off, better than I would have been able to do.  I certainly agree
with everything he said (except that I would have written "Scottish" in "the
Scots variety of English").

In particular, I applauded when I read ...

> I always think that the learner of a new language has to overcome two
hurdles : firstly, he needs
> to disabuse himself of the idea that the new tongue is DIFFICULT, or that it
is too late to teach an
> old dog new tricks. Secondly, he needs to abandon his self-consciousness,
and be prepared to
> laugh with native speakers at his inevitable faux pas.

This is virtually identical with what I tell everyone who seeks my advice on
learning a foreign language.  Previously I called it "attitude," but perhaps
"mindset" is more apt.  Implied in item 1, but perhaps worth emphasizing, is
"A (would-be) learner must approach the challenge with the knowledge that he
or she was able to learn his or her native language and therefore can also
learn any other language."  Of course, although one ought not limit oneself
unnecessarily, it is also important to be realistic about one's goals.
Surely, if you want to invest no more than one hour per week and have only a
little beginner's text and no audio sources, leave alone conversational
opportunities, you most certainly shouldn't expect to become fluent or
"perfect" within, say, six months.  I am mentioning this because I have come
across cases in which inexperienced learners had unrealistic goals and gave up
altogether the second they realized it.

> It is interesting, incidentally, to note the varying attitudes of native
speakers towards those
> learning their language. Some will jump indefatigably on the slightest
mistake on the part of the
> novice: a practice which ought to be helpful, but all too often shatters
one's self-confidence.
> Others
> (this is especially the case with lingua francas, where a variety of speech
variance is tolerated)
> will be indulgent with you, as long as the words coming out of your mouth
bear a passing
> semblance to their native vocables!

I have encountered another type, perhaps the most difficult one to deal with.
There are three variants of this one:

(1) Speakers of real or perceived minority languages who are used to having to
learn other languages and are not used to outsiders learning theirs.

(2) Speakers whose cultures do not allow them to contradict someone in any
sort of special and/or respect position (and this usually includes guests), if
anyone at all.

(3) Speakers who for some reason are convinced that outsiders do not have the
innate ability to learn their language.

Very thes epeakers will patronize or unnecessarily indulge you, letting you
get away with the worst mistakes or total gobbledigook, just smiling
approvingly without ever offering any help in the form of corrections, even if
you specifically ask them to correct you.  They are just so pleasantly
surprised that you even bother about their "little" or "special" language, so
all you need to do is say the equivalent of "Hello!" in their language and
they think you're just great.  ("You speak {language} really well!")

> If there is any drawback to being multilingual, it must lie in the
(inevitable?) inequality of one's
> linguistic ability. We tend to become used to using one language in one
context, and another in
> another; this means that our command of vocabulary is not equal in each
language.

And oftentimes you wish you could merge the languages, especially wishing that
there was a good equivalent of a certain useful expression in the other
language.

Best regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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