That I remain monolingual is a sources of deep regret—and more than a little shame—for me. But I compensate for those emotions by wallowing in pedantry with respect to the correct use of English. So I'm amused and horrified to learn that Swedes have incorporated the misuse of "literally" into their code-mixing ways. (The person who said, "Alltså literally vad som helst," almost certainly meant to utter "anything at all" in a hyperbolic rather than a literal sense.) Oh, well. Intellectually, at least, I understand that every signifier is as slippery as people want it to be, and that usage eats semantics for breakfast. Just ask any French person who feels a pang of lost glory when she encounters the term "lingua franca."
Don't feel too bad, Mike! Your pedantry more than makes up for your lack of multilingualism! 🤣 (Besides, you do know a fair bit of French, and some German, right?)
I once saw an SVT interview with an actress who had been born in Sweden, but grown up in Canada and now worked in the United States. She could still speak fluently in Swedish, but had to switch to English just for the Hollywood therapy-speak that her film was built on: Det var alltså en life-changing experience…
Many people who have always lived in Sweden would probably say it that way, too. It's astonishing how much Swedes lean on English to express subtle concepts. Or, in fact, just concepts. 😂
This post got me thinking a lot about language. When I was fired from my dream job, just four days before turning 50, I made a decision: I would live in English. I started reading, writing, watching TV exclusively in English. My apartment in Buenos Aires became an English-speaking embassy. Language became my tool for resistance.
Wow, Betina, what a bold decision! I want to hear more about that. It also makes me wonder why you moved to non-English-speaking countries after that. Is your apartment still an English-speaking embassy?
First I moved to Paris because my daughter was studying there. Now, I am in Barcelona, where they speak Catalan and Spanish. And, yes, my house is still an English-speaking embassy.
Well Gregory, I am sorry to tell you that French is not my best friend, and I still don’t know if my relationship with Catalan is serious. But I know Spanish and English love me! And I love them!!!
My language learning 'difficulties' are well-documented at this point, so there's little for me to add (haha), but let's just say that I'm living vicariously through my 7 year old daughter and marvelling at her use of 4 languages. She's slowly teaching me German but I fear I'm a lousy student.
Kids are the most amazing ambassadors of language. I hope that she will draw you in and pull you along. Maybe that's actually a really good source of motivation.
Thank you so much for this post Gregory, it was so interesting to read everything laid out like that! It's endlessly fascinating to me how language plays out in non-monolingual contexts. For instance, I used to teach at a fancy Thai private school in a small city. The school was officially bilingual, but in practice my students had a huge range of language: some were barely functional in one language and fluent in another, some were great in both. What you point to about relationships really played out there: the kids with good English hung out together, the kids with good Thai hung out together. The kids with both bounced among friends much more. Then there were the Chinese students whose families were in town for work. I ended up communicating with them in mad mixtures of English and Chinese (I had a serious relationship with Chinese but didn't end up getting married; I LOVE your analogy and will use it for the rest of my life to explain my various language relationships).
All that said, there's actually a really interesting negative to multilingualism. My partner grew up fluent bilingual English and Spanish (he's Chileno), and because he also has cognitive processing issues, he now feels like he doesn't have a true native language that he understands as fully as other people understand theirs. The way this all plays out in so many people's lives is so complicated and interesting!
Thank you, Rebecca! Your teaching experiences sound fascinating. I'm sorry it didn't work out with Chinese—are you still on good terms? 😉
The negative side of multilingualism that you point to is also very interesting. I honestly don't know what the research says about multilingualism combined with neurodivergence, so I can't comment except to say that I'm sorry to hear he feels that way. Maybe it has something to do with the contexts of language use at different ages?
