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Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>
cc.helsinki.fi>Rick McAllister has pointed out, and someone else mentioned (forgot who, sorry) that if you know a "master" language, you can understand quite a lot of the cognates. Someone mentioned that Gen. Walters was said in newspaper reports to have (not speak?) only five languages. So HOW are we going to define what is a "language"??? Gen. Walters was a VERY modest man, and as I have found, like other people gifted with "an ear for language" would only own to being proficient in those languages he could write in. But I asked him at a party once (young, pretty-in-those-days teenage budding linguist, starry-eyed at great man) how many languages he could COMMUNICATE in, and that's when I got the number 32 - he paused for a while for effect, mentally counting, and then said since coming to Brazil he thought he had gotten three or four more... I love it when the Miss Universe contestants say they speak French, and English, and German, and Spanish and Italian (sure, you can honey, but your body speaks louder than words) I have six "tourist" languages myself, I can buy postage stamps, get a beer or a cup of coffee or a room for the night, and count my change, but I would NOT say I "speak" them. What does the word "speak" M E A N in this context, anyway? Cheers, kela Deborah D. Kela Ruuskanen \ You cannot teach a Man anything, Leankuja 1, FIN-01420 Vantaa \ you can only help him find it druuskanMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
udlapvms.pue.udlap.mx>The query about why some people learn languages better than others reminded me of an 'oldie but goodie' article by (I forget his 1st name) Sorenson (?Sorensen) in _American anthropologist_ in the late 60s or early 70s, called (approximately) 'Multilingualism in the Upper Amazon'. My brief reconstruction of the article 20+ years on is as follows: This region of the Amazon is populated by groups with wildly differing languages (several different stocks, each with many different languages). The cultures of the different groups are generally similar: they practice village exogamy, and live mostly in longhouses of several nuclear families each (extended families). The men generally make their living by trading with other villages, from which they get their wives, whom they take back to their own village. So each kid is exposed minimally to his father's (local) language and his mother's (possibly not related) language. Meanwhile, the other wives in the longhouse will likely speak other languages. Thus, each kid is on average exposed to 4 or 5 languages as native languages, since taking care of the kids is a general longhouse function. When the (male) kids grow up, they start going out to trade on the river. In this enterprise, they often come to villages where a language unknown to them is spoken. According to Sorenson, they squat around campfires for a year or so without speaking, and then start speaking the language, according to its native speakers, just as well as if they were native speakers. Of course, even if this is true, the reports may be due to aspects of the culture which minimize 'foreigners'' difficulties with the language. But assuming that the facts are as I've stated them, it is not too surprising (if we take the 'native proficiency' with a grain of salt), since, as several people have pointed out, each 'second language' gets easier to learn than the previous one, and these guys all typically start out with 5 or so. Since I have very likely butchered some or all of the above facts, I recommend reading the original article, which I am by the way surprised that no one has mentioned before. I believe there are also some critical assessments of the article, but I can't remember any details of them. Jim James L. Fidelholtz e-mail: jfidelMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue