Some US Presidential candidates seem embarrassed by their ability to speak a foreign language. Both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich speak at least some French. Romney picked his up while on Mormon mission in France. Gingrich acquired his as a teenager while his father his US serviceman father was stationed there. Yet Gingrich made fun of Romney in a TV ad because he  “speaks French.” The implication seems to be that speaking a foreign language muddies your 100% all-American vision.

No wonder Jon Huntsman didn’t catch on as a Presidential candidate. Huntsman speaks some Chinese (those Mormon missions come in handy for something). And, unlike the rest of them, he didn’t shy away from showing off his Chinese while campaigning.

For his part, President Obama has oscillated between a populist boast of ignorance (“my French and German are terrible!”) tempered by chagrin (“I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing!”).

The Obama Administration has tried to make funding more available for foreign language learning. (Part of the problem has been the “No Child Left Behind” law which leaves languages behind. The law’s relentless testing in English reading and  math offers teachers little incentive to stray from the subject of the next exam. Instead, they teach to the test.) In recent years Congress has cut federal foreign language learning grants.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this list of the languages spoken by each American president since Washington,  but it makes for fascinating reading.

Going to the Idiomatic Bathroom

Also in the pod this week, we hear from a hospital in King’s Lynn in the English county of Norfolk. Foreign nurses there are expected to speak and understand English, and just to make sure they understand British-English hospitalese, they now take an additional course.  They learn some of the many variations for going to the bathroom, especially the ones favored by the mainly elderly patients who like to “spend a penny” or “go to the lavvy.” Other key colloquialisms: “jim-jams” (pajamas), “tickled pink” (delighted) and “higgledy-piggledy” (in a muddle).

As well as those British English terms, there is the regional Norfolk dialect. Among the pertinent (and not so pertinent) words  the nurses may learn are: “blar” (to cry), “mawther” (young woman: somewhat derogatory), “mardle” (chat, gossip) and “bishy barney bee’ (a ladybird/ladybug).

Those nurses might have got more than they bargained for.

Garifuna Revival Through Song

 Finally, reporter Nina Porzucki profiles Belizean singer James Lovell who is trying to keep the Garifuna language relevant.

The Garifuna people come from the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. But no one speaks Garifuna there any more. No one has since the 18th century, when the Garifuna were exiled by the British to Honduras. The diaspora is now spread throughout Central America in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize.

The Garifuna language has survived but over time, Spanish, English and several creoles have become more dominant. The pattern is familiar: parents speak in their native tongue. Kids answer back in the language of the adopted country.

As a child,  Lovell would hear his parents and grandparents speaking Garifuna, and though he understood it,  he spoke Belizean Creole. It was only when he heard local musician Pen Cayetano singing in Garifuna that Lovell became interested in the language.

Cayetano sang about contemporary social issues. And his music was part of a new sound called Punta Rock.

That inspired Lovell to learn to speak and sing in Garifuna, which eventually led to his current project. With backing from the New York-based Endangered Language Alliance, Lovell is translating popular English language songs into Garifuna. He’s also helping Lovell raise money for an after-school program to teach Garifuna to kids in Lovell’s Brooklyn neighborhood—kids who, like Lovell, came from Garifuna backgrounds but don’t speak the language.

Lesson one for these kids: the pre-school hit I Love You as sung by Barney, the giant purple dinosaur.

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Erard talks about why hyperpolyglots are driven to learn so many languages. He also describes the lives and practices of several language super learners:

Alexander Arguelles, who spends nine hours a day, divided into twenty-minute chunks, on language-learning. It used to be fourteen hours a day before he got married.

Gregg Cox, dubbed the “Greatest Living Linguist” in 1999 by the Guinness Book of World Records. Guinness credits him with speaking 64 languages, though he says he doesn’t speak that many.

Helen Abadzi, who drills the sounds of languages into her brain with the help of a device called a digital language repeater. The repeater plays digitally recorded audio snippets over and over at various speeds.

