Yellow Pages Antarctica

There are lots of reasons why people learn a foreign language - love, business, travel, hobby, necesity etc., but one reason that seems to pop up more and more is to connect with their roots. Many learn in order to speak with or write to relatives still using the language, others learn just to make a connection with their ancestry, to immerse themselves in their own heritage.

How many people have a grandmother from ‘the old country’ who still speaks with a heavy accent, or an aunt who speaks more in her first language than English? Or how about some newly arrived cousins still struggling with English? Even if your family has been speaking English for generations, the vast majority of people whose native language is English have ancestors from other countries and communities whose native language was not English. Many of us still have a fascination and an affinity with things associated with that ‘old country.’ As an example, I see many people who have a Cead Mile Failte plaque outside their front door. It means “a hundred thousand welcomes” in Irish Gaelic, and is a proud declaration of their heritage, as well as a warm welcome into their home.

People of Irish ancestry living outside of Ireland (the U.S., Canada, England, New Zealand, Australia etc) often study Irish in order to make some connection with their ancestry, even if only to learn how to pronounce Cead Mile Failte or all those interesting looking place-names in Ireland. Celtic place-names have a peculiar tendency to last, even long after their original inhabitants have moved on and been replaced by people speaking different languages. Continental Europe has many such names, perhaps owing to the unique qualities of the Celtic people embodied in their languages. To quote John Millington Synge - “There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.”

We often come to a time in our lives when we think about who we are and how we got here, and a lot of that was determined by our ancestors long before we were born. When combined with the needs and goals in our present lives such as business, travel and caring for our family this can become a powerful incentive to learn a second language, particularly a language which we already have a connection to.

The concept of family or community does not have to exist only in the present. There is a wonderful quote by Christopher Ricks which sums this up nicely - “When a language creates, as it does, a community within the present, it does so only by courtesy of a community between the present and the past.”

In some small way, learning our heritage languages can open the door to understanding what kind of people our ancestors were and ultimately gaining a better understanding of ourselves. What better way to define who we are in the present than by reaching back into the past and learning more about our ancestors that got us here.

Ron is a long-time language enthusiast, exploring Spanish, French, Swedish, Esperanto and others. Learn more about studying a language on your own at Language Learning Advisor
This guide for self-study language learners has reviews and recommendations of language learning methods and products, links to online learning resources, learning tips to maximize your study time and effectiveness and articles on language learning.

Comments Off

What is it with the French and their fear of the English language? Every couple of years or so there is an ugly backlash against l’anglophonie that crops up like a nasty patch of herpes simplex, and everyone starts scratching at it. Official proclamations are made about how they must protect themselves against the insidious encroachments of English on the sacred territory of the French language.

Back in the 80’s it was then Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, who spearheaded an “awareness campaign” to alert French citizens to the dangers of using words like “weekend” and “parking” to substitute perfectly good French words that were already part of their vocabulary. The French language had to be preserved against “impurities” like these that would only most surely bring an end to the august “Language of Moliere”.
Ten years later, under Prime Minister Edouard Baladur, a law was passed making French the required language in all government documents, public billboards and even on menus at restaurants.

Now, just when it seemed that maybe the French were starting to face reality after a government-sponsored report recommended that English be compulsory for ages 8 and up, the same old anglophobia is breaking out in hives. Teachers, unions and some legislators immediately went on the attack, denouncing the report as just one more threat to the sanctity of French.

What I don’t get is why these people haven’t read the writing on the wall yet. In terms of numbers of speakers, French is now ranked 11th in the world, in spite of all the governmental efforts to promote the language outside of France. English is third, behind Mandarin Chinese and Hindi, but is far more world wide in its distribution than all other spoken languages. English now dominates international diplomacy and business, is the language used on over half of the world’s websites, and is by a large margin the foreign language studied by most school children throughout the world. The French, desperate to keep English from entering their mainstream, are already standing under 50 feet of water with their fingers still plugging holes in the dykes.

