LL-L "Language acquisition" 2006.05.29 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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   L O W L A N D S - L * 29 May 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Appellations" 2006.05.22 (02) [E]

> From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
> Subject: LL-L "Ethnosymbology" 2006.05.21 (01) [E]
>
> To check out my Kahuna name I obviously should learn Hawaiian,
> allegedly a simple language to learn. And btw I'm thinking of learning
> Gothic, because for this language it is only necessary to read one
> book, isn't it?

I think the idea that Hawaiian is a simple language to learn is probably
one of those lies that go about  :)

I heard the same about Malay. Seems to me that it's simple enough if
you just want to speak a sort of "Bazaar Malay" like the British there
used to do. But try to get a proper appreciation of the language, you've
got this great web of psychology and jungle of idiom to hack your way
through.

Let's face it, any mature language is bound to have ways of expressing
all of life's variety and subtlety, it's not going to be a simple task
no matter what the language is like.

Gothic: yes, there's really just Wright's "Grammar of the Gothic
Language", if you mean in English. It's one of those early 20th
Century academic works where the nouns are arranged by declension and
pronunciation is explained in English. For my own learning I've been
having to rearrange the whole thing! Even although there's only one text
(The Silver Bible) and a few fragments, just as with living languages
it's a never-ending study: in this case into how Gothic relates to later
and earlier languages, trying to discover what Gothic was really like
and what the missing vocabulary might have been.

Very rewarding, though. A bit like standing in a ruined cathedral and
trying to imagine how it once was.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language acquisition

Hi, Sandy!

Great to hear from you, as always.

My general comment (a.k.a. _Senf dazu_, German for "mustard added") on what 
you wrote above is something along the lines of "Amen!" or "Hear, hear!" 
(a.k.a. "Here, here!" ;-) )

Hawaiian, or any other Polynesian language for that matter, is anything but 
easy to learn well.  It abounds with "unexpected" and "flowery" idiomatic 
expressions.  Wesley will probably confirm the same regarding Maori.  In 
Polynesian in general, and perhaps in Malayo-Polynesian within an even wider 
context, "turning a phrase" is an expression to be taken literally.  It is a 
traditional art form, especially in speech making or oratory, which has a 
very, very important role in traditional Polynesian cultures.  Good speakers 
are extremely highly regarded and tend to advance to community leader 
positions.

Your comment about Malay is spot on.  The same goes for Indonesian within a 
wider context, being really another group of Malay varieties with local 
substrates.  These languages are "enticingly and misleadingly easy" at first 
glance, which is also one of the reasons why Australian students that have 
to choose an Asian foreign language in addition to a European one, tend to 
choose Malay or Indonesian.  These languages are (nowadays) written with the 
Roman alphabet (without "special" letters), are fairly easy to pronounce for 
speakers of European languages, and it is easy and fast to acquire a working 
knowledge that qualifies as allowing you "to get around."  This does not 
mean that you are well ahead in the language.  I never studied Indonesian 
but did study Malay (_Bahasa Malaysia_) as a part of my Southeast Asian 
studies minor in Australia, and I was able to "survive" while traveling 
around in Malaysia and Indonesia (quickly picking up a bunch Indonesianism, 
having no problems with Dutch loanwords).  I even visited many villages in 
which no one spoke English or Dutch.  But when the village chiefs made long 
speeches to welcome me I often understood next to nothing.

I'm afraid that the reputation of a language being easy or difficult to 
acquire tends to be base upon cursory assessment at first glance, and that 
this is assessment will inevitably turn out to be wrong in one way or 
another.  As you said, Sandy, any mature language is complex in one way or 
another.  If the complexity does not hit you at the beginning it will do so 
sometime later, on a different level.

Why -- and here we return to the Lowlands -- this applies within the context 
of learning a closely related language as well!  Being able to more or less 
understand such a language without having studied it is another case of 
"enticingly easy," or better to say "misleadingly easy" ... *at first*. 
Understanding is one thing; using it well is another.  I run into this with 
Frisian, Afrikaans, Dutch and Scots, as you all know.  To learn these well, 
I'd really have to sit down and study them "solidly," not just dabble in 
them.

Having recently joined the Scots Language Society (Hi, John!) and having 
been reading its excellent Scots literature periodical _Lallans_ 
(www.lallans.co.uk), I really come to know how idiomatically rich Scots is, 
especially when you read material written by language artists in a variety 
of dialects.  I expect that by doing a lot of reading I will raise not only 
my level of comprehension (and perhaps active usage) but also my 
appreciation of and respect for the language (if this is even possible).  I 
believe that this constitutes the difference between cursory acquaintance 
and immersion, or between first impression and understanding.

Cheerio!
Reinhard/Ron 

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