I’ve been a Dane living in England for about 12 years now. I
love living here and have almost gotten rid of my accent, but not quite. People
get a confused look on their face and ask “Where are you from?”
I tell them and they invariably assure me that I speak the
language very well. It used to bug me as I thought “Obviously not well enough
to fool you.” But now I like the opportunity to talk about languages and
origins. It’s an easy way to share something with a stranger.
English people (who are not multilingual) usually adopt one
of two approaches. They applaud my language skills and then either show regret
that they don’t know more than one language themselves, or they laugh that they
don’t know more than one language pointing out that they were born with the “right”
one.
I casually comment that I don’t think they know how much they
miss by not having two languages and that once you’ve learned two, the third
and fourth are so much easier and that it can vastly improve your command of
your own language. Then we invariably move on to other subjects mainly because
it sounds like I’m lecturing at this point, but really I’m just trying to share
something interesting. I'll indulge myself here.
The Spoon Analogy
Imagine that you had only ever seen and owned one spoon. It’s
a very good spoon; in fact it is a tea spoon in silver, an heirloom from your
grandma. It has filigree on the handle and a little porcelain inset. It is
perfectly weighted and extremely useful. You know this spoon so well.
You know what it weighs in your hand, how much it can hold, what sound it makes
when banged on glass, wood, or a little brass bell.
Since you have never seen another spoon, everything about it
defines what a spoon is; the colour, the length, the material, the shape, the
taste, the texture.
Now along comes someone else and hand you another spoon. It
is very different from your own; it looks like a wooden ladle more than
anything. The guy says it’s a spoon, but you have trouble believing him. It’s
not gray, it’s not cold to the touch, the shape is all wrong and the sound it
makes pathetic.
But the guy insists and he has credentials, so you make an
effort to include it in your definition of spoon. By comparing the two you
begin to understand what makes a spoon a spoon. It has a handle to hold on to,
but the length doesn’t matter, it has a bowl of some sort to hold liquid, but
the bowl can be deep or shallow, oval, round or even square.
The pattern of
similarities between your two spoons begins to make sense, and suddenly you are
in a position to judge what purpose your spoon best serves. The size of your
tea spoon is rather more convenient for carrying around and for stirring a delicate
teacup; the wooden ladle opens up different opportunities, though. Suddenly
eating soup doesn’t have to take an hour before you’re full, but you now have
to be careful because the new spoon retains the heat of the soup rather better.
When another person comes along with a third spoon – this one
is made of blue silicone and has a thermometer in the handle – you will not
only recognise it for a spoon, but immediately understand in which situations
this spoon would serve your better. It slots right into your now vastly
improved definition of a spoon.
Knowing more than one language shows you a lot about how
people categorize and comprehend things in general, not just how languages are
made. It affords you a peep at the matrix of our brains, and different trends
and patterns in another language give you some understanding about the culture
it evolved in. I think it is fascinating.
This is why I shake my head when people giggle at a last
name like Koch, but can’t understand why I would find the word “foxing” – a term
describing paper discolouration – amusing. See the difference?
