How we get our heads round languages

[FarCenter]

On the occasion of International Mother Language Day on Sunday, swissinfo.ch spoke to Jean-Marie Annoni, of the neuropsychology unit at the Geneva University Hospital, who has been working on the subject of language acquisition for several years.

Switzerland has four national languages – German, French, Italian and Romansh – so multilingual ability is not unusual. Many Swiss are fluent in at least two – and English is being increasingly used as a lingua franca.

swissinfo.ch: Research has shown that bilingual people do not necessarily use more space in their brains to store two languages.

Jean-Marie Annoni: That’s right. The two languages are superimposed in the brain, and there are all sorts of “switches” which enable you to move from one language to the other. They are mental control mechanisms, similar to those we use in other brain activities.

But there is a slight difference. In “natural” or early bilinguals , the two languages are strongly interlocked. But if you learn the second language later, it uses the same structures but sometimes it needs to call on a bit more space when you speak it.

swissinfo.ch: Is it really possible to be perfectly bilingual, or do people always tend to be better at one language than the other?

J.-M.A.: Some people are born with two languages: they speak one with one parent and the second with the other. They can be perfectly bilingual. But as they grow up, they will probably start to prefer one language – the one they use at school or the one they work in.

In any case, they will develop slightly different areas of proficiency in each language. For example, they might be better in the professional environment at the language they speak at work, and perhaps better for more intimate things in the language they speak at home.


<SNIP>http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/How_we_get_our_heads_round_languages_.html?cid=8335304

[niyad]

1. international mother language day observances

International Mother Language Day




International Mother Language Day originated as the international recognition of Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) since 1952, when a number of Dhaka university students were killed by the Pakistani police and army in Dhaka during the Bengali Language Movement.

International Mother Language Day is observed yearly by UNESCO member states and at its headquarters to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

Contents
1 History
2 Annual themes
3 International observances
4 References
5 See also
6 External links


History
Main article: Bengali Language Movement
On 21 March 1948, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Governor general of Pakistan, declared that Urdu would be the only official language for both West and East Pakistan. The people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), whose main language is Bengali, started to protest against this. On 21 February 1952, (8 Falgun 1359 in the Bengali calendar), students in the present day capital city of Dhaka called for a provincial strike. The government invoked a limited curfew to prevent this and the protests were tamed down so as to not break the curfew. The Pakistani police fired on the students despite these peaceful protests and a number of students were killed <2>.

Annual themes
The observances of International Year of Languages tend to have a theme, indicated either in the formal program set for observance at UNESCO headquarters, or more explicitly in the publicity.<3>

2000, Inaugural celebration of International Mother Language Day
2001, Second annual celebration
2002, Linguistic Diversity: 3,000 Languages in Danger (slogan: In the galaxy of languages, every word is a star)
2003, Fourth annual celebration
2004, Children's learning (the observance at UNESCO included "a unique exhibition of children’s exercise books from around the world illustrating the process by which children learn and master the use of written literacy skills in the classroom"<4>)
2005, Braille and Sign languages
2006, Languages and Cyberspace
2007, Multilingual education
2008, International Year of Languages
2009,
2010, International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures
International observances

International Mother Language Day Monument, Ashfield Park, Sydney, Australia. Unveiling ceremony, 19-Feb-2006The Linguapax Prize is presented annually on International Mother Language Day.
UNESCO sets the theme for each International Mother Language Day and holds related events at its headquarters in Paris on or around 21 February each year.
In 2008, the International Year of Languages was formally launched on International Mother Language Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day

[AsahinaKimi]

2. I have a lovely friend ..she speaks 5 langugaes..

She grew up in Hong Kong, so she learned Cantonese and Mandarin. Her Grandparents lived in South Korea, so when She visited them in the Summers she spoke Korean. Her Mother was born in Japan and taught her to speak Japanese, so when she would visit her other grandparents she spoke Japanese. When she moved to the United States she learned English.(To her, she said the hardest of the languages, perhaps because she didn't learn it as a child..but learned it later in life, or ..maybe as some people say, English is very difficult.)

I envy that she can contain 5 fluent Languages in her head and can write them as well. She has to be very brilliant!!!!

My dad came from Osaka Japan and speaks fluent Kansai bin, which is a dialect of Japanese. My mother speaks Basic Japanese, but she was also an English Teacher.

