Taking a bit of a tangent on my usual fisheries only blog here… but here in New Zealand / Aotearoa, (the place that I have called home for the last 26 years) is Maori Language Week. Te reo Māori is has been an official language of Aotearoa since 1987, and Māori Language Week is celebrated annually in September, starting on a Monday and ending on the following Sunday.
One of my best working days in the last years… I speak as much iKiribati as they spoke english… yet it didn’t matter we had fishing as the common way to see the world
As an immigrant to NZ, I wish I knew more Maori; I know enough to guess what most places mean, to exchange cordialities and follow Marae protocols… but there is where I am at.
For years here in NZ, there has been a discussion on further promoting bilingualism. Many monolingual English speakers argue that what is the point since it is only spoken in NZ, that emphasis should be given to other languages that have more worldwide relevance (Chinese, Japanese and Spanish are the usual example).
I personally think they miss the real point of a language. I grow up with 3 languages spoken at home: Guaraní - my village and Grandma family, Spanish - my mum and German - my Austrian dad. They are VERY different languages in terms of the critical components of a language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics)… but precisely that is why I’m so grateful that I was exposed to them growing up.
What you are really learning are different ways of thinking, not just of communicating… Each of those languages taught me different ways to see and think about the world.
I remember as a kid wondering not only why the same thing had 3 different names? But why some were straight words, others made out of compounding concepts, and why did people see the same thing from such different angles…
I just grew up knowing that different people spoke different languages, for the same reason they look different… and you just talk to them in the way they speak to you… no big deal
For me each of my languages is like a brain programming code that makes me see the world in the same but different ways; my body language, gesticulation, and even my reflexes change accordingly to the language that is operating my brain at different times.
Changing in between them is hard as an adult, but if mastered as a child, even if one of the languages is only used in only one area (like guarani or Maori) that doesn’t matter... besides the cultural components, learning how to switch from one to the other is the gain that you can replicate later on.
I work in English, Spanish and Portuguese… albeit only having had formal language education in Spanish. Yet I can get away a bit with Italian and French to an extent. I can get some basic pleasantries and conversation in Tongan, Samoan and Tuvaluan (that helped me with Maori) and a bit of Marshallese and iKiribati…. yet this is not because I’m “gifted” of anything like that… but mostly because I was exposed to different ways of thinking and I’m shameless! Also, as a friend told me: I rather have you been poor in my language than good in English!
For example Guarani compounds concepts in order of importance to make the name of places: let say Paraguay: Para (stripy brown), gua (place/move), i (water). Uruguay: Uru (bird/s) ,gua (place/move), i (water).
My birth area is Ibera: I (water) bera (shiny/ebbing). Now interestingly, the place I call home is Waiheke which in Maori means: Wai (water) heke (trickling/ebbing), so yeah, I found home in the same meaning (therefore place) on the other side of the world.
German also compounds works to create new meaning made of the parts.
Guarani has no impersonals… everything happens to people in places… which is something I also found in most island languages. In English, you can pretty much take the people out and speak and write as if things just eventuated.
And sometimes, even if not words are spoken in common… I have spent days fishing with people I had no language in common… yet we had the same experience fishing… gesticulation and similar way to think and see reality did the rest
My point is: learn as many languages you can… it just open you mind to different ways to see the world and share it with others… doesn’t matter if it is only 1 person you can’t talk on that language.
I know ain’t easy but a as they say in Maori: Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui (be strong, be brave, be steadfast)