Abuse of pragmatics: I've noticed an evolution in business greetings. When someone from another company comes to meet with us, they almost always say "Nice to see you" when they shake my hand, even if I've never met them before. This is pretty clever; there's nothing spelled out in that phrase that indicates we've met before, so even if we haven't it's not a strong enough contradiction to question them.
My next language learning project is going to be a kind of breadth-first search, learning roughly the same small amount of several languages before choosing one to take further. For each one I aim to learn: phonetics and reasonable pronunciation skills, basic structure and grammar, and a limited vocabulary (<300 words). The focus is on languages with non-Roman alphabets and ones with a lot of words lent to English, and ones that I think are cool. The list: Icelandic, Welsh, Russian, Modern Greek, Arabic, Korean, Italian...and maybe Portuguese. Time for each will be two weeks to one month. The challenge is to retain what I learn about each one and actually get my head into it, to find the place where a language starts to make sense as a way to communicate. Relaxing the stated time periods is probably preferable as a compromise to failing in that goal.
Sneeze Update: I happened to finally start reading The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language yesterday and serendipitously found on page 10 a note about sneeze protocols the world over. In Malagasy, which seems to be the language of Madagascar, one says velona 'alive.' In Mende, of Sierra Leone, one thanks the sneezer with biseh. In Tonga a sneeze is taken as a sign that a loved one is missing you, and the sneezer says Ikai ke nofo noa mua! 'Not to be nothing, alas', meaning it's a shame that the loved one is thinking about the sneezer, when it would be better were they thinking about nothing at all. I can hardly wait to baffle the coworkers with this foisonous pronouncement. Here's a page with an extensive discussion of Islamic opinions of sneezing and yawning. From the page: "The Jews used to intentionally sneeze in the presence of the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) hoping that he would say to them: `Yarhamukum-ullah (may Allah have mercy on you),' but he would respond with: "Yahdikum-ullahu wa yuslihu balakum (may Allah guide you and render sound your state of affairs).'" Scandalous!
Comments (6)
as one who has formally studied 5 languages, a response to your proposed list of languages:
Icelandic: Why?
Welsh: I like Welsh and Wales, but again the applications are limited.
Russian: Tough but worthwhile if you have an interest in the country.
Modern Greek: useful if youre into the classics, shouldnt be too hard
Arabic: extremely useful, marketable even. the best alphabet. one of the more international languages (even through Africa and Asia)
Korean: good if your interested in korea i guess, but tough im sure
Italian: easy for spanish speakers (dont know about french), but a nice language if you plan on going to Italy
Portuguese: again, easy for spanish speakers. Good if you have interest in Brazil
August 30, 2004 9:19 PM
The whole usefulness/marketability question is not a factor for me in the way it seems to be for most everyone. For me what matters are the little moments of unexpected recognition and understanding, such as overheard conversations, or identifying less than accurate translations, or of course connecting with people. It's true those moments will occur less often with less common languages, but each one will also be more rewarding because of it, so it all evens out in the end.
So, Icelandic because it's cool, and I could talk to Bjork!
September 1, 2004 1:27 PM
Jay, you didnt even watch Bjork sing at the olympics!
You'll have a lot more "moments of unexpected recognition" picking a common language like Arabic or Korean, seems to me.
The number of times you'll hear people speaking Greek, Icelandic, or, god lord!, Welsh in Manhattan in a years time-frame will be nil, i betcha!
September 1, 2004 7:30 PM
I like this breadth-first approach. I've been doing that informally for years, but it seems like a good approach given my attention span. I hope you don't mind my taking a cue from you.
September 2, 2004 4:37 PM
breadth is fine. untill you have reason for depth, whats the point?
September 2, 2004 6:39 PM
I wanted to give you the low-down on the reason for saying "Velona!" after someone sneezes in Madagascar. You're right on- the language of the 4th largest island in the world is called Malagasy. I went to visit my friend who was a Peace Corps volunteer there, so she spoke 'Gasy fluently. Prounounced "Vey-loon-ah," this is an order to live- people there believe that the spirit escapes when a person sneezes, so this is a demand that the spirit re-enter the sneezer. People in Mada also believe, like many in Togo, that a sneeze is evidence of the sneezer being missed.
August 24, 2007 8:23 PM