Wall Street Journal discovers linguistic relativism

[Joel S. Berson]

Two short stories prompted by the following from Johnson's blog posting:
>Learning Italian recently, I streeetched out the long vowels and
>bounced up and down staccato-style on the short syllables, picturing
>an over-friendly Italian waiter.  And that's how I felt: garrulous,
>friendly, loose. Nothing about Italian's grammar or vocabulary did
>this to me. I was just picturing myself as a little more Italian.

[Unfortunately, the E in "stretched" is short --   "eeeelongated"
might have been more picturesque.]

1)   When my mother was traveling in Italy, some time in the late
1920s or early 1930s, in Naples she asked a local how to get to
"Garibaldi Square".  He didn't seem to understand her, even after a
few repetitions.  Eventually he lit up:  "Ah!  Garibaaaaldi!" -- and
gave her directions.  (Perhaps my mother had used the A of "ball".)

2)   In the 1980s I met a computer consultant bred in Wales, but
speaking received English, who had worked in Italy for several
years.  I asked him how, having grown up with Welsh, he got along in
Italian.  He replied, "In Wales, the consonants are important; in
Italy, the vowels."  (He was also able to turn a Welsh-accented
English on and off at will.)

Joel

At 7/26/2010 11:39 AM, Rick Barr wrote:
>The Economist's Johnson blog tackled this very subject (briefly) a few days
>ago. Here is the second of two postings about it:
>http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/07/language_and_thought_0

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