Et Il a mangé le bébé!
November 20th, 2008I’m going to be honest here: I am not one of those people who enjoys sitting through videos of children doing so-called “cute” things. Most of the time, I just don’t find it as cute as other people seem to. I’m not sure what it is—maybe they have to be related to me to activate that particular maternal gene?
Having said that, this little French girl by the name of Capucine is just so adorable it melts my icy heart and I can’t stop watching this video. So watch it, especially if you’re like me. And stay until at least 1:51, because that has to be the cutest expression I have ever seen.
There is a reason I post this here, by the way. So watch it and then keep reading.
One of my best friends is Polish. She speaks English and French fluently and is currently learning Spanish. Her significant other’s first language is Spanish, second, English. After showing her this video, it inevitably raised the question of what language we would raise our children. For her, there are many language choices: English? French? Polish? Spanish? She really didn’t know.
I remember someone once telling me that if you are fluent in more than one language, when you shift between those different languages, you actually shift in personalities. That is to say, when my best friend speaks Polish, she thinks and behaves slightly differently than when she speaks in French, Spanish or English.
When I first heard this theory, I was a little creeped out—it sounded too much like split personality disorder. But then I thought about it a bit more and realized how truly fascinating (and not in the mental disorder kind of way) that would be if it were true.
Having been raised on the English language but taught in a French immersion school for the first four academic years of my life, I’m not exactly sure what that means for me. I learned how to speak English first, but I was taught to how to read in French first. Not to mention, all my subjects were in French.
So it begs the question: How connected is our language to our identity and personality?
I would assume most people have never really considered the correlation before (especially so if you’ve never had to fluently learn another language), but I would venture a guess and say that our language is very connected to our identity and personality.
I know many of you speak another language other than English, and for some of you, English isn’t even your first language to begin with, so I am curious about two things:
Do you notice any changes in yourself when you speak your mother tongue vs when you speak English? And if you plan on having children or have children: what language would you raise them on?
First of all, that Capucine is adorable and quite imaginative. She reminds me a lot of Audrey Tautou with her animated face (think Amelie) :-)
Secondly, I used to be quite good at Spanish. But considering that no one uses Spanish Sign Language in America, my Spanish language degraded when I came back to the States after living in Spain for a short time. It’s sad because I noticed that knowing Spanish helped me to pick up French better.
Currently I am trying to get serious with studying French while polishing my Spanish. Meantime, I am also learning very basic Hebrew and Farsi.
So, to answer your question, I notice some changes in myself. 1, I am very patient with people who don’t speak English. I encourage them to try gestures with me (and that includes hearing people, as well). 2, I understand cultures better through learning at least even very basic languages. 3, Either written or signed language helps me to improve my ENGLISH vocabulary. Personally, I think English is one of the most difficult languages in the world even though it is my native language. Without American Sign Language, I would NOT be able to understand the spoken English language.
It’s funny because I remember after a very stressful day one Friday, I was getting off the train. A guy in front of me held the door for me, and I went “Merci!” then realized it was French and tried to remember what Spanish for “Merci” was then went “Gracias!” before realizing once again that I was in an ENGLISH-speaking country. By the time I got to English, my NATIVE language (after struggling for a good 3 seconds), I said “Thank you” but he was gone. I guess I scared him away, oops!
I do not plan on having children, but if I had children I definitely would raise them on English, American Sign Language and have them grow up learning Spanish and French. It’s a matter of survival when traveling abroad.
And, yes, our language is quite connected to our identity and personality. My Persian friend and I were talking about that the other day. Sorry if it is long; I’ve been meaning to get back to setting up a website. Sometimes it’s such a drag with decision-making!
So, what about you re: your own questions? :-)
November 20th, 2008 at 6:16 pmI’m fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese. I definitely have two different personalities… or at least attitudes in these two languages. I’m more assertive and confident when I speak English. With Chinese, I become this totally polite person. Sarcastic in both languages though =D
It’s not split personality per se… more like the mental process involved in different languages are completely distinct. Steven Pinker or someone brought up this thing called mentalese, which is the the thought language. Our mentalese should match the language we’re spewing out, so it feels like we’re thinking like a completely different person.
I’d want… scratch that… FORCE my kids to learn as many languages as possible at a young age haha. I’m so envious of those European kids who can switch between languages with ease. That’s one of the reasons why my dream job is a diplomat, so I can move all over the world and have my family learn different languages - the greatest talent of all.
November 20th, 2008 at 7:56 pmI always go back and watch the infamous Charlie bite his brother’s finger. But that little girl is soooo adorable. Watching young children online makes me feel a bit creepy on some level, though…
I think any shift I have in personality between Arabic and English is because of who I speak those languages to. I talk about different things and probably act a different way with my family than I do with others. To me, it kind of ties in with differences in culture.
In any case, I’m not sure what languages exactly I want my children to speak, but hopefully more than 2 :) It will probably depend on any languages the father speaks as well.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:29 pmAbsolutely adorable! I’ve always been drawn to the French language, though I don’t have quite a knack for the accent though so I turned to something I do have an accent for: Japanese. I grew up speaking English and Filipino and those two languages blend quite nicely I think. English, well, American-English shows a lot of words referring to things about ourselves and about mankind, how we are the center of the universe.
And then I started to learn Japanese. Japanese people are very polite, having different ways of saying the same thing depending on if they’re talking to a buddy or someone they respect. Also their speech usually lacks pronouns as well. I know when I switch to Japanese I feel like I have to be very polite and proper, because that’s how the language is like.
And then there’s English which is all over the place. I don’t speak too much of Filipino so I wouldn’t really be able to correlate.
But as of teaching my kids what languages… hmm… English, of course, and Filipino (though they’d have to pick it up from my parents since my accent is HORRIBLE), Japanese and maybe something else. Its easier to learn languages when you’re young. But otherwise you should expose your children to all sorts of language sounds, that way they’d be able to pick up the accent quite well. I’ve been listening to Japanese for quite a while and have a pretty decent accent.
November 21st, 2008 at 9:05 amI only speak English, however I think that if I spoke multiple languages fluently or even just one other language I would teach them both (all) to my children. I’m sure English would be first though.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:05 am