So when I grew up, I only heard a spattering of Japanese and mostly English. I have since gone back to school to improve my Japanese language skills. Perhaps one day my dad will teach me Kansai bin.

[Art_from_Ark]

18. O-tohsan ga Kansai-ben shabetteharu?

Omoroi yanke

[AsahinaKimi]

23. chichi wa Oosaka de unmaremashita.

He was born in Osaka. I have asked him for lessons but he told me I have to get better in standard Japanese first.

[Art_from_Ark]

27. O-tohsan ga Osaka de umarete,

Nihongo (Kansai ben) shabetteharu noni, anata to Nihongo shabette-mahenka? O-kinodoku yade.

[AsahinaKimi]

28. daijyoubu

Nihongo ga moto jozu ni naritai desu. Kotoshi Sanfuranshisuko de Gakkō kaerimasu. Watashi ni totte, Nihongo wa ichiban tanosii desu ne! tanoshimi ni shite imasu.


Tonikaku osoi desu kara , ikimasu, Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu. Jya ne!

[Art_from_Ark]

30. Oyasumi-nasai

ここは、昼間ですよ。

とにかく、日本語の勉強に頑張ってネ。

[AsahinaKimi]

31. arigatou! Gambarimasu!!!!!!

Jyaa!

[niyad]

3. it is a source of bewilderment to me that, in this country, with so many cretins and their

"english only" meme, that so few of them can actually speak or write their mother tongue well. Surely they should be able to demonstrate at least as much proficiency in the language as I, who am not native to these shores, do. most of my friends in europe are quite multi-lingual, and tend to look askance at many american speakers.

[FarCenter]

4. In international settings, Americans are often the most difficult to understand

Since "English" is their mother tongue, they use sequences of sentence fragments, colloquialisms, slang terms, complicated sentences, and allusions to American or English culture.

Considerable coaching is needed to get them to speak simple complete sentences using the standard vocabulary.

[niyad]

6. pathetic, isn't it?

[Igel]

20. What's pathetic?

Most Americans speak English as their native language, and speak their native language like other people with other native languages speak theirs.

A native speaker knows how to use real world and cultural knowledge to communicate, they understand how ellipsis works in their language, they understand the different styles and registers used in their native language and where each is appropriate (when where violating the norm is appropriate).

This is true for English and Russian, Putonghua and Black Tai, for Malayalam and Czech, for Soqotri and Tigrinya and Afrikaans and Garifuna.

As I just got done telling some students last week, we all know how to speak English. And we know that when we're talking to a prospective employer, our teachers in "Language Arts" class, our infants, our lovers during sex, to our buddies while having a drink, and to the cashier at the local store we don't speak the same way. Our phonology is different, the range of phonetic variation is different, the choice of grammar, sentence length, what information we need to make explicit and what information was can leave out or leave implicit, grammatical complexity and word choice all vary. And vary systematically and predictably--based not only on context, but also based on native dialect, the range of registers and styles that each speaker has mastered or been exposed to.

Yet I keep hearing prescriptivists trying to say that there's a narrow range of stylistic variation and only one register for English, codified for fairly formal settings and based entirely on one dialect out of the richness that language spread and change has provided to English, that counts as "true" English. Why? Because the descriptions of how language is spoken by native speakers are very, very complex, and most prescriptivists would rather dictate conformity rather than understand how language actually works.

Pathetic, isn't it?

The problem is that people who aren't used to using a language with language learners don't recognize this as a style. I found that people who spoke Czech, Russian, Spanish, French, Serbian and Polish who had interacted for a while with people learning those languages were much, much easier to understand than people who hadn't. Similarly, having interacted with ELLs for a while I found that I spoke differently with people with English as their L2 than my parents did. Just as my mother never mastered the register of English appropriate for discussing matters with a Board of Directors, so she never mastered the sensitivity needed to understand when she was speaking over the heads of ELLs. It's a skill like any other, and doesn't indicate a cognitive or morale insufficiency.

It certainly doesn't help that we have this horrible idea that people from other countries all have learned English; and it doesn't help that we don't recognize that English varies markedly from context to context and that ELLs are not typically exposed to a great variety of contexts. It doesn't help that English tends to have a more informal style than is often taught abroad. And it certainly doesn't help that language learners tend to port over their registers (since they tend to be culture-specific) to their new language. For example, I find it hard to be sufficiently formal in many settings in Russian. (Yes, I just said that the problem is partly native speakers' and partly language learners'.)

