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Veinte

3 skinny people waiting for their coffee 

20 in Spanish.     I know only snippets of various languages.   I can count to 10 in French, and Danish (Danish from old girlfriend, who also taught me a nursery rhyme),  I spent a Boston summer trying to learn Russian back when I drove a cab and found that most of the cab drivers were Russian.   I would stand in the Logan airport cab drivers's cafe and listen to them talk.     After a couple of months of working with 3 by 5 flash cards, I got to a point that when I listened to them I could catch the odd word here and there, but not really understanding anything.  Still, catching individual words from the constant streaming sound chatter of a foreign language is a foundational start.

I did take 3 years of Spanish in high school, so I know Spanish more than anything else.   Knowing some Spanish is helpful in America, and specifically living in the west.   It has been whispered that America is an Hispanic nation.   Most Americans though will just not admit it as such.

Having studied Spanish does not mean I can speak Spanish though, but only that I can catch the gist of it often when I am driving and listening to Spanish stations.     Understanding before speaking is common and another foundational level in linguistic understanding, somewhat above catching the odd word, but still significantly below even competent literacy.

I guess the best language skills I have  - if you can call them that - is in the acquisition of English language Dialect.   I think my music ear helps me there.  I lived in England for most of 7 years, and had gotten to a point where I could speak the dialect to a point where visiting tourists would not know I was American.    By the that time, I was also dressing like a local, looking like a local, working in clubs etc.   The hair, the clothes.   The English lilt in my voice.  Phrasing statements like questions, etc.  Native English folk could usually tell I was American though.   I never tried to fool anybody.  I just never thought about it.

Ditto living in the American south.    I lived in Alabama for 3 years and fell into the patois fairly easily.   If you have a decent enough ear, you hear the various lifts and falls, the special word usage often enough in the voices around you, and it is not even a conscious thing, One day you just find yourself starting to replicate it when talking with other people.  It is an effort to learn to communicate more precisely if you know what the listener is expecting.   And then it begins to take over the longer you live there.  The words just fall out of your mouth of their own accord, and you think Geez, did that just come out of my mouth?

Ditto with the Boston Dialect.   6 years there.  Big transition years for me, from being a bartender to a cab driver to a techie.   Boston is where I found Michelle which led to the next 30 years of our lives and our family.  My kids.

When I am with my siblings, like a lot this past summer, I hear them talk and can occasionally hear the New York origins in their voices, where we all grew up, the east coast dialect popping up in the odd colorful word.    I get caught up in it as well.   Every now and then I will be talking to someone and they ask me if I am from the East Coast.  To the well tuned ear, you can never hide it completely, as much as you think you have it buried deep inside unseen and unheard.   Our origins and our inner thoughts betray us in ways we do not expect.

All deep layers reveal themselves to someone who is skilled at paying attention, and when all they have is the surface to go by.   Every surface ripple is a clue, if you know what to look for.   Ripples have a language all their own.