Tongue-tied

I knew this would happen, and it has been such a curious experience.  It has happened before, but not to this extent.  I have been tongue-tied for the last several days.  I am recently arrived for a visit in Senegal, West Africa after having lived in Okinawa, Japan for the last two and a half years.  In Senegal they use French as a common language to communicate.  I grew up in Haiti, which is also French-speaking.  Although I never mastered French, I can comprehend a lot of it and speak a bit of it.  I should, therefore, conceivably be able to draw on those reservoirs of language knowledge to assist me in communicating with the Senegalese I meet...

Perhaps some people have the capacity to rapidly and methodically cycle through the languages in their heads to land on exactly the language they want to use for that precise moment, but I have not yet acquired that skill.  And perhaps that skill is only developed as needed.  I have never needed it.  Having only ever really spoken two languages, merely dabbling in others, I rarely have cause for confusion when selecting from the foreign language section of my brain.  

The first time I experienced foreign-language-brain-confusion was while visiting the Dominican Republic from Haiti.  It was so hard to refrain from speaking Kreyol and to search for that Spanish-class vocabulary.  Kreyol was at the fore-front of the foreign language section of my brain.  I was surprised to find that now true of Japanese.  

This should not be any wonder to me after being immersed in Japanese for nearly three years, but I feel as if I have not really been able to learn much Japanese while working in Okinawa.  I did not formally study Japanese, except for a few free classes for a couple months after I had been there a year.  And my job was not one that required me to speak Japanese to be able to perform it.  I did not feel as if I made much progress in Japanese.

Perhaps I should have realized my progress when I was able to follow my kids’ conversations and answer their questions or comment on their stories, which had all been spoken in Japanese.  Or perhaps when I could answer parent’s questions even though they hadn’t been directed to me, since they asked in Japanese.  Or when I sometimes understood better if my co-workers just explained in Japanese rather than using broken English.  I should have realized when I would skype my parents in Haiti and had to sift through the Japanese in my head to find the Kreyol to greet my Haitian friends.  

I finally did realized when I arrived in Senegal and was completely tongue-tied.  My mind may not  have the ability to rapidly cycle through languages, but it does recognize the wrong language fast enough to prevent me from verbalizing it in the wrong context.  When I went searching for my scraps of French, all I encountered was Japanese.  Unbeknownst to me, Japanese had taken over as the primary foreign language in my brain so that is all my brain threw at me whenever I struggled to find words to convey my thoughts in French.  (After Japanese it would switch to Kreyol, which wasn’t any more helpful and actually more complicated to distinguish from French.)

I have never been so thoroughly tongue-tied, and yet strangely proud of it.  I hate not being able to articulate my thoughts as I would like to when I already sort of know a language, but I am surprised and delighted that I could know enough Japanese that it would impede my more proficient languages.  I often picture in my mind the expressions on everyone’s faces if I ever let slip a word in Japanese instead of French or Kreyol.  :)  But perhaps with all the African languages mixed in here, they wouldn’t much care.  

They did ask me to say a greeting in Japanese for them to all hear.  It was odd because as I said it, I tried to imagine what it would be like for them to hear it.  But it sounded so normal to me that it seemed rather dull and anti-climactic.  It’s like when you tell people you don’t think you have an accent because you can’t hear your own.  Hearing the Japanese did not sound strange or novel to me.  It just sounded like something I’ve been saying and hearing every day for the last two and half years, simply normal.      

*Two observations I want to make note of briefly:

I am amazed at how my brain has subconsciously, yet actively paid attention to the phrases and words spoken in French that coincide with Kreyol.  It’s like my brain has been going, “Oh, I recognize that, but I didn’t know that was used in French.  Let me now catalog that under French as well since I know that I can use those words and they will be understood.”

I am also rather amazed and slightly concerned at how quickly the French/Kreyol has come back.  I am glad to know it’s there and I can understand it as well as cobble a few semi-intelligible things together in order to communicate.  But I am worried that any Japanese I have will quickly vanish.  I don’t know how deeply embedded the Japanese is and I’m afraid the all too brief imprint it has had will rapidly vanish.  I do not want that to be the case.  Will I be able to switch back and pick it up again as easily as the French and Kreyol came back?  No, I doubt it, but perhaps the freshness of it will last me until I can give it more attention again.       

My Strange Brain

I had the weirdest experience on my flight from Japan to America via Canada.  I was flying Air Canada, so everything was announced in English and French.  Naturally my brain processed the English announcements without thought.  Then when the announcements came on in French, my brain quickly recognized the language I had been surrounded by growing up.  

However, about five minutes later they decided to get on again and make the announcements in a third language.  For several seconds my brain could not process what language it was hearing.  I was literally dumbfounded.  Not because I didn’t recognize it or couldn’t understand it.  On the contrary, it was too familiar.  

At first I couldn’t register whether or not it was English.  It sounded so familiar to me that it seemed as if it could be English.  But then my brain registered the fact that I didn’t really understand what was being said so it jumped over to the foreign language options in my brain.  But I immediately knew it wasn’t French because it felt too fresh and familiar, and it’s been years since I’ve been around any French.  Besides by that time my brain had begun to get in gear and stop just spinning its tires.  I was able, at last to identify the language as Japanese.

This may not seem like much of a story and the whole thing was over in a matter of seconds in my head.  But I cannot describe to you the the extreme bewilderment I first felt when I heard the Japanese announcement and could not decipher what language I was hearing.  My amazement is not in the fact that my brain could not identify the foreign language, we’ve all heard languages we don’t understand or recognize.  But I find it fascinating that my brain seriously could not determine whether or not I was hearing English for several seconds.  When we hear other languages, even if we understand them, we can generally distinguish them from our first language.  It was a strange and fascinating experience to have something sound as familiar to me as English and yet be foreign.

It made me realize just how immersed I have been in Japanese over the past two years and nine months.  The majority of the time the only English I heard was the English I was speaking myself, or the broken English my kids were using with me.  Granted, as a teacher, I was the one talking most of the time, but I still heard my kids playing in Japanese all day long, every day.  And I listened to their words more acutely than I was aware of, not so much in an effort to learn Japanese as in an effort to monitor that their communication with each other was kind and respectful and appropriate for school.  

I picked up a lot of Japanese, more than I consciously acknowledge.  I had good friends to help me and teach me when I had questions, but mostly I just listened, and listened a lot.  And after listening to Japanese for nearly three years straight, it was as familiar to me as English although it remains more foreign to me than French or Kreyol.