Hah! I couldn't resist...
But this is no mere joke. Maybe a certain renowned expert on the subject will even be tempted to reply. I sincerely hope so.
What's funny is, while I have always had a great deal of respect and admiration for those with unusual linguistic ability, I never cared all that much about my own limited expertise--until the last year or so, that is. I had other interests that were much more important to me, and assumed that I would never need any knowledge or skill with other tongues, especially not in any sort of professional capacity.
Now I am having to deal with women who are literally from all over the world, in a capacity in which the better communication you share, the more money everyone can make, and the more fulfillment of the unique variety I seek especially can be obtained.
Just last night I was trying to explain to Kiara what exactly it was that I was telling the customers about her, with an appalling lack of success. Frustrating in the extreme for me, who delights most of all in the effect of what I say on the dancer herself, in the midst of her performance. But I knew the chance of success would be dismally low, so it was actually kind of funny. She did figure out at least that I was trying to tell her what I had said, that it mattered to me that she knew, and even that it might have been in some way unique or amusing (it was one of my better efforts). So it wasn't a total waste.
What is also ironic is my previous slightly snobbish feeling that the one language besides English I do possess some rudimentary knowledge of--French--was in some way inherently superior to others. Hell I even used to say things in French on the mike at that circus club in Daytona, something no one there understood or gave a flying fuck about save the owners, sort of (they were French).
And, wouldn't you know it--though we have Czech women, Russian women, Polish women, Argentine women, even a few Hungarian and Brazilian women--and I am probably forgetting someone from somewhere else--you guessed it, not one French woman!
I know we have two dancer members who have a knowledge of Russian, one due to her Ukrainian heritage, and one due to her having chosen the language and literature as her major in college. But I would be interested to hear who else out there has an interest or unusual ability in the field of linguistics.
I do know that there are people with an uncommon capacity for picking up new languages. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's something that can be fostered from an early age by an appropriate encouragement and exposure to other spoken languages, probably it's both. But there are people who seem uncannily facile with this--and it even seems apparent that rather than decreasing with the acquisition of yet further means of communication, it might even increase! The academic world is replete with tales of such extraordinary individuals.
The most fascinating by far, of course, being Sir Richard Francis Burton. No, not the actor, but this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton
Wilkpedia will tell you that he was "...a British explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat.". But they left out the fact that he was a sensual adventurer as well, something his long-suffering but loyal wife didn't seem to be as upset about as most would.
So let's hear it...



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There was a little broken spanish spoken in the house when my grandparents visited, but I only remember the bad words. Hats off to those willing to undertake the task as an adult.

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