Chinese and I still get on all right, though it sometimes sends random texts when I'm trying to go out on a date with other languages (this metaphor may not be working as well anymore...) :)
I expect the multilingualism+neurodivergence is a pretty small niche now that I think about it! It's a genuine puzzle mind: he grew up completely bilingual, home and school both with combos of English and Spanish, and his language is a (pretty delightful, to me at least) hybrid as a result. Sometimes he'll be trying to say a word in English and come out with a translation from Spanish (or even a cognate, not a translation). His ADHD brain will be digging through a drawer and impatiently grab something that is often not the right word...and occasionally the OPPOSITE word.
Now that I lay that all out, people should really study multilingualism+neuroscience more, it must be fascinating from a linguistic/cognitive science perspective
I agree. I think it could be really fascinating for a combined team of linguists and neuropsychologists to look into what happens in bilinguals with ADHD. Who knows? Maybe someone has already started looking into it. I should check that out. Anybody else know of anything?
Wow, Gregory! Thank you for another masterpiece on the wonders of language learning. The examples of translanguaging you provided are perfect. As a linguist, they sound like music to my ears.
A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to learn French, which for me will be mostly useless. But it’s fun, and I feel very seen by the Busuu app, which decided the first adjective I should learn was fatiguée. 😂
That's a fascinating place to start, Cheryl. I've actually been brushing up on my French with Duolingo lately (as I'm about to go to Paris), and I can't help noticing how much it focuses on talking about food being either very good or very bad.
This was an inspiring and entertaining read. I'm not a linguist but I do appreciate multilingualism and have understood, from an early age, the opportunities that languages could afford me. Learning foreign languages seemed to come to me rather easily, and I relished in the experience and the outcome.
As an immigrant from China to Hong Kong, I learned to speak Cantonese by watching dubbed American black-and-white TV series. At home, my mom spoke the Hangzhou dialect, my dad spoke Mandarin with an Indonesian accent, brother and I spoke the "proper" Mandarin at school while Cantonese outside of class and at home with out parents. Somehow, we made all these dialects and accents work without too much confusion. Oh, and then there was English, of course, the official language of the colonizers. Brother and I did not speak it in everyday life, but we had to learn it in school. Code-switching was normal for us. You would often here an English word here and there within a Chinese sentence. For my mom, who struggled with learning the local Cantonese, often combined (and still does) Mandarin, Hangzhouese and Cantonese in a single sentence. The result is quite hilarious.
In secondary school, I became exposed to the existence of French. Upper-class and non-Chinese girls in my school got the option to learn French instead of Chinese. I was quite jealous. When the dream of studying in France was ignited in me, I decided to learn French outside of school. Since then, I've learned a third language and it became my favorite. I felt free using French to express emotions that I wasn't able to express in either Chinese or English.
Fast forward many many years, I married a Swedish guy who spoke 5 languages. It was fascinating to me, and intellectually stimulating. We often spoke English, Swedish (after I've learned it) and French with each other, and we enjoyed many films in these languages. One of my proud accomplishments is to have watched and understood most of Igmar Bergman's movies in Swedish without subtitles.
Sadly, my ex-husband never learned my language even though we lived in Hong Kong for 10 years, claiming it was too difficult. We did use Swedish as our secret language when we were out in the public, to avoid people eardropping on us.
In terms of your puzzlement about married couples who communicate with three words, well, I have my own theory. I've seen it between Western men and Thai women. In fact, my ex-partner, who cheated on me with many Thai women, seemed to be rather satisfied with the kind of language exchange you described. My therapist at the time suggested that because my ex didn't like to be known for who he really was, he would rather engage with women who would never get to really know him (unlike me). Transactional relationships would work best for people like him. Well, that made a lot of sense to me, and perhaps can explain why marriages between the Germans or Swedes and the Thai's work, despite minimal communication. By the way, this ex-partner also never learned my language but was enthusiastic in learning Thai while living with me. Imagine how that made me feel.
I saw the cover of a book comparing the grammar of different Romance languages. I wonder if it's still available and if so, where can I get it. I'm always looking to expand my language skills and since I can speak French, I figure it wouldn't be too difficult to learn how to speak other Romance languages.
