My Obsession With Languages

My Strange Obsession:

Languages

Communicating has always been difficult for me. To see me briefly, one would never have guessed. I talk a mile a minute... but I rarely know whether I am saying the correct thing or being properly understood. In fact, part of the reason I talk so much is that I attempt to clarify what I say in 3 or 4 different ways to prevent misunderstandings before they occur. 

I used to think that if I had something to say, I was a part of the group. Vice versa, if I didn't have something to contribute to the conversation, I felt left out. My mom tried for years to break me of this thought process, but to no avail. I continued to talk and my peers continued to be annoyed... and I continued to hold on to the hope that my peers were becoming my friends.

From the time I was little, languages always fascinated me. I guess that a part of me thought that if I learned enough different modes of communication, people would finally understand what I was trying to say. It sounds so silly now, but I was desperate... and I was good at picking up languages. 

Beginning as a very young child, I learned Hebrew. Growing up going to Junior Congregation and Hebrew School, I was a very dedicated student and loved learning prayers, songs, and the like. At my Bat Mitzvah, thanks in large part to my brother's great influence, I led more of the service than any of my peers had. After my Bat Mitzvah (great amounts of credit due to ALL of my Hebrew School teachers), I was the only one in my year to complete the final year of Hebrew School. I chose to study conversational Hebrew. 

Hebrew was never a language I would have used to express myself, but it was a special language between myself and my G-d. It enabled me to communicate with Him and still does to this day. A large part of my inner strength comes from these communications. 

My grandparents and great grandparents spoke Yiddish (the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews). Obviously, they also spoke English, but as a young child I was particularly intrigued. Yiddish was their secret language. They couldn't spell around me because I was a good speller, so they would switch into Yiddish when they wanted to talk about something without my hearing. 

Now, Yiddish phrases are some of the MOST fun words to say... and as I got older, I learned the only cuss words I EVER say from my Great Grandmother. Below is a short list of some of my favorite Yiddish terms (both cuss and non-cuss).

Mensch: a person of character

Plotz: to burst or explode

Fercockt: all F**ked up

Nudnik: a pest or an annoying person

Meshuggina: crazy

Shvitz: sweat

Ver Clempt: all choked up

Ich Hob Dir!: to hell with you!**

**literally translates to I have you in the bathtub.** One of my Great Grandmother's favorite phrases when idiots would call her repeatedly looking for the same wrong number.

Now clearly I never reached conversational level in Yiddish. It remained their secret language, but I took pleasure in sharing in the little secrets that they chose to share with me. 

My best foreign language has always been Spanish. I speak Castilian Spanish (from Spain) and began learning Spanish in the 6th grade. By the end of 7th grade, I had read the first two Harry Potter books in Spanish and I enjoyed setting my television to Spanish or to HBO Latino to absorb more of the language in my everyday environment. By senior year of high school, I was relatively fluent and I missed testing out of a language in college by less than 5 points. 

My college semester of Spanish was strange. No one else in my class was as fluent as I was and the assignments mimicked those of my senior year Spanish class (to the point that I was simply editing some of the projects before passing them in). My professor wanted me to minor in Spanish, but I already spoke the language AND I already had both a major and a minor. I finished out the semester having written a three page paper about teenage pregnancy (in Spanish of course) and moved on to the rest of my classes.

When I got out of college, I took a job as an SLPA, first in an area right outside of Boston and then in an area in Texas. One of my biggest selling points was that I was bilingual (Spanish-English). Well, in Boston, that was fine... but when I got to Texas, I was introduced to Tex-Mex and found that I was completely out of my element! A year and a half after moving to Texas, I am able to complete a sale at my electronics store in Spanish, but the Tex-Mex is still over my head. This has been the one and only time a language has just seemed impossible to me.

My favorite language is American Sign Language. ASL is like a dance of the fingers. It's a beautiful fluid language which subliminally helped me to better understand facial expressions and emotions, due to its heavy reliance on facials. ASL is my favorite alternate mode of communication because it doesn't require talking. It's so much harder to be misunderstood in sign language... yet, if your hand orientation is slightly off... DISASTER!

I love the beauty of ASL. It's so complex and yet so simple. ASL can be used for so many things and it is actually often used in therapy for or classrooms with students with Autism. I love seeing music come alive with Signed Exact English (SEE) and ASL interpretation. I was honored to spend several days with interpreters at Disney, seeing the shows through completely different eyes. ASL is the closest I've ever come to my initial goal; using different modes of communication so people would understand me.