"She spoke with a faint accent suggesting that Anglic had not been the principal language in her home when she was a child; the islanders purposely kept several tongues in daily use." (p. 338)
An excellent idea. Facility in other languages is one of the many things that I lack and regret. When I was at secondary school in the Republic of Ireland in the 1960's, we were force fed French, Latin and Irish for several years when we had no interest in them and were taught so badly that we gained no conversational ability in any of them. Later, I learned some Esperanto and would have gained conversational ability with practice but that never happened. I managed this short exchange with a man whom I saw wearing the green star:
Me: Cu vi parolas Esperanton?
Him: Jes, jes, flue. Kaj vi?
Me: Ne, ne flue.
Something is infinitely more than nothing but is still very little.
I once overheard a woman whose accent seemed to my ear to alternate between French and American. She was French Canadian.
We would probably think better if we were able to think in more than one language.
Olaf Magnusson is fluent in three Merseian languages, including Eriau.
2 comments:
People (usually) only learn a language apart from that they were raised speaking if it's seriously useful to them. Something like a quarter of the human race speak at least some English, for example. So if you're raised speaking English, you really don't usually -need- to learn anything else.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
If that trend continues English might someday become the common language of the world. I see no need to learn Russian, Chinese, Arabic, etc., if English will do.
Ad astra! Sean
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