Well, when it comes to the subject of language, I can go on and on, but I need to sleep. So I will stop here. Thank you for opening my "lingua floodgate"!
Lily, thank you for sharing all of this. I'm sorry that there are so many painful chapters in your story. But it sounds like you have had a really rich life from the perspective of multilingualism. I would encourage you to keep learning languages, as it's an activity that is inherently optimistic, and can lead you to new places.
Well, there's nothing to be sorry for. I enjoyed ALL of the experiences in hindsight, even if they were painful at the time. They've all enriched my life one way or another. At least I've lived to tell the tales.
Thanks for your suggestions. I will definitely keep learning languages. My priority is to perfect my English. Seems like a never-ending task.
I found the book you mentioned on Amazon and eBay. While searching, I found a book called "6-Language Visual Dictionary," which compares English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Seems very practical for traveling purposes! I think I'm going to get that one instead.
There is nothing I desire more as a traveler than to be able to speak at least one language in addition to English. Italian would be my first choice because I love going there so much, but Spanish is a close second and obviously more practical one over here in the Americas. I am going to Mexico City this summer, so I’ve been brushing up on high school Spanish and it turns out I haven’t forgotten as much as I thought. However, I am absolutely still the three word sentence guy. I can speak passable Italian if I’m asking a question in the present tense to a service professional. Highly specific.
“If language were furniture, her communication would be a couch made out of stones, cardboard and duct tape.” - Yep. This is where I think I am, but I long to at least find some cushions to add to the couch.
Tim, I have no doubt that you could become proficient in Italian or Spanish. It's just a question of motivation + effort. Luckily, these days there is plenty of material to serve as input, even if you go old-school: I've been reading novels in Italian to challenge myself, but even just watching TV can help.
I'm envious that you're going to Mexico City. I was in a relationship with someone from there, but thanks to the pandemic, never got to go. I'd say a trip like that is great motivation.
There's a chapter in Jared Diamond's book, "The World Before Yesterday," in which he describes how in New Guinea (and in other smaller, more traditional societies) essentially everyone speaks multiple languages - 5 or more! (Small societies = more mixing with others & therefore need for speaking different languages.) A relevant part that stuck with me was how the code-switching aspect of multilingualism helps people develop and improve their "executive functioning" ...and keep dementia at bay!
I haven't read that book by Diamond, John. But I know that it is true that the smaller your language is, the more likely you are to be bilingual, and in a place that is as dense with languages as Papua New Guinea, people would of necessity grow up multilingual. (And as I commented below, that does seem to reduce dementia, but maybe only if you grow up with it.)
Speaking several languages makes travel so much easier, more fun, and helps you understand the other culture, their way of thinking, acting, and feeling. Being multilingual also helps to lower the risk of dementia. Alzheimer’s, etc. Making your brain “work” in all directions when switching languages keeps it fit. (Plenty of research on that.)
Glad you mentioned that even passively understanding a language is a big plus. I agree. Besides German, English, French (forgot a lot) my Italian is passive…I understand almost everything, but I barely get it out of my mouth. But it’s wonderful to understand it.
And very often Italians understand English, but are not so good at speaking it…you can witness a funny conversation where one speaks English, the other Italian, and they both understand each other. Just as you described the conversation in you speaking English and your friend speaking Portugese and understanding each other.
I'm glad this essay spoke to you, Claudia. Yes, passive knowledge of a language can clearly be a plus, not least because it allows us to take in information, like songs, films, and text.
I was careful here in making claims about dementia, because the last time I did so, I got blasted by a reader who claimed that all evidence pointing to an inverse correlation between multilingualism and dementia comes from studies of lifelong bilinguals, not people who learned a language as an adult. You can read that here if you like:
Love this post! Question: there must be a word/phrase for people turning a word in one language into a word in theirs? Example: my patient from Mexico told me she was worried, because her daughter was "eskipiando la escuela." Or my Brazilian sister-in-law saying she was going to "parquear o carro." I've always wanted to ask a linguist this question!
