There are many popular beliefs about languages that can't be supported by the facts. Some people believe that certain languages, like Chinese, are more difficult to learn than others, like Spanish. But wait a minute. Every language is easy for babies to learn as their first language. Babies learn Chinese and Spanish with equal ease. As adults, it's harder for us to learn any second or foreign language. Also, some adults are better at learning foreign languages than others. It's probably easier to learn a language that is related to your own native language than a language that is not. For example, it's generally easier for a Spanish speaker to learn Italian than to learn Chinese, just because Spanish and Italian both come from the same language historically, so they have many similarities.
People have other funny ideas about languages. French is considered romantic, German logical, Italian beautiful. Indigenous languages are thought to be primitive. These simplistic notions about languages have more to do with the way others view the histories and cultures of speakers of the languages--often based on stereotypes and prejudices--than they do about the languages themselves. What would make a language romantic, logical, or beautiful, anyway? Most people would probably use those words to describe their own native languages.
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I find the point about the cultural aspect of language very interesting. I almost took a course in Chinese a few years back but talked myself out of it after my advisor and many others warned me that chinese was much to difficult to learn. I feel that the U.S holds many social perceptions the difficulty of foriegn languages, especially those not related to the romantic languages. What a terible excuse however since so many chinese speak english!
ReplyDeleteI believe that the cultural aspects of language is non-existent. What is cultural about groupings of letters or symbols for the human to comunicate? Because of the simplistic views mentioned above, I agree that it is not about the language itself-but, rather the speakers. When the words fall silent and one views cave writings or romantic words on paper=there lies the beauty of the culture. It is only when interrupted by a human voice that the words are misunderstood and raped. The beauty of a painting is powerful until some clever suppostion is muttered.
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