I read an interesting article today about the "death" of certain languages... in the article there was a little poll... the question was... How Many Languages Can/Do You Speak? A) 1 B) 2 C) 3 D) 4 or more...
Well... I speak English fluently (the language I grew up speaking)... I "speak" Sign-Language (another language I grew up "speaking" (although I am a much "better" lipreader)... I should say at this point that I am hearing impaired due to inherited deafness in my family)... I also speak fluent Spanish (I started taking Spanish in school in 6th grade)... and I am "fluent" in "conversational" German... I am also "fluent" in "Pig Latin" (although that is only an "official" language to those that know it... mainly parents... LOL)... and I can say these three phrases "I am an American"... "Where is the American Embassy"... and "I Need a Lawyer" in Dutch/Swedish, Italian, Turkish, Portugese and French (I traveled in Europe and was required to know those three phrases in each country I visited)... so... I clicked on "D" and hit submit...
Well... come to find out... that puts my in a very small category... less than 4% of the population of the United States speak 4 or more languages ... if you don' t count ENGLISH it still put me into 16% of the population (that spoke 3 languages)...
Does it make me feel "SPECIAL"?... Um... not particularly... just kinda nerdy (which most of my friends tell me I am)...
1 comment:
Oh Lala! How I wish I spoke more than one language! I always said I would take classes but never did...I would love to know how to sign - I was fascinated with Helen Keller when I was a child and that was when my interest in signing first began, of course I never followed up with it. Spanish is language I began in 6th grade but never continued to study - it sure would come in handy in the work force, especially if I want to continue to work in the non-profit sector. I think it is SPECIAL that you speak all of those languages. I don't think it's NERDY at all! But then again, maybe I don't know you well enough yet, LOL!
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