Languages.
I have been thinking about what Laurel writes about manoevering between different languages.
I lived for 3 years in Africa, Malawi when I was a child and went to an International English-speaking school there. I have been told that I at the age of 7, managed Danish, English and Chichewa perfectly. I remember myself being asked to translate between Chichewa and Danish when the cook wanted to talk to my parents. When I returned to Denmark, there were ample opportunity to maintain my English, but I never had the chance to speak Chichewa. Many years later, as a grown-up, I went to a party on a beach in Whitstable, England - and there was this African guy with a guitar, singing sad songs in a beautiful and strange language. Later in the evening it turned out it was Chichewa - and I didnt understand a word. So I have this weird experience of having learnt and lost a language completely - and I often wonder, if I would actually be able to pick up Chichewa again if I went back and stayed in Malawi for a while. And so getting an answer to whether the knowledge of this language still resides in some remote, forgotten corner of my mind or if it is completely gone?
Sometimes, when I have been writing or speaking a lot of English, I start dreaming in English again. Or unconsciously forming my sentences in English when I am thinking of what to write in this blog, for instance. When I become conscious of it, I feel a little bit schizofrenic about it - as if there were a voice of another person speaking instead of the "real me" (the Dane). I definitely do feel that there is a difference between the English me and the Danish me - and so in that way, I can also be tired in 2 different languages in that I would be tired in a slightly different way, depending on whether I told somebody I was tired in English, or in Danish. I also wonder what kind of "me" I would discover, if I learnt to speak Chichewa again? Would that be an altogether different me - or would it be like finding a part of myself that have been lost for many years, and for that reason feels like an old friend?
# posted by Lisbeth at: 14:57