Thoughts on LanguageThoughts on LanguageI have more or less lived in Mexico since last October. A couple of months in California but otherwise mexico. I can hold simple conversations as long as the person knows that I have limited use of their language so they use simple vocabulary and speak slowly.
The Spanish language is very simple. The language rules are simple and the vocabulary is simple. Much simpler than English. There are substantially fewer words and so understanding comes from context. If you doubt this, look up the word ‘pico’. Pico can be anything with a point. Anything from mountain top to chicken beak to penis. The object pronoun precedes the verb rather than follows and the verb ‘to like’ is so backwards that I shall never get it right -- other than inverting some word orders, the sentence structure is easy. The hardest parts are the verb conjugations -- and I think I shall get much of this in the next year.
You can figure out almost anything if you had gone to the same elementary school that I did. Each student had his own dictionary. We learned how to use it in regular classroom exercises. One of the things we learned was the etymology of words. That is, where did the word come from? If the English word is Latin-based, there is a Spanish equivalent that is close enough that if you use the Latin word, you will be understood. Corrected, maybe, but understood. Hint: if the word is Latin-based, the word is similar in English, Latin, and Spanish.
Half of Canada peaks French. Many French-only by the same arrogance that Americans speak only English. All of Mexico speaks Spanish. Almost all of Americans speak only English. Worse than that we have the arrogance to believe that that is all that needs to be spoken. This is true to some extent. You can usually find someone who understands English almost anywhere. If you need help, talk to any group of high-school girls. They are learning English as a second language and are happy to practice their skills. On the other hand, seeking such translators as the train is ready to leave is not a good idea.
But it is wrong. I am 60 years old. Learning a new language has been hard for me although I have a head start on most. Head start? I took three years of Spanish in High School. Total write-off. Almost. I took three semesters of German in College. I prize my English language skills. I worked for the Linguistics department in college for an English-to-Latin conversion program. With all of this help, I have trouble. I shall never be able to trill an ‘r’.
But I am trying. I walked into the drug store yesterday and two young women jumped to help me. The one a little further and not so tall and pretty asked first. I walked past the first and said “Ella me pregunta primero”. This set the tone for my help. The clerk was most helpful and although we spoke primarily in English and I paid in dollars, she accepted me as a real person and not just another money-grubbing tourist. That is the point of speaking the language.
We have all of these Americans flooding the world with no concept of why a large part of it hates us. They hate us because we are so arrogant as to treat them as less than human equals. This is wrong. I find here the reverse arrogance: they hate us because we belittle them. I am amazed at the culture here. The love. The happiness. The freedom. I shall never lose my American hang-ups in this area. Maybe they are mostly mine personally but here they are out of place. But if you do not join, you do not understand.
Yesterday on the way home with my computer, I stopped for a car on the side of the road. Two pretty young women were holding up the hood and wondering what to do. Any man would stop under these circumstances. They were not concerned for themselves. They were concerned for the man on crutches who was having problems with the heat and needed to get home to El Golfo rapidly. They would not accept a ride. I gave the man, I think their father, a ride to his door in El Golfo. I was concerned for the young women as it was almost sunset. They were not concerned and he was not concerned. When I arrived in El Golfo, his family met me like I was a hero. When they see me in town for the next year, they will wave. I am presuming that someone else was able to help the women with their car.
They would not abandon the car because there are people here who would rob the car and its contents. The number of people who would injure the young women is not of the concern here that it is in the USA. Even if they had a cell phone, it would not have worked where we were. Someone had to drive to town to get help for them. I am sure that someone did. The people here help each other to a degree that I have not seen in the states for over 50 years.
How can you know this if you do not understand anything of the culture? How can you understand the culture if you do not understand the language? Learn at least two languages in your lifetime. Do it now. Traveling and knowing only English .is an insult to the world.
These need to be improved. The comprehensive multi-lingual dictionaries are OK but they are too big to put in your pocket. The pocket dictionaries need to readjust their word choices. The words are primarily middle-class words: the same words as found in English-only dictionaries. This wrong as most of Mexico (and Latin-America) is third world. They have no use for middle-class words. “Donde esta el baño” is not a joke. But some serious groups of words need to always be present – and are omitted now. For example: anything that grows or otherwise eaten should be in the book. These are agrarian cultures. It is a good idea to know what you are eating.
All vulgarities should be in the book. There are many words that I would not have used if I knew what they meant from others. This is easy. These are not always there. For example, do not use ‘hijo de su madre’ in Mexico if you are referring to the son of a woman’s first marriage.
The third group that needs to be here are the non-words. ‘Mijo’ is not there. It is not a word. It is the contraction of ‘Mi Hijo’. So when you hear a mother yell after her kid, with the word ‘mijo’, you call after him with another word unless she is your wife. ‘Onde’ is not a word but is short for ‘donde esta’. ‘Monday’ is not a word but equates to the English ‘what do you want?’. There are many of these and maybe they are local -- but you must learn them or you will be lost quickly.