Erard conducted an online  survey of hyperpolyglots. In the podcast, he talks about the results. He also talks about how writing the book influenced his own thinking—like when can you say that you know a language? As far as the US government is concerned,  it’s if you speak it at home.  But in Canada, the government is more likely to credit you for having learned a language, even if you don’t speak it at home or work or school. So, Erard now believes that the US government underreports the number of US residents who speak more than one language.

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Language writer Michael Erard’s new book is about people who appear to have a special gift. You, perhaps, and I (and Erard for that matter) struggle to learn one or two languages to a basic conversational level.

Hyperpolyglots aren’t like that. They take on Arabic after breakfast and will have mastered it by dinner.

OK, not exactly. But there is a gulf between  language super-learners and most of the rest of us. You only have to read about some of the hyperpolyglots in Erard’s book.

Erard says most hyperpolyglots are men. Many share a “geek macho profile” that in some cases demands that they don’t “leave any languages uncounted” in their repertoire, even when they don’t have full mastery of some of them. Another of Erard’s findings (based on a survey he conducted and interviews with some of the participants): hyperpolyglots are more likely to be introverted, gay or left-handed.

The patron saint of hyperpolyglots has to be  Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774-1849). Though he never left his native Italy, he learned scores of languges– just how many is disputed.   One account claims that Mezzofanti learned as many 114 languages, though 60 is more likely (and of those, he had mastery of perhaps 30).  He’s far from the only hyperpolyglot on whose behalf  inflated claims have been made.

Like many hyperpolyglots, there was a sense of showmanship about Mezzofanti. He staged public displays of his linguistic prowess, and received guests from around the world. Not dissimilar to TV game shows in which more recent hyperpolyglots have performed (sometimes not all that well).

One of the big questions about Mezzofanti and other hyperpolyglots is: why? Why learn so many languages?

There is the geeky completism (not that you ever could achieve true completism: too many languages for that). There is the desire to learn. There is, for some, a devout faith in one’s methods. What sometimes isn’t there (but does exist in casual language learners)  is a desire to verbally communicate with others. That’s not always the case– some hyperpolyglots are professional interpreters– but for many, the learning is on the page or between the earbuds.

In the podcast, Erard compares a typical hyperpolyglot’s method (they “attack the languages” with grammar and vocabulary drills) with the immersive approach of Hippo Family Clubs (also known as LEX). The Hippo Clubs bring together groups of people, sometimes from the same families, who want to learn several languages simultaneously. The emphasis is on immersion, community and non-judgmental trial by error.

Erard also talks about a term he has coined: the will to plasticity. Linguists and educators have long argued over which is more important in learning a language: personal drive or brain plasticity. Erard argues that hyperpolyglots have both in abundance, and each sparks the other.

This podcast, incidentially, is part one of two. Erard will be back next week to tell the individual stories of some of the hyperpolyglots he met in researching his book.

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Usain Bolt bolts, Anna Smashnova was a tennis pro, Bob Flowerdew is a gardening expert. Coincidence?

In this episode of the pod, criminal defense lawyer Frances Crook and vicar Michael Vickers discuss their own names and vocations with John Hoyland of New Scientist. Hoyland first became interested in nominative determinism—a term he coined—after being told about a study of incontinence authored by JW Splatt and D Weedon. On the same day he came across a book on the Polar regions by Daniel Snowman.

Among the questions discussed: why do some people feel drawn to professions predicted by their names? Why do others enter professions that their names suggest might be inappropriate (Dr De’ath or airline planner Rod Muddle)?

Of course in the old days, people were often named after the family profession—Smith, Baker, Potter, Cooper. But that doesn’t happen any more.

Hoyland hasn’t come upon conclusive research on any of this. All he has is a hunch. A slight one. As he puts it, “there’s something going on here, or maybe there isn’t.”

Also in the pod:

• Clemson Smith Muñiz has been the play-by-play voice of Los Knicks en español. He talks about how basketball terminology in Spanish has many regional variations. The word dunk for example, translates as donquear in Puerto Rico, mate in Spain, volcada in Argentina, and clavado in Mexico and central America. You’d have thought Smith Muñiz was spoiled for choice. But no, he’s come up with his own expression: martillazo, which means a hammer blow.

