The Lens of Language
Ever since I was a little girl, I have been fascinated with different languages. It began with German. My mom taught me simple words in that language of our ancestry, and I reveled in my knowledge of another tongue. She had some antique books written in German which, to my young mind, held beautiful mysteries of knowledge that were waiting to be unlocked, and which she promised to let me have as soon as I knew German. I was determined to master this language, so I developed a summer study program to teach myself German. While my self-study did not produce anything near fluency, it did inspire a further love of the language. When I entered high school, I began taking German classes where my knowledge of the language really began to come together. At the university, I continued my German studies and finally felt I had a solid grasp of simple German. A personal benchmark in my German progression was when I conversed in German with a group of tourists from Germany at Yellowstone. Few things are as gratifying as realizing that you have mastered a language enough to converse with native speakers.
Sometime during junior high or high school, it became my ardent dream to master Hebrew. I didn't attempt self-study this time but instead waited several years until, during my time at BYU, I was able to take Hebrew lessons from two men who had studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Through mastering the alphabet and writing simple words and sentences, I felt somehow connected to my ancient ancestors in the Bible who had used those same characters and words to communicate.
After my first year at BYU, I began working in a research lab. The graduate student with whom I researched hailed from Peru. And he spoke something like five languages. I was floored by that, and thought about all the knowledge and understanding of the world which Felix had available to him because of his fluency in several languages. He understood things I could not, because I only spoke English. I believe that language does, to a certain extent, define or restrict your thinking. It is difficult to express something which your language does not have words to convey, and we are often bound by the language tools available to us. It is my opinion that learning different languages helps you to overcome this limitation by increasing your tools of expression - a second language brings with it not only a new vocabulary, but new ideas, new connotations, and a new way of looking at the world. Language is something of a lens through which we view the world, and the more lenses we have, the more complete is our view. So with thoughts like these in mind and with Felix as my new-found hero, I went home and wrote down the languages I wanted to become fluent in during my life: Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese.
Russian never made that list. At least not until October 26, 2011 when I opened a mission call to Ukraine. Suddenly a language I'd never particularly wanted to learn had worked its way to the top of my list and shoved all my other language goals onto a backseat for 18 months. And as I've engaged in some pre-mission dabblings with the Russian language, I have fallen deeply and hopelessly in love with it. The letters of the Cyrillic alphabet are keys to unlock mysteries at least as exciting as those inside my mom's antique books. In those letters and words I see a whole new view of life opening up to me, and I can hardly wait to converse with some of the 145 million native Russian speakers.
I've discovered that learning a third language requires your brain to compartmentalize. When I learned German, my brain put those words, grammar, and ideas into the "Not English" folder, to be called upon only in situations where English was not wanted. As I began learning Hebrew, my brain understood that these new letters and ideas were not English, and so carefully placed them in the "Not English" brain section. I found that as I would try to construct Hebrew sentences, German words would dominate, despite the fact that I had not actively been studying German for some weeks - my brain knew that "not English" was wanted, and so pulled whatever words and ideas I needed from that section, even though it was Hebrew I actually desired. The divisions were not quite fully in place. And now as I've been looking a little bit at Russian, I've noticed the same phenomenon. As I try to construct Russian sentences, German, and sometimes Hebrew, words will pop up, ready to fill their place and supply their meanings. This sometimes results in interesting sentences, such as "Ani will getovet," a mash-up between Hebrew, German, and Russian meaning "I want to cook." But hopefully enough exposure to and use of the language will train my brain to create a new compartment just for the Russian.
And by the time I'm old, hopefully my brain will have five or six such compartments, each one containing a different language, which, all together, will grant me a richer and more developed understanding of the world than my current two-compartment system.
Sometime during junior high or high school, it became my ardent dream to master Hebrew. I didn't attempt self-study this time but instead waited several years until, during my time at BYU, I was able to take Hebrew lessons from two men who had studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Through mastering the alphabet and writing simple words and sentences, I felt somehow connected to my ancient ancestors in the Bible who had used those same characters and words to communicate.
After my first year at BYU, I began working in a research lab. The graduate student with whom I researched hailed from Peru. And he spoke something like five languages. I was floored by that, and thought about all the knowledge and understanding of the world which Felix had available to him because of his fluency in several languages. He understood things I could not, because I only spoke English. I believe that language does, to a certain extent, define or restrict your thinking. It is difficult to express something which your language does not have words to convey, and we are often bound by the language tools available to us. It is my opinion that learning different languages helps you to overcome this limitation by increasing your tools of expression - a second language brings with it not only a new vocabulary, but new ideas, new connotations, and a new way of looking at the world. Language is something of a lens through which we view the world, and the more lenses we have, the more complete is our view. So with thoughts like these in mind and with Felix as my new-found hero, I went home and wrote down the languages I wanted to become fluent in during my life: Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese.
Russian never made that list. At least not until October 26, 2011 when I opened a mission call to Ukraine. Suddenly a language I'd never particularly wanted to learn had worked its way to the top of my list and shoved all my other language goals onto a backseat for 18 months. And as I've engaged in some pre-mission dabblings with the Russian language, I have fallen deeply and hopelessly in love with it. The letters of the Cyrillic alphabet are keys to unlock mysteries at least as exciting as those inside my mom's antique books. In those letters and words I see a whole new view of life opening up to me, and I can hardly wait to converse with some of the 145 million native Russian speakers.
I've discovered that learning a third language requires your brain to compartmentalize. When I learned German, my brain put those words, grammar, and ideas into the "Not English" folder, to be called upon only in situations where English was not wanted. As I began learning Hebrew, my brain understood that these new letters and ideas were not English, and so carefully placed them in the "Not English" brain section. I found that as I would try to construct Hebrew sentences, German words would dominate, despite the fact that I had not actively been studying German for some weeks - my brain knew that "not English" was wanted, and so pulled whatever words and ideas I needed from that section, even though it was Hebrew I actually desired. The divisions were not quite fully in place. And now as I've been looking a little bit at Russian, I've noticed the same phenomenon. As I try to construct Russian sentences, German, and sometimes Hebrew, words will pop up, ready to fill their place and supply their meanings. This sometimes results in interesting sentences, such as "Ani will getovet," a mash-up between Hebrew, German, and Russian meaning "I want to cook." But hopefully enough exposure to and use of the language will train my brain to create a new compartment just for the Russian.
And by the time I'm old, hopefully my brain will have five or six such compartments, each one containing a different language, which, all together, will grant me a richer and more developed understanding of the world than my current two-compartment system.
Brilliant post! I've thought about this many times, too. George Orwell presented the interesting idea in 1984 that language could be manipulated to restrict the kinds of thoughts people can think (something you mentioned). That's always fascinated me.
ReplyDeleteLearning new languages does indeed open your mind to new ways of thinking about the world. It's a very rewarding activity. Don't lose your German or Hebrew while you pick up Russian! (That's unfortunately what happened to me when I learned Dutch. But maybe your three languages are distinct enough that you won't have that problem.)