Thanks, Justine! And yes, I can answer your question. There are a couple of terms that are relevant here. In a case like "esquipar la escuela", this is clearly a _loanword_ (also sometimes a _borrowing_) into Spanish from English—something the Mexicans do really happily, and the Puerto Ricans do with even more gusto (there's a loanword from Italian for you). Note that since this is a verb, once it has been borrowed into Spanish, it will inflect like other verbs do, including the participial "esquipiano".
The same goes for Portuguese "parquear", which makes quite a bit of sense if you think about it. Portuguese already had the word "parque" before it was extended to a "parque de estacionamento", in Portugal sometimes just called a "parque", which sounds suspiciously like English "park", and so it's a small jump to decide to loan the verb "park" into Portuguese.
Ah yes, loan words! Love this, thank you! It's a reminder that all language is a moment in time, constantly changing. And trying to keep a language "pure" is impossible.
Really enjoyed reading this, as it echoes our experience as retirees slowly but surely learning Spanish in Costa Rica, where English is the lingua franca of tourism & everyone’s eager to bridge the Spanish-English divide. I’m in awe of my Costa Rican friends who switch seamlessly between the two languages (& some speak German or French as well). I recently attempted to explain to someone here why US culture places so little value on multilingualism, to the point of viewing it with suspicion. But I couldn’t summon the Spanish word for “parochialism”.
Thanks, Lani! I can imagine your eagerness to cross the bridge to Spanish and reap all the benefits that brings. Best of luck! Sin prisa pero sin pausa!
That I remain monolingual is a sources of deep regret—and more than a little shame—for me. But I compensate for those emotions by wallowing in pedantry with respect to the correct use of English. So I'm amused and horrified to learn that Swedes have incorporated the misuse of "literally" into their code-mixing ways. (The person who said, "Alltså literally vad som helst," almost certainly meant to utter "anything at all" in a hyperbolic rather than a literal sense.) Oh, well. Intellectually, at least, I understand that every signifier is as slippery as people want it to be, and that usage eats semantics for breakfast. Just ask any French person who feels a pang of lost glory when she encounters the term "lingua franca."
Don't feel too bad, Mike! Your pedantry more than makes up for your lack of multilingualism! 🤣 (Besides, you do know a fair bit of French, and some German, right?)
I have enough French and German to know that being multilingual would be a very nice thing—and to know that I fall short of the mark.
I once saw an SVT interview with an actress who had been born in Sweden, but grown up in Canada and now worked in the United States. She could still speak fluently in Swedish, but had to switch to English just for the Hollywood therapy-speak that her film was built on: Det var alltså en life-changing experience…
Many people who have always lived in Sweden would probably say it that way, too. It's astonishing how much Swedes lean on English to express subtle concepts. Or, in fact, just concepts. 😂
Love this!
Thank you!
I can relate to getting flustered about how to answer the question "how many languages do you speak? " I love the analogy of relationships!
Thanks, Lisa. I was pretty pleased with it; I came up with it while writing the piece, so it's quite new.
Brilliant, Gregory!
This post got me thinking a lot about language. When I was fired from my dream job, just four days before turning 50, I made a decision: I would live in English. I started reading, writing, watching TV exclusively in English. My apartment in Buenos Aires became an English-speaking embassy. Language became my tool for resistance.
Wow, Betina, what a bold decision! I want to hear more about that. It also makes me wonder why you moved to non-English-speaking countries after that. Is your apartment still an English-speaking embassy?
First I moved to Paris because my daughter was studying there. Now, I am in Barcelona, where they speak Catalan and Spanish. And, yes, my house is still an English-speaking embassy.
Well Gregory, I am sorry to tell you that French is not my best friend, and I still don’t know if my relationship with Catalan is serious. But I know Spanish and English love me! And I love them!!!
Sometimes we don’t need all that many friends to be happy, right?
Absolutely! Just the ones you can really trust.
It sounds like you have a very linguistically rich life now. Ben fet!