• In the wake of the death of Kim Jong Il, it’s a good time to check in on freedom of expression south of the DMZ. While it’s in as short supply in the North as food and electricity, that’s not the case in South Korea. But there are limits. We have a report on a podcast that’s hugely popular there. It’s a part satirical, part serious indictment of  South Korea’s president Lee Myung Bak. It’s called (in translation) I’m a Petty-minded Creep. On December 22, 2011, one of the podcast’s hosts was sentenced to a year in prison for spreading false rumors. The host, who was once an opposition politician, is also barred from running for office for ten years.  So now we know a little more about the limits of free speech in South Korea. More Korean language coverage here and here.

• And, the late Christopher Hitchens discusses the power of debate with his brother Peter Hitchens. The two disagreed on just about everything—except for the value of argument as a means to arrive at principled positions.

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The Forth Bridge,  just outside Edinburgh, was opened in 1890. Opened but not really completed. In fact, it seemed as though it would never be completed. The paint would flake off, and just as soon as one part of the bridge was repainted, another would need a touch-up.

And so a metaphor was born: like painting the Forth Bridge, or that’s a Forth Bridge paint job.  Brits used it to describe arduous, unending tasks. Memorizing multiplication tables. Preparing your tax return. Attending a Grateful Dead concert.

But now, the endless paint job has ended. The paint is hardier these days—so much so that the bridge won’t need another coat for about 25 years. For the first time in the bridge’s history, “there will be no painters required on the bridge,” beams Colin Hardie, the construction superintendent of the paint contractor Balfour Beatty. “Job done.”

Hardie gets into murkier water with this declaration: “The old cliché is over.”

Is it? Will people stop using a metaphor just because it no longer holds up?

We don’t necessarily stop using phrases just because they’re out of date. We still put the cart before the horse even though we ride on neither. We still put in our two cents even though we rarely use pay phones anymore (and when we do it costs considerably more than two cents).

Plus, this is a strictly British expression. And Brits don’t embrace Americanisms, or at least they like to think they don’t. Otherwise, they’d happily trade the idea of a painting a bridge for playing an arcade game. The phrase like playing Whac-A-Mole would be a fine substitute for like painting the Forth Bridge. But it’s not going to happen. For one thing, Whac-A-Mole needs to be explained to most Brits, myself included.

So what might replace painting the Forth Bridge? Etymologist Mark Forsyth suggests bailing out the Euro. And there’s waiting for the Arab summer (we are currently in the fifth quarter of the Arab spring).

Also in the podcast this week:

South Africa’s newest pop sensation Zahara talks about singing in both English and her native Xhosa. Her debut album, Loliwe, is itself a metaphor for absence, well known to Xhosa speakers.

And a study by Yale economist Keith Chen claims that the language you speak may determine how much money you save. According to Chen, you’re in luck if your native tongue doesn’t have a future tense. Linguist John McWhorter told reporter Audrey Quinn that he begs to differ with this theory. And he has a theory of his own as to why so many people are attracted to the idea that thought and behaviour spring from language.

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I like Twitter.  I like the character limit. And I love opening up Twitter first thing in the morning , reading tweets that are mainly (at that time of day) from another time zone. My own dawn chorus.

Mostly, I tweet about other reporters’ or bloggers’ language stories– stories that I am not going to get to but they are worth noting and passing on. This can be dangerous. I often tweet on issues about which I know little. And I do it at speed. Sometimes I mis-convey the story. Sometimes I mis-type a word. Sometimes I misspell. Sometimes, my grammar isn’t great. (Forget tweeting, that all sounds just like regular daily journalism…)

So what happens when you come across a tweet that you would love to RT, but you…just…can’t? You can’t get past the bad spelling or grammar.