And really, shouldn’t teachers be the first to recognize the importance of giving children an early start in learning English? I have run a language school in Portugal for 16 years and have seen first hand the benefits derived from starting language learning early. The Portuguese Ministry of Education has recently passed legislation that makes English in schools mandatory from 6 years old. They have embraced the reality of English dominance, and the results are present everywhere. Kids speak and understand English with ease. Any traveling tourist in Portugal will always be able to get by with English because so much of the population can speak it.

But France remains in denial. In Portugal, English language films are never dubbed into Portuguese, so everyone is used to hearing English as it is currently spoken. In France though, films are generally dubbed into French. To see a film in its original language, people have to go to special V.O. (original version) theaters.

I remember going around the peripherique, the huge ring road that circles Paris, when France was hosting the soccer World Cup.
This is a large, international event, bringing people from all over the world, but as I drove around that complicated and confusing stretch of road, with its multiple exits and entrances, I didn’t see a single sign written in English. There wasn’t a word of English on the electronic sign boards that send messages to drivers about road conditions or alterations, and I kept imagining hordes of Japanese soccer fans driving around in endless circles like sinners in Dante’s Inferno.

This is just one example of where this misplaced resistance is hurting the French. Any tourist to Paris can tell his own story about the English-averse waiters and other linguistic nightmares.

I’m not saying they have to speak English. It’s their country. But I think now, at the start of the 21st century when communication and information exchange is facilitated by a common language like English, it might just be time for the French to swallow the bitter pill. English is here to stay, and it’s not by demanding that French citizens use “fin de la semaine” instead of “weekend” that English will go away.

Kurt Stewart (copyright 2005)

Comments Off

An active life often makes it challenging to get around to reading all the books you would like to. Long commutes to work and day-to-day activities may eat up large chunks of your day everyday. Favorite pursuits get set aside for other more pressing jobs. If you enjoy reading and find it challenging to find any time, time in the car might provide an opportunity to enjoy listening to an audio book. Thanks to downloads, it’s simple to savor Daddy’s Girls by Tasmina Perry for sale from Download Audio Book Online, or audio-books recounted by Mariah Stewart without even flipping a page. Multitasking is fast becoming a way-of-life these days. Audible books like Pimsleur Dutch Compact by Dr. Paul Pimsleur by Download Audio Book Online make the best use of of the dead hours everyday, whether it is waiting time at the dental surgery or driving the kids to piano lessons. Many audio-books may be downloaded straightaway as mp3 files these include Pimsleur Angle - English for Haitian Speakers I Complete Course by Dr. Paul Pimsleur, and if you’ve got an iPod or another mp3 player and earphones you have the chance to listen to the current best seller, such as audible books by Michael J. Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott without hauling heavy books with you.

A further advantage of audiobooks is hiring or purchasing the instructional title that interests you then enjoying it in your own time. How about learning French? Why not try out audio books? It’s easy to catch up on modern business trends, you can even discover religious or spiritual trends. Audio-books exist in a tremendous diversity of titles and literary genres. Whether you are a film buff, crazy over science fiction and fantasy even if your interests lie in health and physical fitness, you can download many audiobooks at once. Options are wide open; you can simply subscribe to a plan and rent or make a purchase.

Enthusiastic readers can invariably find a way to read, but a more convenient way could be the thousands of audio titles available today. Numerous narratives, for instance audio books recounted by Chip Kidd, can be even better when recounted by the author or a celebrated actor. Simply reading a book isn’t quite the same as listening to audio books told by , with niceties of an real rendition. Listening to audio books performed by Jermaine Griggs will bring something special to your reading experience and often go far beyond the written word.

Don’t forget about audiobooks next time you consider purchasing a book, audiobooks are a wonderful means of squeezing all the reading you want to achieve into your frantic lifestyle.

To learn more, you are advised to hop over to our prime page for www.audiofrombooks.com hints.

Comments Off