My language learning 'difficulties' are well-documented at this point, so there's little for me to add (haha), but let's just say that I'm living vicariously through my 7 year old daughter and marvelling at her use of 4 languages. She's slowly teaching me German but I fear I'm a lousy student.
Kids are the most amazing ambassadors of language. I hope that she will draw you in and pull you along. Maybe that's actually a really good source of motivation.
Thank you so much for this post Gregory, it was so interesting to read everything laid out like that! It's endlessly fascinating to me how language plays out in non-monolingual contexts. For instance, I used to teach at a fancy Thai private school in a small city. The school was officially bilingual, but in practice my students had a huge range of language: some were barely functional in one language and fluent in another, some were great in both. What you point to about relationships really played out there: the kids with good English hung out together, the kids with good Thai hung out together. The kids with both bounced among friends much more. Then there were the Chinese students whose families were in town for work. I ended up communicating with them in mad mixtures of English and Chinese (I had a serious relationship with Chinese but didn't end up getting married; I LOVE your analogy and will use it for the rest of my life to explain my various language relationships).
All that said, there's actually a really interesting negative to multilingualism. My partner grew up fluent bilingual English and Spanish (he's Chileno), and because he also has cognitive processing issues, he now feels like he doesn't have a true native language that he understands as fully as other people understand theirs. The way this all plays out in so many people's lives is so complicated and interesting!
Thank you, Rebecca! Your teaching experiences sound fascinating. I'm sorry it didn't work out with Chinese—are you still on good terms? 😉
The negative side of multilingualism that you point to is also very interesting. I honestly don't know what the research says about multilingualism combined with neurodivergence, so I can't comment except to say that I'm sorry to hear he feels that way. Maybe it has something to do with the contexts of language use at different ages?
Chinese and I still get on all right, though it sometimes sends random texts when I'm trying to go out on a date with other languages (this metaphor may not be working as well anymore...) :)
I expect the multilingualism+neurodivergence is a pretty small niche now that I think about it! It's a genuine puzzle mind: he grew up completely bilingual, home and school both with combos of English and Spanish, and his language is a (pretty delightful, to me at least) hybrid as a result. Sometimes he'll be trying to say a word in English and come out with a translation from Spanish (or even a cognate, not a translation). His ADHD brain will be digging through a drawer and impatiently grab something that is often not the right word...and occasionally the OPPOSITE word.
Now that I lay that all out, people should really study multilingualism+neuroscience more, it must be fascinating from a linguistic/cognitive science perspective
I agree. I think it could be really fascinating for a combined team of linguists and neuropsychologists to look into what happens in bilinguals with ADHD. Who knows? Maybe someone has already started looking into it. I should check that out. Anybody else know of anything?
Wow, Gregory! Thank you for another masterpiece on the wonders of language learning. The examples of translanguaging you provided are perfect. As a linguist, they sound like music to my ears.
Fernando, as usual you make me blush. I am very glad that you enjoyed the piece. It was a crônica very divertida to escrever, too.
Super entretenido as sempre
I am so contento that it gustó you.
A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to learn French, which for me will be mostly useless. But it’s fun, and I feel very seen by the Busuu app, which decided the first adjective I should learn was fatiguée. 😂
That's a fascinating place to start, Cheryl. I've actually been brushing up on my French with Duolingo lately (as I'm about to go to Paris), and I can't help noticing how much it focuses on talking about food being either very good or very bad.
This was an inspiring and entertaining read. I'm not a linguist but I do appreciate multilingualism and have understood, from an early age, the opportunities that languages could afford me. Learning foreign languages seemed to come to me rather easily, and I relished in the experience and the outcome.