There is one solution: instead of RT-ing, you can MT, or write a modified tweet. You correct the spelling, clean up a bit of grammar. You can even amplify a thought or clarify a sloppy piece of writing. Just make sure you write MT. That worked for me, until I heard a conversation on the BBC– a conversation that, in an audio sort of way, I MT’d in this podcast episode (I recut the interview slightly and introduced it differently).

The discussion was between the BBC’s Evan Davis and comedian and serial tweeter (now taking a Twitterbreak) David Schneider. Now Schneider, like many of us, doesn’t have much time for those self-appointed sticklers who roam the internet in search of bad grammar or poor spelling: he calls them peddants (his spelling).

But maybe a grammatical error is part of the communication. A poorly written tweet may tell you that the tweet was written in a hurry. It may indicate that the writer doesn’t care about grammar or spelling. That makes me hesitate.

On the other hand, I’ve been relieved and grateful when my own misspelled tweets have been cleaned up by others…

Otherwise in this week’s pod, it’s all Tamil. This is a language that has more speakers than Italian or Turkish, but there are fears about its future. We hear from a lexicographer who is painstakingly compiling a Tamil dictionary. And we talk to two Indians about a song that has become an internet sensation. Titled Kolaveri Di, it’s sung partly in Tamil, partly in English, and partly in Tanglish,  the (now-inevitable) mash-up of the two.

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Most of the Old Testament was written in Ancient Hebrew. Like most early scripts, Ancient Hebrew was written like Hebrew and Arabic are today—without vowels and written from right to left. It is a right brain language, says Sacks, because to understand the meaning of any word, “you have to understand the total context in which it occurs.”

Sacks sees it this way:

Ancient Greek was the first language ever to be written from left to right, which activates the left brain. You don’t need to understand the total context here. You derive meaning word by word, in small components.

The emergence of the world’s first left brain language also coincided with the first instances of “left brain thinking”: the philosophy of Aristotle, Epicurus and other Greek scholars. This atomistic, evidence-based approach to interpreting the world eventually led to modern-day science.

Most of the Old Testament was written in Ancient Hebrew. It was translated into Greek between 300 BC and 200 BC. It was the Greek translation of the Old Testament that the early Christians used to spread the religion.

Judaism and Christianity began as right brain religions, based on that Ancient Hebrew way of thinking. But early in its evolution, Christianity took a turn. The word of Christianity—the Old Testament—was translated into Greek (and the New Testament was written in Greek).

Sacks concludes that Christianity was a right brain religion translated into a left brain language. And the religion encompassed those two ways of thinking: the metaphysical and the analytical. For many centuries – until the Enlightenment—the prevailing view in Europe was that religion and science were part of the same thing.

I don’t know enough about all this to draw any conclusions. (Readers: please comment…) But I think it’s important to maintain some skepticism. For example, Sacks seems to be arguing that we can infer a certain mindset based on language—that, for example, the lack of vowels in written Ancient Hebrew means that its speakers were big picture rather than piecemeal thinkers. Here’s a good reminder that it’s unwise to jump to conclusions about what a language reveals about beliefs.

Aside from Jonathan Sacks, the pod has several other segments, most of them related either to Modern Hebrew or to the Bible:

Nina Porzucki profiles the Hebrew Language Academy, a charter school in Brooklyn, NY.

Matthew Bell takes a tour of Tel Aviv’s Occupy-like tent city, with its Hebrew (and occasional English and Arabic) signs and slogans.

Michael Erard, author of the forthcoming Babel No More, talks about 19th century Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, and his policing of erroneous translations of the Bible.

British philosopher A. C. Grayling and former Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral in London Giles Fraser debate Grayling’s secular re-imagining of the Bible, The Good Book.

Finally, a conversation with ethnomusicologist Heather MacLachlan. She’s just written a book called Burma’s Pop Music Industry. Particularly popular in Burma are well-known Western songs that sound almost identical to the originals—except they are sung in Burmese with totally different lyrics.

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In previous years, OED editors have named a US word and a UK word. American English and British English are, after all, an ocean apart. This year, squeezed middle is the global winner, which is odd. As political rhetoric–  which is all this phrase really is– it’s been far more popular in the UK than in the US.

