iceinyourmusic | communities in the way of development

Holy un-polly poll, Batman! No, but a question: Could you imagine being in a serious long-term exclusive (etc. etc.) relationship, all other factors allowing, with someone who didn't know (and didn't learn to know) your (whatever you consider your primary) language? Assuming that you were able to communicate, that is - that you, then, spoke their primary language (as a foreign language of some degree) and/or that you two had some third language, foreign to both of you, in common.

(Are you in such a relationship? Have you been? How does/did that work out for you?)

Bonus round: to what extent does your answer depend on what language we're assuming your immediate living environment would use in this scenario?

Bonus round two: Conversely, could you be/are you/have you been in a serious-type relationship where the other person's primary language would be/is/was one you didn't know, and not learn it, if they were/are able to speak yours and/or you used/use some third language to communicate?

(If you like, I could totally draw up a nice picture of poll results by hand. Also, I'm nearly sure it would be a deal-breaker for me personally.)

Going home again, to work, for the weekend. O bliss indeed.

[Edited somewhat because I'm unable to communicate in English.]

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Obviously if I were in a relationship with someone who didn't speak English natively, I'd learn their language; that's a given. But more because of the "language! shiny!" factor than the relationship part.

My uncle, however, married a woman from Vietnam and to the best of my knowledge hasn't made any attempt to learn Vietnamese. Their kids are being raised bilingual, though. (Since the primary babysitters are her parents, whose English is minimal, it doesn't matter if their father doesn't ever use it--they still get plenty of practice.)

more because of the "language! shiny!" factor

Uh, me too, probably, which is why I suspect that it wouldn't necessarily be fair of a linguistically-inclined person to expect such things of a non-linguistically-inclined one (and yet, on the other hand, well).

I do know a bunch of perfectly happy couples where one of them has never learned the other's language (or, even, where neither one has), so I assume it can be done, but especially when there are bilingual kids involved, it confuses me utterly - I mean, doesn't it drive people nuts with curiosity not to understand their children's mother tongue? - But then again, yes, there are other factors tangled up there.

If they weren't interested enough in me/learning/umlauts to at least try, probably not. But then that's not really a language issue.
No.
Yesno. He was interested.
Didn't work out for different reasons.
Not very, I think.

Why do you ask? :)

If they weren't interested enough in me/learning/umlauts to at least try, probably not.

Yeah, that's one of the two reasons for me, too, that is, for considering it an Issue - that I'd think lack of sufficient interest in understanding my language a lack of interest in understanding me. I do think that it is, to some degree at least, a language issue, though - an issue of how important a part of you you think your language is, at least? Some people seem to be quite happy to be understood in whatever language is the most easily available.

Why do you ask?

heeee, I wish I had an actual reason - but, no, I was just curious, having been thinking about language politics in general and all those strange couples I know who never learn each other's languages in particular.

Some people seem to be quite happy to be understood in whatever language is the most easily available.

i think i fall into that category. but then of course, i mainly only speak english, and almost everyone in singapore has at least a passing understanding of the language so it's not like i've had to deal with someone not knowing my language.

i never learnt how to speak my husband's mother tongue (tamil), and i doubt that i ever will. but then it's not a matter of interest, i find languages frustratingly hard. i struggled throughout (and failed)all of my language classes and now the thought of learning another one voluntarily? yeah, no. (over here we all learn in english, but then we have to take a second language class as well. for most people that second language happens to be the one they speak at home, but all my family's english educated, so i'm effectively monolingual. shame, that.)

...does that make me a terrible person? i almost have a phobia against learning a new language. just. yeah, no.

*slinks away*

cm

...does that make me a terrible person?

hee, see, here I am wondering if it makes me a terrible person to say that it would matter to me (I mean, it is a big (and selfish) thing to ask of someone, esp. if you already speak their language anyway).

But, you know, it's probably not a moral issue in any direction - I mean, if both halves of a couple are happy with whatever they choose to do, etc. When I say that it would be a deal-breaker for me, I certainly don't mean that "omg I would never be in a relationship with someone so mean and evol", but rather that it would be stupid of me to say, "oh well, whatevers" when I know that it would probably make me unhappy (why do you not caaare about this very special big part of meee?) and frustrated (not just being required to use a foreign language all day long - that I think I could do - but also being, in a sense, barred from using my own, in that context) and eventually quite pissed off. Which, on the other hand, is approximately how I assume my prospective SO would end up feeling if they really hated learning languages (which really is a fairly valid reason for not learning languages :)) and had to do it anyway, so. There we are.

That is, I assume it's not as big a deal for your husband, then, which is also great, though not something I can personally relate to. *g* I wonder - if you don't mind me asking, do you know to what extent he considers himself bilingual (if he's been educated primarily in English as well)? That is, is English a "foreign" (for lack of better word, gah) language to him, or his "other" language (or similar)? I mean, my biased perspective here is very much that of a monolingual, too (in the sense that while I know other languages, Finnish is the only one that is "mine") - and I don't know, but I would guess that, for example, what language you've gone to school in is something that will affect the constellation of which to language plays what (and how big a) part in the culturally contextual You. :)

so i asked my husband what his first language was, and he said english, so um. i guess i got that wrong. in singapore we're all educated in english as a first language and have to take a second language as well. usually that second language is chosen along racial/cultural lines - generally the Tamils study Tamil, the Chinese Mandarin, the Malays Malay, and i guess that would be the language we would consider "ours". but then that depends on the family, and whether they choose to speak that language at home or not.

some people are more comfortable with one language than another, but we're all more or less required, at least in the workplace, to communicate in english. i would think my husband considers himself bilingual, his communication with his family switches between english and tamil, and again this is a family to family basis, i know a lot of people in the older generation only speak Mandarin/Malay/Tamil and no English whatsoever, but the younger Singapore born at least speak English well enough to share a conversation with someone whose second language may be different. i would say it's kind of, um. possibly complicated? we're an ex-British colony barely 40 years into independence, and the decision made for us to be educated in English was made back then by a Prime Minister who i suppose saw the language as a means for us to advance economically, so technically English isn't a language that was ours to begin with, but the further we go along, the less we're comfortable with the languages that are supposed to be ours. my nephews for example, refuse to speak Tamil at all, although they have to learn it in school. mostly because their parents chose to speak to them in English for some reason, but then more and more parents are doing that, so um, eventually English will probably be "ours", like it is, i guess "mine", although because i'm Indian (Bengali), the language that should be "mine" is Bengali or Hindi. neither of which i speak, so there we go.

um, that possibly made no sense whatsoever? *scratches head*

Ehm, embarrassing to be answering comments so late! but.

that possibly made no sense whatsoever?

I think it made sense, rather (although Singapore being one of the standard example cases in linguistics textbooks might be helping me along here, hem) - but it was also v. interesting, because, yes - apparently the ways people identify (and don't) in terms of languages really are complicated.

(I tend to think that my considering Finnish "my language" is sort of inextricably linked with the fact that it's the language I was brought up and educated in, and the one I function in every single day, and so the language the bulk of my cultural references live in - but since there is no conflict between that and my background otherwise, I'm obviously not taking the possibility of such a conflict into consideration at all. Even though I probably should. Every day you learn something new. *g*)

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