As an immigrant from China to Hong Kong, I learned to speak Cantonese by watching dubbed American black-and-white TV series. At home, my mom spoke the Hangzhou dialect, my dad spoke Mandarin with an Indonesian accent, brother and I spoke the "proper" Mandarin at school while Cantonese outside of class and at home with out parents. Somehow, we made all these dialects and accents work without too much confusion. Oh, and then there was English, of course, the official language of the colonizers. Brother and I did not speak it in everyday life, but we had to learn it in school. Code-switching was normal for us. You would often here an English word here and there within a Chinese sentence. For my mom, who struggled with learning the local Cantonese, often combined (and still does) Mandarin, Hangzhouese and Cantonese in a single sentence. The result is quite hilarious.
In secondary school, I became exposed to the existence of French. Upper-class and non-Chinese girls in my school got the option to learn French instead of Chinese. I was quite jealous. When the dream of studying in France was ignited in me, I decided to learn French outside of school. Since then, I've learned a third language and it became my favorite. I felt free using French to express emotions that I wasn't able to express in either Chinese or English.
Fast forward many many years, I married a Swedish guy who spoke 5 languages. It was fascinating to me, and intellectually stimulating. We often spoke English, Swedish (after I've learned it) and French with each other, and we enjoyed many films in these languages. One of my proud accomplishments is to have watched and understood most of Igmar Bergman's movies in Swedish without subtitles.
Sadly, my ex-husband never learned my language even though we lived in Hong Kong for 10 years, claiming it was too difficult. We did use Swedish as our secret language when we were out in the public, to avoid people eardropping on us.
In terms of your puzzlement about married couples who communicate with three words, well, I have my own theory. I've seen it between Western men and Thai women. In fact, my ex-partner, who cheated on me with many Thai women, seemed to be rather satisfied with the kind of language exchange you described. My therapist at the time suggested that because my ex didn't like to be known for who he really was, he would rather engage with women who would never get to really know him (unlike me). Transactional relationships would work best for people like him. Well, that made a lot of sense to me, and perhaps can explain why marriages between the Germans or Swedes and the Thai's work, despite minimal communication. By the way, this ex-partner also never learned my language but was enthusiastic in learning Thai while living with me. Imagine how that made me feel.
I saw the cover of a book comparing the grammar of different Romance languages. I wonder if it's still available and if so, where can I get it. I'm always looking to expand my language skills and since I can speak French, I figure it wouldn't be too difficult to learn how to speak other Romance languages.
Well, when it comes to the subject of language, I can go on and on, but I need to sleep. So I will stop here. Thank you for opening my "lingua floodgate"!
Lily, thank you for sharing all of this. I'm sorry that there are so many painful chapters in your story. But it sounds like you have had a really rich life from the perspective of multilingualism. I would encourage you to keep learning languages, as it's an activity that is inherently optimistic, and can lead you to new places.
And the book you asked about is available on Amazon (though I hate to recommend Amazon at this point): https://livingelsewhere.substack.com/p/loving-learning-languages/comment/80509383
Well, there's nothing to be sorry for. I enjoyed ALL of the experiences in hindsight, even if they were painful at the time. They've all enriched my life one way or another. At least I've lived to tell the tales.
Thanks for your suggestions. I will definitely keep learning languages. My priority is to perfect my English. Seems like a never-ending task.
I found the book you mentioned on Amazon and eBay. While searching, I found a book called "6-Language Visual Dictionary," which compares English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Seems very practical for traveling purposes! I think I'm going to get that one instead.
There is nothing I desire more as a traveler than to be able to speak at least one language in addition to English. Italian would be my first choice because I love going there so much, but Spanish is a close second and obviously more practical one over here in the Americas. I am going to Mexico City this summer, so I’ve been brushing up on high school Spanish and it turns out I haven’t forgotten as much as I thought. However, I am absolutely still the three word sentence guy. I can speak passable Italian if I’m asking a question in the present tense to a service professional. Highly specific.
“If language were furniture, her communication would be a couch made out of stones, cardboard and duct tape.” - Yep. This is where I think I am, but I long to at least find some cushions to add to the couch.
Tim, I have no doubt that you could become proficient in Italian or Spanish. It's just a question of motivation + effort. Luckily, these days there is plenty of material to serve as input, even if you go old-school: I've been reading novels in Italian to challenge myself, but even just watching TV can help.