Also-rans this year include Arab Spring, occupy, clicktivism, bunga bunga and tiger mother.

I’m not sure what the Pakistan government’s position might be on any of those words. (I’m guessing they’d have a problem with bunga bunga.) But in the pod, we take a look at the government’s  move– now shelved– two ban nearly two thousand words from text messaging.  Most of the words are sexually frank, the usual nasty stuff. But many others are mild or just bizarre: flatulence, period, athlete’s foot, monkey crotch.  Urdu expressions meaning nonsense (buckwaas) and foolish (bewakoof) would also have been banned.

We round off the pod with a list of mainly invented words. These appear on the title track to Kate Bush’s new album, 50 Words For Snow. Bush knows there are not 50 words for snow, in English or any other language. (Eskimo languages are often credited with having up to 23 words for snow; they don’t.)  Bush plays on this myth by having collaborator Stephen Fry enunciate 50 words. Some are poetic English: drifting, swans-a melting, vanilla swarm. Some are just poetic: terrablizza, sleetspoot’n. psychohail, spangladasha. All these words, says Bush in the pod, had to her “a sense os meaning something that was evocative of snow.”

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When Barack Obama goes abroad, he has a knack of disarming the locals by quoting from the local language. Even if the locals speak English. In Australia, he won laughs for his (slightly off) rendering of expressions like spot on, chinwag and ear bashing.

So, what better time to consider Australia’s languages, and its use of English? Australia is, of course, home to a great diversity (though not so great these days) of Aboriginal languages. For decades,  white Australians either ignored these languages or actively tried to eliminate them. Only recently have Australians begun to embrace these languages as a central part of the country’s culture.

On the pod, three Australians talk about this and other language-related issues: novelist and historian Thomas Keneally, opera singer and composer Deborah Cheetham and historical novelist Kate Grenville. As well as the discussion of the history and  fate of Aboriginal languages,  bush ranger Ned Kelly is remembered for a choice turn of phrase ( “a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat-headed big-bellied, magpied-legged, narrow-hipped, splay-footed sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords”).

This discussion was first broadcast on the BBC’s Start the Week. There’s a podcast version here. It’s always a must-listen.

For some more Aussie English, curated of the great Australian poet Les Murray, check out this previous pod/post.

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Why are young Chinese so enamored of the phrase Oh My Lady Gaga? It’s been in been in use for a couple of years now, as an embellishment of OMG! According to this China Daily column, it didn’t originate in China, despite  Chinese claims.  It apparently came from where all good things come from: American TV. In an episode of Ugly Betty, camp character Marc says “Oh my Lady Gaga! Mandy, you’re brilliant.”

There are, though, some English-ish expressions that do originate in China: outman, hengeilivable, and antizen among others. More here.

Which bring us to OMG! Meiyu.

OMG! Meiyu is a daily three minute video produced by Voice of America. It’s aimed at helping Chinese speakers learn American English.  Meiyu (美语) means American English. According to host Jessica Beinecke– who we hear from in the pod– the title is a nod to the phrase Oh My Lady Gaga. In both cases,  there’s English, there’s Chinese (sort of) but most of all, there’s a playfulness around the language.

Beinecke’s videos have become wildly popular in China, not least because of her slangy approach to English teaching. Why teach an English learner bottom or rear end when there’s a more memorable word to pass on like badonkadonk. Here are the payoff  sentences from her lesson on physical fitness:

“She stopped working out and she got a little jiggly. I hear she has a muffin top, and a big badonkadonk!”

Another lessson:

There are three other items in this week’s pod:

Did San Francisco’s Chinese language newspapers help elect a Chinese-American mayor?

Did a religious linguist who created an alphabet for one of Zambia’s 73 languages do those people a favor? (I’ve done more, and more in-depth, on the subject of  Christians bringing writing systems to oral languages for the purpose of translating the Bible. For that,  go here and here.)

And how much is our everyday language colored by unconscious emotions?

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