fluency while drunk

[Mike Cleven]

Linda Fink wrote:
>
> >A long time ago when I was in Siletz, I was told by a local that the best
> way to learn Chinook Jargon is when one is drunk. The reason given is,
> [that] is when the state of mind and the neural link to the speech center
> is in its most receptive modality to pronounce the strange sounds which
> accompany the constanants spoken in Chinook Jargon.

er, which are the consonants in Chinook; and it's not just the ability
to make 'new' sounds but to string words together and leave your English
thoughts behind, bravely mahshing your tumtums into the wawa... (!! now
how's that for pidginization?-)  Liquor/booze working on the speech
center obviously also affects comprehension/composition abilities as
well as sounds; and, I think, manner of delivery; imitation of the sound
environment of the language you're in; how it's said, sort of vocally
and verbally at once.  What the elder was saying is true about any
language, as seasoned travellers all know; your brain is looser and so's
your tongue.....


> I think it is because when you are drunk, you are less inhibited. My husband
> spoke wonderful Lao when we were in Laos ONLY after imbibing in the local
> rice beer. There were/are no odd sounds in Lao. But I'm not sure he learned
> Lao better drunk, he just recalled what he had learned and stored away in
> some inaccessible part of his brain -- until booze washed away the barrier.
> :-) Maybe there's a more scientific explanation. ;-)
>

Nope, that's pretty close to the mark, scientifically and even
culturally/historically.  A doctor commented to me once that alcohol
would almost be a valuable therapeutic tool, as it does provide insights
as well as remove inhibitions; but that you don't remember what you
learned/thought while drunk in the same way as if you realized it
through other means - i.e. including other drugs, states of mind
(fasting) as well as au naturel.  This is actually how I think I learned
French a la canuck, as the nationally-mandated 4 years of high school
courses had done me no good at al; when I finally learned to actually
speak/think was around a bunch of ex-quebecois friends in a BC skitown
(Whistler, which is still very French at the community level), and
generally in casual drinking or 'asheeshing; the first times I know I
ever expressed myself in French without thinking in/of English were
there; same with learning Spanish in Mexico, which had occurred before I
was able to manage French, even in Whistler; and all too easy in
shifting English dialects when drinking (or whatever) with Australians
or Dixie-ites or Scots or whatever.  There were often days in my SFU
years where, in fact, the history or philosophy prof would adjourn the
seminars to the pub, where a few (or many) drinks and whatever else were
imbibed to engage the debate more fully.  Booze, partying, socializing;
a valuable learning tool.......as well as the road to hell, as the
sordid ends of innumerable musicians, writers and artists over the
centuries serves to prove ;-)  Not that I'm condoning substance abuse
directly, of course; ...... but it's true that if you want to get
someone to talk about something, sitting them down and feeding them
booze to get them babbling probably works just about as good as
pentathol (truth serum) or e.  Language seems all about being in another
syntactic/phonlogical/lexical "groove", and whatever gets you groovin'
....

Many other drugs, including the psychiatric pharmacopaeia as well as the
recreational catalogue ;=| have varying properties of this kind and can
be/are used as such medically, recreationally - and creatively, as in
the long history of artists, writers and musicians with drinking and
other substance-abuse forms of inspiration; there is a reason why
Dionysos was both god of wine and of the passions of poetry, song, dance
and revelry......there's a huge mythic connection between myth and
language, and many mythologies have at least one kind of "wine of
inspiration" or other divine tonic, often with a direct connection, or
at least to speech and inspiration.  Knowledge of and intoxication by
poetry or song is also viewable as a certain language in and of itself,
the melding of sound and meaning into another way of communication than
ordinary speech.

Final thoughts after this ramble: I also think that drunken/iontoxicated
acquisiton of songs in another language has often helped me to come to
terms with that language; with the exception of Chinook I think this has
been the case with all the languages I've got half a handle on.

I've actually learned Chinook in the last few years (mostly) stone-cold
sober, on the other hand entirely......