I'm envious that you're going to Mexico City. I was in a relationship with someone from there, but thanks to the pandemic, never got to go. I'd say a trip like that is great motivation.
There's a chapter in Jared Diamond's book, "The World Before Yesterday," in which he describes how in New Guinea (and in other smaller, more traditional societies) essentially everyone speaks multiple languages - 5 or more! (Small societies = more mixing with others & therefore need for speaking different languages.) A relevant part that stuck with me was how the code-switching aspect of multilingualism helps people develop and improve their "executive functioning" ...and keep dementia at bay!
I haven't read that book by Diamond, John. But I know that it is true that the smaller your language is, the more likely you are to be bilingual, and in a place that is as dense with languages as Papua New Guinea, people would of necessity grow up multilingual. (And as I commented below, that does seem to reduce dementia, but maybe only if you grow up with it.)
Speaking several languages makes travel so much easier, more fun, and helps you understand the other culture, their way of thinking, acting, and feeling. Being multilingual also helps to lower the risk of dementia. Alzheimer’s, etc. Making your brain “work” in all directions when switching languages keeps it fit. (Plenty of research on that.)
Glad you mentioned that even passively understanding a language is a big plus. I agree. Besides German, English, French (forgot a lot) my Italian is passive…I understand almost everything, but I barely get it out of my mouth. But it’s wonderful to understand it.
And very often Italians understand English, but are not so good at speaking it…you can witness a funny conversation where one speaks English, the other Italian, and they both understand each other. Just as you described the conversation in you speaking English and your friend speaking Portugese and understanding each other.
I'm glad this essay spoke to you, Claudia. Yes, passive knowledge of a language can clearly be a plus, not least because it allows us to take in information, like songs, films, and text.
I was careful here in making claims about dementia, because the last time I did so, I got blasted by a reader who claimed that all evidence pointing to an inverse correlation between multilingualism and dementia comes from studies of lifelong bilinguals, not people who learned a language as an adult. You can read that here if you like:
https://livingelsewhere.substack.com/p/loving-learning-languages/comment/80509383
thanks for that hint and the link, Gregory.
Love this post! Question: there must be a word/phrase for people turning a word in one language into a word in theirs? Example: my patient from Mexico told me she was worried, because her daughter was "eskipiando la escuela." Or my Brazilian sister-in-law saying she was going to "parquear o carro." I've always wanted to ask a linguist this question!
Thanks, Justine! And yes, I can answer your question. There are a couple of terms that are relevant here. In a case like "esquipar la escuela", this is clearly a _loanword_ (also sometimes a _borrowing_) into Spanish from English—something the Mexicans do really happily, and the Puerto Ricans do with even more gusto (there's a loanword from Italian for you). Note that since this is a verb, once it has been borrowed into Spanish, it will inflect like other verbs do, including the participial "esquipiano".
The same goes for Portuguese "parquear", which makes quite a bit of sense if you think about it. Portuguese already had the word "parque" before it was extended to a "parque de estacionamento", in Portugal sometimes just called a "parque", which sounds suspiciously like English "park", and so it's a small jump to decide to loan the verb "park" into Portuguese.
Ah yes, loan words! Love this, thank you! It's a reminder that all language is a moment in time, constantly changing. And trying to keep a language "pure" is impossible.
Really enjoyed reading this, as it echoes our experience as retirees slowly but surely learning Spanish in Costa Rica, where English is the lingua franca of tourism & everyone’s eager to bridge the Spanish-English divide. I’m in awe of my Costa Rican friends who switch seamlessly between the two languages (& some speak German or French as well). I recently attempted to explain to someone here why US culture places so little value on multilingualism, to the point of viewing it with suspicion. But I couldn’t summon the Spanish word for “parochialism”.
Thanks, Lani! I can imagine your eagerness to cross the bridge to Spanish and reap all the benefits that brings. Best of luck! Sin prisa pero sin pausa!