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Rather than being ashamed of knowing only one language, they revel in their ignorance.

I am in awe of the many Europeans I know who are multilingual. It is an amazing gift.

[niyad]

8. I grew up in a multi-lingual world, and hearing multiple languages is usual for me. when I hear

people whining when others are speaking in languages they do not understand, it always amuses me, since they are convinced that the others are talking about them (can we say conceited? arrogant? self-absorbed?)

the stories posted here on DU about the businesses (one in AZ, one in CT, where the owners have the vapors about languages other than english being spoken by their employees, just amazed me. such provincialism is hard to fathom.

[AsahinaKimi]

16. Omg.. your mention of people being upset

I have heard that so many times in a chat room, where if two people are speaking a language other then English, the people who dislike it think they are the subject of that conversation!!!

Its like, " OH! They must be talking about us!!" .. I had that happen to me. I was speaking to someone in a chat room in Japanese and this guy told us to "Shut up and Speak English! We don't want you talking about us behind our backs!"

Talk about, as you said conceited? arrogant? self-absorbed?

Some one else asked.."Do you think they were Spies?"
pff, wth is wrong with people??

[annabanana]

5. I find study in this field fascinating.

Knowing that different languages wire brains differently, so that "thinking in English" isn't the same, physically as "thinking in French", for instance tickles MY neurons.

[depakid]

9. I rather miss living in a multi-lingual country

Unlike a lot of folks in the states, I enjoyed having the opportunity to hear, speak and read Spanish.

[Common Sense Party]

11. What Spanish-speaking country is multilingual? (Other than Spain)

I find the U.S. to be far more multilingual than any place in Latin America.

[depakid]

12. My old haunts west of Portland, Oregon were strongly bilingual- though I could have learned

and practiced Hindi, Russian or an Asian language with comparative ease.

[Igel]

21. Many have largish linguistic minorities.

Most are busy extirpating their minority language speakers, but not all. And in some countries--like those in the Andes--Aymara and Quechua are doing just fine.

Mexico and Guatemala has a number of areas where Spanish has strong competition, just not usually in official discourse. Chile has the same feature. I think that Paraguay is officially bilingual, Spanish/Guarani.

Argentina used to have German and Italian as immigrant languages.

Most of the time, however, immigrant languages have died out and smaller indigenous languages are endangered. They're spoken by people in specific areas and once they migrate to other parts of the country their speakers need to learn the more common language for public discourse. To some extent it's actually harder in countries with a variety of languages because it's easier for speakers from a bunch of small languages to learn a common standard language than it is for everybody to learn everybody else's.

[KonaKane]

25. Mexico

Outside of Spanish, you'll find Nahuatl (the modern version of the Aztec's language), Mixtec, and almost a hundred other indigenous languages.

[Common Sense Party]

26. Are they widely seen, heard and used by a significant part of the

population? Or are they restricted to small ethnic enclaves and/or rarely heard outside the home?

[KonaKane]

29. Depends. Nahuatl is used in many pockets of the culture,

in various regions. Even up into California. Other indigenous tongues, probably less so.

But you asked what over Spanish speaking nation was multilingual. I was simply answering your question. On top of that, many South American nations are multilingual with indigenous tongues.

[KonaKane]

10. Multilingualism is a sign of intelligence and intellectual curiosity

Two things that scare the 'baggers absolutely to death.

[Igel]

22. There are two kinds of multilingualism.

There's the intellectual vanity or curiosity kind, in which you learn French or Greek or whatever for the purposes of reading stuff that you could read just as well in translation or for the purpose of showing off or being sufficiently "cultured". Lots of Russians in the 19th century learned French, for instance, in order to speak to other Russians who had also learned French to be able to speak to Russians. They didn't actually run into many foreigners. Even Pushkin, sort of the Russian national poet, mostly had French as his home language and he wrote some stories in the language.

Typically unless there's a cultural commitment to using that sort of second language, some sort of prestige attached to knowing and using it, it's a sort of an intellectual decoration, something you can say you studied and something that quickly atrophies through disuse. It's the Spanish I learned in high school. No Spanish speakers in evidence, I learned it for the sake of learning it.

