Just now I’m up at Silver
Bay at the Quakers’ annual
conference. I’ve told
you about that place: It’s
where, in the middle of the
night, I once accidentally
entered a sleeping woman’s
room and almost sat down
on her head and got arrested;
but I didn’t and wasn’t.
Anyway, for your delectation
I’ve pulled up a column
from about seven years
back. Enjoy it, please.
Last week I made a
quick trip to Annapolis and
back, mumbling Spanish
all the way. Instead of entertaining
myself with a recorded
book, I was gabbling
responses to a language
tape. It’s almost eight hundred
miles, down there and
back; that’s a lot of gabbling.
When I climbed out
of the car back home, Fly
Creek seemed like Guadalajara.
Cramming Spanish is
part of a four-month leadup
to a travel adventure.
One of Anne’s far-flung Canadian
cousins, a great
young guy, is being married
in February. Ryan and his
heart’s love Susie have
shared life for several years,
and now they’re ready to
formalize things. But an
Edmonton, Alberta wedding
in February struck
them as inapt to their warm
relationship. So they decided
on a wedding south of
the border — two borders,
in fact. The wedding’s in
Cancun.
I know — that’s a pretty
dramatic leap; but these
are young people, remember,
and think differently
from us. And to their credit,
they’ve done some practical
planning. Susie’s sister, it
turns out, is heading for
marriage; too, and the girls
agreed they should tie the
knot in the same week, in
the same place. And when
brides and grooms tallied
up the two guest lists, they
had enough potential travelers
to negotiate a sweet
deal on travel and a resort
hotel down Mexico way.
Clever kids! Come February,
wedding guests will
board planes in Alberta,
British Columbia, Ontario,
even New Brunswick Province
(the other groom’s from
there). All those jets will be
winging south to tropic
warmth and a week of celebration.
And who’s tooling
up to Toronto to hop aboard
the Ontario jet? Yep. My
own bride and I. Hence the
crash course in Spanish, a
language I’ve admired but
never learned.
Once, years ago, I had a
fair command of French,
and could even read Latin.
But that was when my
mind was fresh, still trailing
remnants of the amazing
gift for language that
every baby brings into the
world. Some years have
passed since then; and with
them, nearly all the French
and Latin. And with the
years, as well, went my language
aptitude.
I first realized that skill
was fading back in my forties.
I was preparing for a
lectureship in Brazil with
language tapes in Portuguese.
I thought I was doing
fairly well, but got to
Rio to discover I’d been
stuffing my head with Iberian
Portuguese, not Brazilian.
The latter, with its
own set of distinct idioms,
turned out to be a cavalo of
a different colorido. That
same trip, I abashed myself
and convulsed a Carioca
audience by using a finger
gesture in public that, up
here, means A-OK, but
down there is, uh, beyond
just impolite. Oh, well. I’m
not likely to go back.
This time around, I’m
setting the bar low for
learning Spanish. The
course I’m using is called
``Spanish for Gringos,’’ and
its goal is not language precision
or elegance, but bare
survival.
By the course’s end I’m
to know numbers, colors,
months, days, occupations,
foods, places of business,
furniture, family members.
I’ll also command a few basic
verbs, plus some set
phrases to get me to the
hospital, the hotel, or a
bathroom. ``Don’t worry
about your poor pronunciation,’’
the instructor says
blandly. ``Just reinforce
your efforts with lots of gestures
and mugging. Latins
are warm-hearted,’’ he
says. ``They’ll see you struggling,
sympathize, and try
to help.’’
That instructor’s casual
dismissing of accent came
to mind last Sunday. Anne
and I were over in Edmeston
to celebrate John
Blackman’s forty-fifth ordination
anniversary. John
held the pulpit at Edmeston’s
Second Baptist for
over thirty years, and congregants
and other friends
there threw him a party.
Their reminiscing included
lots of jokes about John’s
accent when he first came
to Edmeston. He’s from
Maine, you see, a real
Down-Easter. One man
said that, when John first
arrived, his accent was so
rockbound that he hardly
spoke English at all. ``It
gave us a jolt,’’ he added,
``when he addressed the Almighty
as `Lard Gord.’
Weren’t sure just what we’d
hired!’’
Well, it’s an amazing
gift, our bent for language
— and all the more so when
we think about reading.
When first learning to read,
we looked at individual
squiggles, translated them
to sound, grouped the
sounds, and grasped meaning.
But, after years at it,
the reading process got
more subtle: Now we see a
word’s familiar shape and
at once grasp its meaning.
Here’s an example that
popped up in my email:
``Aoccdrnig to rscheearch
at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it
deosn’t mttaer in waht
oredr the ltteers in a wrod
are, olny taht the frist and
lsat ltteres are at the rghit
pcleas. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll
raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae we do not
raed ervey lteter by ilstef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.’’
Now, if you and I still
have enough language skill
to grasp that paragraph,
maybe there’s hope for me
with Spanish. Maybe I can
teach this old perro a few
new trucos.
Read about Jim Atwell’s
book, From Fly Creek--Celebrating
Life in Leatherstocking
Country, at JimAtwell.
com
