Re: Using Real Cultures and Languages in Fantasy

Patricia C. Wrede <pwrede6492@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> "Dan Goodman" <dsgood@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:432b6e41$0$8035$8046368a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Bill Swears wrote:
> >
> >> I made a discovery about cognitive dissonance and second languages
> >> while standing about lost on a parisian railway platform. It carried
> >> on for several days in Paris. If I spoke english, most people
> >> completely failed to understand. Ditto if I attempted French. My
> >> french accent is so atrocious, I think I inflict pain on anybody who
> >> actually speaks the language. And I only know about ten words.
> >>
> >> Ahh, but if I spoke german? Lots of people suddenly spoke english.
> >> I actually find this fair. I think I was getting points for speaking
> >> a second language, but one that still brings a level of discomfort
> >> with it. Given their druthers, at that point they chose to speak
> >> english, which certainly made my life easier.
> >
> > I recall a book by someone who travelled with his family into
> > Yugoslavia (among other places) in the early 1950s from England. He
> > didn't speak the local languages; the locals didn't speak English. In
> > the area where he was travelling, many people knew German; and he knew
> > German. However, it was not a good idea to give the mistaken
> > impression he was a German.
> >
> > What he did: Began by speaking in English. When that didn't work, he
> > would speak very bad German. Once it had been established that German
> > was definitely not his native language, he could let his German improve.
>
> When I went to Europe back in 1987, I took a couple of French classes to
> supplement my meager memories of German. In France, I had a good deal of
> trouble following people, though I was clearly better off than I'd have been
> not knowing the language.
>
> But the real payoff was in Italy. I met a very pleasant Italian lady in the
> train station, who pegged me for a tourist right off and asked something in
> Italian, which I didn't understand. When I said so, she switched to
> French -- and I could understand *her* pretty well, possibly because we were
> both speaking "school French" at a much slower pace than either of us would
> have talked in our native tongues. She gave me directions and recommended a
> really nice pensione.
>
> Patricia C. Wrede

"School French" is apparently pretty long-lasting and works well between
non-native speakers. My mother took French in high school and college
(1932-1939) to a level at which she could make dinner-table conversation
with the French exchange students and habitually spoke French with her
Polish piano teacher who had spent many years in Paris before coming to
the U.S. One time in the early seventies she flew to visit my
grandmother and was seated next to a German businessman who apparently
spoke very little English. She heard his struggles to communicate with
the flight attendant over his drink and asked if he spoke French. He
said he had not used it since he left school, but they spent the next
two hours talking about books.
I had a similar occasion to dredge up my spoken French when my
then-roommate's father called from Beograd and I remembered he had never
studied English, but he often worked in France and Italy. I was able to
tell him she where she was and ask if he had the number there, without
any difficulty. Lingua franca.
--
Mary Anne in Kentucky
.

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