Then there's the far more common variety of multilingualism, the pragmatic, non-intellectual/non-curious kind of multilingualism. Your exogamous tribe is 1000 people, adjacent to 5 other tribes of 1000 people. You trade with them, your wife will be one of them, you interact with them, you learn their language or languages. Language is a tool: you learn how to count, you learn how to add, you learn how to use a hammer, you learn how to make rope, you learn how to speak the language of the next village over or of the central government or the population that you've just immigrated into. You learn it because you need it to communicate and you retain it because you need to communicate in it. This kind of bilingualism accounts for most of human bilingualism in the past and today.

But confusing the two kind of bilingualism doesn't make a lot of sense. You don't learn to use a hammer out of intellectual curiosity--although you certainly could--and you don't consider somebody who doesn't know how to use a lathe to be stupid (although that's also certainly possible). Most Americans have no need of an L2 or using a lathe. That puts most language learning in the US in the first category, with the same consequence as seen abroad. Most ELLs I've met abroad I've met in circumstances where other Americans would find themselves; this gave the locals good reason to learn English and ample need to use it. When I've wandered out into monolingual environments I've run into far more people who studied and forgot English than who remembered it, exceptions being those who had a use for English or who were preparing for a job that required it. To be honest, most were going to be sales clerks or entry-level business people. No great intellectual curiosity there.

You'd think that immigration into the US would make language learning more useful. But most immigrants that don't know and try to know English stay in a kind of linguistic ghetto; those who exit the ghetto and come into contact with English speakers tend to know some English and are trying to learn more. Those who don't know English typically don't have anything to say that the average American needs to know. And when it comes to learning the immigrant's language, while Spanish is more common it varies--so if you go through the bother of learning immigrant's language you get to just go with the local majority immigrant language and slight the others, or you find that your second language isn't very useful (for the most part). Moreover, over time, your L2 becomes less useful as immigrants assimilate to English. Most immigrants are motivated to learn English, so while I *could* talk to my neighbors, they prefer to speak English because they want their kids to be fluent.

[KonaKane]

24. You're forgetting a third kind

The multilingualism that springs from a pure love of language as a form of music, and as vessel for the experience of a people.

That's my favorite.

[vixengrl]

13. I abuse english as my muttersprache, and I kind of understand French

as a second language I seriously tried to learn--but wrapping my head around Italian, which is the language of my husband's family, is frustrating. I can't really converse in it, per se. I can hear what someone has said and kind of get the gist, or understand a few hours later what they were getting at. But my understanding isn't the same as really being conversant. I can ask where the bagno is or purchase earrings, but actually speak with my extended family--not really. They think I'm cute but dumb. Which is amazing, since in English, I think I'm pretty clever. When I have enough vino, I can try to make myself understood. But even though I have ample reasons to think and speak in Italian, I'd have to say my French, which I never have occassion to speak, but formally learned, is probably better. I can think a sentence in French first--but I hardly ever think in Italian--I'm always translating.

I wish Italian could come more naturally to me, but I wonder if I'm not too old to pick it up--just like my in-laws were too old to really pick up English. I understand age is a consideration with picking up languages. But on the other hand, maybe I just need a real classroom to learn, instead of trying to pull context from my family.

I hope I do learn to speak Italian well someday--it's a lovely language, and I think my husband thinks in it more than he does in English. To know Italian well would really be helpful to me.

[eShirl]

15. give the Michel Thomas lessons a try

[tango-tee]

14. I started learning English in school

beginning at age twelve. It was a mandatory subject, as was French. I took English for six years, French for five.

After finishing school, I worked as a translator for the U.S. Army and met my (now ex-)husband there. English came easily to me, and I prefer it over my native tongue, German, both in speaking and writing.

French was more difficult, and I never became proficient at it, but whatever bits and pieces remained helped a great deal once I moved to Italy from the United States, since French and Italian belong to the same language "family".

[HipChick]

17. Many Europeans speak more than one language...

[Mira]

19. English is my second language, but when it comes to preference it is my first.

As a little German girl I learned it in school and also 4 years of French. Then, at age 20, I took a few saved bucks and crossed the Atlantic to the US on a coal freighter.
Never to return except to visit.
What I learned during my leftover years of maturing happened with the English language, and therefore most things that now concern me are more fluently said in English. When I talk about my early years, it's easier in German so it is exactly as stated in the OP.

It's handy to be bi-lingual, I can't imagine things any other way.
During the Bush years, when I visited in Europe, at least I did not have to sew a maple leaf on my sleeve.
I just switched languages, the minute I arrived.

:)