Something I am enjoying a lot at the moment is my Dutch language class. This term I am doing Dutch 3 at TAFE.
Last week we worked on the perfect tense (e.g. “I have worked” Ik heb gewerkt) which seems straightforward enough, apart from needing to remember the conjugation rules. We also continued working on separable verbs (zich generen “to feel embarrassed”; Ik geneer me “I feel embarrassed”, Wij generen ons “We feel embarrassed”, etc.) - these separable verbs, of which Dutch has lots, are quite challenging. My grammar book defines a separable verb as “one with a prefix (e.g. opbellen “to ring up”) which separates from the verb and stands at the end of the clause in the present and imperfect tenses (e.g. Hij belde mij op) and which permits the ge- of the past participle to be inserted between it and the rest of the verb, e.g. Hij heeft mij opgebeld.” (Dutch: A comprehensive grammar, p. 334)
The thing that I find most fascinating and most frustrating about learning a language is the rules. The adult mind has so much difficulty trying to grasp rules that babies seem to just pick up in their first few years of life. You just seem to know the rules in your first language, without having to think about them, and without being able to describe them, necessarily - and everything flows naturally.
When you learn another language you have to start all over again and can take nothing for granted. It also makes you appreciate your first language a lot more, I find.
Still thinking about reading. I am very grateful to the accident of birth that means that I can read the literatures of two (or three) languages.
Why two or three languages? Why aren’t I more definite, you ask? Well, two of the languages I am referring to are Malaysian (Bahasa Malaysia) and Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia). Malaysian and Indonesian are very very similar. If I was to compare, I’d say the differences between them are like the differences between the English spoken in Scotland and the English spoken in Australia. There are historical differences (helped along by having different colonisers), cultural differences, and large and very noticeable differences in accent/pronunication. There are vocabulary differences, too. Most speakers of English would still be able to identify both Scottish English and Australian English as English, even if some of us might have difficulties understanding either variety. The same goes for a speaker of Malay (for that is the language that Malaysian and Indonesian are based on) - they would recognise Malaysian and Indonesian as being very similar but different. And would have difficulties understanding some varieties of the two - I love listening to Terengganu Malaysian but don’t always get it, and Jakartan Indonesian is sometimes quite unintelligible to me. But the standard varieties of the two - standard, as in what is taught in school, and how news readers sound - are perfectly understandable, and most modern literature is perfectly readable.
Over the years I’ve actually read more Indonesian lit than Malaysian, as the library system here seems to have more Indonesian stuff than Malaysian. (Favourite Indonesian authors: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Nh. Dini, S Mara Gd, Rendra. But I will read most things I find.) Even in Malaysia, Malay language lit is difficult to get - the bookshops seem to have lots of romances but not much else.
As for literature in Chinese, I still classify myself as a struggling learner who finds it quite a slog to read novels in Chinese. I enjoy the challenge, though, and am trying to improve by reading vaguely literary magazines like ???? Qingnian Wenzhai “Youth Digest” and ?? Duzhe “Reader”, and short stories by writers like ??? Zhang Ailing.
Chinese literature often seems rather stilted (to me) when translated into English, and is far better in the original. I don’t know why this is so. Perhaps the cultural and linguistic differences don’t translate well. I feel very lucky to be able to read these literatures in their original languages.
The other day I realised that with Mama’s passing I now no longer have anyone in the family to speak Cantonese with. It was a strange disconcerting realisation. Of course this is nothing like the loss of language many other communities have had to face. The Aboriginal Languages of Australia Virtual Library, for instance, states that of the approximately 200 indigenous languages here, “Less than 20 languages are strong, and even these are endangered: the others have been destroyed, live in the memories of the elderly, or are being revived by their communities.” (I could find more stats and things, but I’m too lazy to do non-Web-based research for this.)
Given that Cantonese is spoken by millions of people world-wide I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for me to speak Cantonese, e.g. the next time we go to a Chinese restaurant here in Perth. It’s not just about speaking the language, though. It’s about being able to speak to someone who understands, to some degree, where you’ve come from, and what your experiences are. Speaking Cantonese with my grandmother was always infinitely more satisfying than speaking Cantonese to a Hong Kong shopkeeper or eavesdropping on the conversations of Southern Chinese students. It’s not going to be easy to find a Cantonese conversationalist who has very strong Malay and Teochiew influences (and was born in 1920s Singapore, lived through the Japanese occupation of Malaya)…
Of course it’s not just about the language itself, but all the other customs and traditions, too. Last night at my parents’ place, my brother and his wife announced that they are having a baby in September. Once we stopped congratulating them - my parents were overjoyed, given that this is going to be their first grandchild - the discussion turned to the topic of how the child would address its seniors. Mum thought at first that she should be called Ah Mah but I think we established that that term of address would not be correct if we followed Cantonese tradition (which would be ‘correct’ given that Dad has Cantonese antecedents), in which case she would be called Mama. I’ve written about the languages spoken in my family before. I’m sure many other families in our situation (immigrants) have language histories that are as varied as ours.
I was amused interested to see how vehement Dad was in his insistence that the new member of the family would address each of its aunts and uncles by the correct terminology. In a Chinese family it’s never as simple as appending the term Uncle or Auntie to someone’s name (this chart gives a great illustration of some of the complexity involved). Dad thinks we ought to use Baba Nyonya relationship terms. Only problem is, he isn’t entirely sure what the correct terminology should be, apart from the fact that I should be called Mak Ko, given that I am the eldest. I didn’t particularly care if I was called C, but I suppose, on reflection, it would be good to maintain some of these traditions. If only we still had someone who knew what the done thing is.
