languages

[aryanhwy]

This morning when I had to run to the store to get flour so we could make our usual Sunday morning waffles, the lady behind me at the checkout asked if she could borrow my bonus card, and I understood what she was asking. I didn't have the presence of mind to respond "no, sorry" in Dutch instead of in English, but I've noticed recently that there have been a lot more times when someone says something to me in Dutch, and I know what they're saying. For example, at the market yesterday, we bought some cheese, and Joel handed over €5, and the guy asked if we had anything smaller (the word in Dutch for 'small' sounds identical with the German one, so that made it easier to identify). And a telemarketer called a few weeks ago and asked to speak to Mrs. Uckelman, and again, I could tell that's what she was saying and respond correctly, even if I responded in English. (Side note about telemarketers in Amsterdam. First of all, more than 90% of the telemarkters we get are for newspaper subscriptions. The other 10% are usually for other phone services. But it's amazing. The people from the newspapers, once I've said both that I only speak English and that I don't read Dutch, apologize for taking up my time, wish me a good evening, and say goodbye. It's mind-boggling. I haven't had to hang up on a telemarketer yet. They're so polite and so not pushy!).

Since we don't actually spend that much time among people who are speaking Dutch, I'm a bit surprised (and a bit pleased) at how much we've been able to pick up in terms of being able to understand what's being spoken to us. I've been thinking about it, and there's a clear difference between learning a spoken language which you use in certain contexts and, say, translating a written document. With Dutch, there is actually a rather limited number of possible things which could be said to us at any time - "do you want a bag", "do you want anything else", "do you have the right change", "can I borrow your bonus card", etc. In a sense, then, hearing Dutch and knowing what's being said is rather like the translation of recipes that we've been doing - there's a limited number of plausible things, and if you hear the right word, you can guess the rest.

Translating Latin, on the other hand, even while there is a fairly narrow scope to the text I'm working with, I can't just latch on to words that I recognize because of their English cognates, and put them together into something that sounds plausible. I have to actually translate each word, noting the grammatical endings, connecting up the right adjectives with the right nouns, correctly identifying the subject, etc. I know that as I do more, I won't have to keep writing down the conjugation info for each word, I'll be able to identify it immediately, but the conjugation info will still be necessary in order to know I have a correct translation. The approaches between how I'm learning (or re-learning) the two languages are quite distinct - I've learned basically no Dutch grammar at all yet, and yet that hasn't kept me from beginning to understand things. I suppose that I'm learning Dutch in a way much more similar to how a young child would.

On the topic of languages, I never realized how much "in demand" Joel and I would be in the ILLC as native speakers. There's only three of us Ph.D. students from the U.S., and Brian isn't often in his office. There are a few master's students from Canada or the UK, but they're off on a different floor, so usually people come to us - for meanings of words, for correct use of the article, for "does this sound right to you" questions. In Segerberg's seminar on Friday, he reminded us that there's no class next week because Good Friday is a national holiday (the university and probably lots of other things will be closed), and he wished as a .... and he wasn't sure if it was Merry Easter or Happy Easter or something else altogether. Joel and I, and Caroline and Jonathan who are from England, all confirmed that it was indeed "Happy". "Merry" doesn't seem right for anything other than "Christmas". All these things which are second nature to us are all little grammar fiddly bits for other people.

Mmm, I think the waffles are about ready!

Comments

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

Your thoughts on Dutch are really interesting, as I'm having exactly the same experience with Icelandic. Once you've got a couple of important words you can get a lot of the general meaning from the context. I too have pretty much got the shopping phrases - 'would you like a bag' and so forth - sorted but my knowledge of grammer is minimal as well.

I gather that Dutch, like Icelandic, is one of those languages where you can go into a bar and they expect you just to say 'Beer' rather than 'May I have a beer please?' It's amazing how many of the locals just go into shops and name the item they want, nothing more. My inner polite Englishwoman is shocked and horrified at this apparent rudeness, but it's the norm here.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I think, at least here in Amsterdam, people in most stores and restaurants and things expect English about as much as they expect Dutch - in fact, the only place where I've had trouble trying to purchase something using English is the apothecary, where one or two of the younger clerks aren't that fluent. I haven't been out of the city enough to know whether that's the case in some of the smaller towns. But I do also think what you said would probably also be accepted here - to just name the item you want. We try to save our receipts so we can keep track of budgeting, and occassionally at the grocery store the checker doesn't automatically give it to us, and then I can usually just say "bonn?" (as opposed to whatever the Dutch for "may I have my receipt?" is) and she'll give it to me.

I had a tremendously fun time with the streetnames when we were in Reykjavik for our honeymoon - my knowledge of given names and bynames from the Landnamabok was good enough that I could read virtually every street name!

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

OTOH, I gather that the customary phrase in the UK can also be "Happy Xmas", but I'm sort of a spectator to that holiday.

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

Here's a bit of trivia about Latin that may or may not help. Even written Latin was a spoken language. Evidence suggests that Romans always read aloud, never "to themselves" as we do today in almost all of our cultures.

I guess my point is -- given what you describe above, you may have an easier time if you hear the Latin, rather than just reading it. Different neural pathways and all that.

(Of course, on the other hand, there's also a fair amount of evidence that written Latin is almost an "artificial" language. Romans didn't converse like that, which is one reason why most Romance languages don't retain Latin's complexities).

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but the Latin used by the 13th and 14th century logicians was in many cases *extremely* artificial - to the point where the grammarians and non-logicians often made fun of them, and called their writings nonsense.

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

Interesting. That, I didn't know! And it didn't occur to me (tho' it should have) that you were struggling to translate something mediaeval rather than something classical. :-)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Yup. It's a 13th-C (we think - the author isn't known, but the two best guesses are both 13th-C authors) treatise aimed at non-Christians (i.e., Jews and Muslims) attempting to prove in a geometrical fashion the truths of Christianity. The whole idea of providing axioms, definitions, and proofs for these things is fascinating, and right up my alley in terms of connecting logic and theology.

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

I'd think that was a silly idea, but a similar book exists from a similar time period attempting to "defend" Judaism. Ha-Kuzari: A Defense of the Despised Faith -- the author's title, not mine -- purports to be a record of the conversation that took place between the King of the Khazars and a rabbi that led to the Khazar conversion to Judasim. The conversion of the Khazar nobility, at least, is an established fact, but the document is of course not an actual record of the conversation, but merely uses that conceit as an expository excuse :-).

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read about Ha-Kuzari in one of the overview books I read recently. There were quite a few attempts (naturally!) to use reason to demonstrate truths of faith, by the Christians, Muslims, and Jews, but what's sort of unique about the text I'm working through is that the author isn't just coming up with arguments for the truth of certain propositions, but is trying to show that the Catholic faith can be thought of as a 'science' in terms of the Aristotelian definition of 'science'. It's a remarkable task to attempt in 25 pages!