LL-L "Language memory" 2004.01.26 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 26.FEB.2004 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting Address: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
=======================================================================

From: Mike WINTZER <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: LL-L "Sociolinguistics" 2004.01.24 (02) [E]

Ron wrote

> A professor I once had grew up in the sort of household in which children
do
> not have a very close relationships with their parents, practically
visiting
> them on a regular basis.  He was born in Manchuria.  His father was a
> Tsarist Russian diplomat of German descent, and his mother was Finnish
(born
> under Russian occupation of Finland).  He always told us that his first
> language was Finnish and that he only learned Russian after he and his
> mother had been evacuated to St. Petersburg.  Russian then became his
first
> language, though he continued using Finnish and also learned German from
> relatives.  It was only when we were taking turns watching at his deathbed
> when he was in his late 90s that we came to the conclusion that his first
> language was Mandarin, though he had not known any Chinese as an adult.
In
> his dying dilerium he kept speaking Mandarin in a child's manner.  It
turned
> out that he had been cared for by a Chinese nanny in his toddler years,
but
> by the time he was about school-entry age he was unable to communicate
with
> that nanny during a visit to Manchuria ...  So, what would we call
Mandarin
> and Finnish in this case?
>
> Regards,
> Reinhard/Ron

Dear Lowlanders,
This is the most fascinating example of a multi-lingual person I came across
in all your discussions. To me it borders on witchcraft. A person completely
lost a language, at a very young age at that, yet was able to pronounce it
in
dilirium. If this person was really unable to communicate in Mandarin
already
at age of ~6 and was never exposed to it after that, the question arises,
what does
"losing a language" really mean.
In this context, I´d like to contribute a few examples I know personally,
for what
they are worth:
1. Recipee for language loss: A colleague of mine with his wife,
both German, move to France with their 3 young children.
The kids start school. After less than a year begins phase A:
A, the kids start using French at home when talking to each other.
Phase B: The kids start addressing the parents in French.
Phase C: Instead of playing deaf, the parents respond, in German.
Phase D: The parents start responding in French.
When these children were teenagers they couldn´t speak a word
of German and could understand it only with great difficulty.
2. With this discouraging example in mind, I undertook to raise
bi-lingual children (DE/RU). This appeared to succeed as illustrated by the
following scene: The child, about one or two, gazes out the window
and when a parent enters, he shouts LUNA, LUNA! Realizing it´s
the other parent, he immediately corrects himself and shouts
MOHN, MOHN. At age 3 he attends a Dutch kindergarten,
but in 6 months doesn´t pronounce a single word of Dutch.
He then moves to France and eventually attends school with
his younger sister. Today, at age 9 and 7, their dominant
language is French, and it needs constant self-discipline
not to allow phase B creeping in. I think in our case this
is particularly difficult, because paternal and maternal
languages are DIFFERENT, and different again from
the parents´ communication language (English).
3. I met a man in the US who reported that he vividly,
and to much colorful detail, remembers the fairytales
that his grandma used to tell him when he was between
3 and 6 - in Polish. He came to the States at age of 7,
and the grown-up he was when I met him, claimed that
Polish was complete gibberish to him. With Ron´s example
in mind, it would be interesting to test such a person,
with methods giving access to the unconscious (hypnosis?)
to get a handle on the question I posed above:
What does "losing" a language really mean?
Tschüs, Mike Wintzer

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net>
Subject: Language memory

Thanks, Mike.

Personally, I do not think that one really loses a language one had once
learned well or was exposed to, especially if this happened under the age
of, say, 20.  The simplistic way I see it is that we compartmentalize
languages, just as we also compartmentalize style, jargon, etc.

At least the fundamentals of a given language, allocated to one of the
"compartments," remain (though some "superficial" details may be forgotten).
So, according to this it is not so much a question of losing a language but
of accessing an already compartmentalized language.  If one of the "doors"
has not been opened for a really long time, the lock and the hinges may be
totally rusty, and you must make a real effort to pry open the door.

In any case, most people that know more than one language will tell you that
it's the *switching* from one language to the other (code switching) that is
the skill to be acquired and exercised.  We have discussed this here before.

I know people that know more than one language really well but have the
hardest time switching from one to the other.  When I get a call from
Germany, say early in the morning, waking me up, I have switching problems
from English between German and Lowlands Saxon (Low German).  This can last
for the duration of an entire call or for just for a few seconds, depending
on levels of preparedness and alertness.  On the other hand, it happens
occasionally that if I have a conversation in language A and I or the other
person mention a name or phrase in language B (which I can speak), this will
trigger a switch in my brain and I will continue speaking in language B.  I
consider these "switching problems."  When I lived in Israel I would
sometimes switch between four or five languages in a multilingual work
situation, and I would have no problems whatsoever, because I was so
accustomed to switch between those particular languages.  Just seeing or
thinking of a certain person would trigger use of the language I normally
spoke with that person.  (This goes with what you, Mike, said about "Luna!"
vs "Mond!")  On the other hand, one day someone introduced a visitor from
Denmark to me, knowing that I could speak (at that time passable) Danish,
and I could hardly string a single Danish sentence together.  Instead, the
last learned language (Hebrew) kept elbowing the Danish out of the way.  So
there seems to be a layering thing going on as well.

When I started using Lowlands Saxon again (after many years of not doing so
and not even hearing or reading it) I regained it after making an effort for
just a few weeks.  At one point it was as though the door had finally given
up its resistance, and the language came flooding back, including idiomatic
expressions I had not heard since childhood.

I think what happened with that professor was that in his dilirium (and
extreme pain) he mentally retreated to an early childhood stage of his life.
The fact that he was complaining like a child talking to a caretaker
(apparently his nanny) seems to corroborate this theory.  I am pretty sure
that this can be done under hypnosis also.  In fact, I know this for a fact,
now that I think of it.

Sometimes a certain word or phrase will bring back to my conscious mind a
song or rhyme I had last heard as a child, even at pre-school age.  I find
that this happens more often the older I get -- which is another interesting
topic (that is only indirectly language-relaed).

So, no I don't think we truly lose languages or any other mental skills, but
I do believe we temporarily lose the skill of accessing them.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.: Bear in mind that apparently one only ever utilizes a small fraction
of one's brain's capacity ...

================================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================