I love listening to people speak a language I don’t know. I mean, it’s delightful to hear one of the Romance languages recited on the tongue, and it’s nice when your brain reaches into the tattered old pocket labeled “high school French” to tell you what it means. But I’m talking about not knowing a single word, where each expression is just a sound, with nothing attached. There is something so liberating about being completely in the dark, it gives the brain a break from thinking and trying to know.
My favorite for this exercise, I discovered years ago, is Gaelic, or should I say Gaeilge (one of the two official languages of Ireland, what we Americans call Irish). I first heard Gaeilge converse while I was on a mission reporting a story about the underwater creatures that thrive in the cold, dark waters of the Celtic Sea. (Aside: There are surprisingly colorful communities down there, I was happy to discover, but you have to wear a dry suit to stay warm enough to hang out with them and that’s a completely different type of SCUBA, a type where, if you misjudge your buoyancy, you can suddenly find yourself rising to the surface feet first, a disconcerting experience to say the least.)
Let’s go back to Gaelige. I had hired a car so I could drive along the south coast after finishing my report, and while traveling through County Cork I turned the radio on to a news channel that was talking all the time. In Irish, of course. For me, a music channel. I couldn’t get enough. Apart from the names of two political parties that came up a lot (Sinn Féin and Fine Gael), everything was Greek to me. (Apologies.)
Thinking back, I suspect that could I have been a “language person.” At school I did well in French and then in Chinese. He had a knack for pronunciation, even in Mandarin with its complicated tones. And I love words. But I didn’t take that path, and it was so many moons ago… by now, my brain has surely lost much of that plasticity that allows us to learn languages when we are young. And, good for them, adults who have been bilingual since childhood, studies have shown, have denser gray matter (reminder: that mess of neurons and dendrites that we depend on for many cognitive functions, including memory) than the rest of us. Plus, they have more white matter (reminder: the tangle of nerve fibers that connect brain lobes and coordinate conversations between brain regions). I suspect that the more gray and white things you have left after age 50, the better you will be at choosing which donut to buy and remembering the lyrics to REM songs. Among other skills.
A barely relevant note about language I have to share: Did you know that surrounding speech affects the “speech prosody” in the melody of newborn cries? (Me neither!) In other words, the sound of a baby’s cry is shaped by the musicality and contour of the language the baby hears around him. A trained ear can probably tell you “that baby is Italian” or whatever, based on the ups and downs and emphasis of his boos. Now I really want to hear a baby cry in Irish.
Anyway, if I have a point, I suppose it’s this: for someone who is fairly monolingual, Irish, which happens to be one of the oldest written and historical languages, makes for wonderful, mind-clearing music. It is not an easy journey; Irish pavement is uneven and covered with gravel and lumps of coal. You slow down (or don’t) at roundabouts and make hard stops as required by safety, plus you’re on the wrong side of the damn road! (Did I mention I was driving while listening?) But when this language is in motion, it allows me to turn off the part of my brain that worries about getting things right, allowing me to enjoy a breathtaking ride through a windswept, castle-filled landscape where hunched, hairy-backed, flute-playing creatures surely dwell among the hills. (I can’t help it; it evokes those things. It just does.)
It occurs to me that looking written The Irish would be similarly relieved. Let’s try it here. Check out this quick translation on Google:
In English: I’ll never learn to speak Irish but I sure love listening to it. It is so completely “other” to my ears. It’s music, it is what it is. I could listen to it all day. Written language is equally confusing in the most beautiful way.
In Irish: Ní fhoghlaimeoidh mé Gaeilge choíche ach is breá liom éisteacht léi. Tá sí chomh "difriúil" sin do mo chluasa. Is ceol í, sin í. D'fhéadfainn éisteacht léi an lá ar fad. Tá an teanga scríofa chomh mearbhall céanna ar an mbealach is áille.
Good? There is absolutely nothing for the average American brain to latch onto. A badger in front of a keyboard might utter something more pronounceable or definable. Which is perfect. Written or spoken, Gaeilge/Irish is a glorious thing to No understand. I hope I never know what any of this means.
Photo by Aldo De La Paz in unpack
#word
