There’s a somewhat famous trope in American culture in the recent past of an old guy who sees those young whippersnappers having too much of a good time, and doing so in complete lack of deference to the dignity of the elderly. And in response, the old guy goes outside, shakes his fist in the air, and shouts “Get off my lawn!” Nothing happens because youth, being youthful, know that old men can no longer threaten them. And the old guy, feeling that his dignity is somewhat restored, goes back inside, satisfied that he gave those kids a piece of his mind, and now they know better.
I’m not quite at that stage yet, but today was a very good corrective to the idea that I’m getting anywhere in my language studies. For you see, I joined another Discord server that is populated by quite a few people who want to learn to speak/write/understand kreyòl ayisyen, and also with quite a number of people who are willing to help—including a few who are on the cutting edge of communication via text messaging on their cell phones.
And as in every culture where young people use technology, they make it their own by abandoning the expectation of how something can be used. Younger Haitians write quickly in SMS using all sorts of abbreviations not only of sentences but also of words—which is no different than in any language group—and us olds just have to try to keep up as best we can.
I somehow got into a conversation between a young Haitian man living in Haiti and a young Haitian man living in France, with both using kreyòl, and they were able to communicate in what looked like an alphabet without vowels. It was quicker for them but I had to read much more slowly to the point where I could not keep up.
It did not help my dignity that when I was able to communicate that they said I sounded like a robot; that is, my writing was very, very “formal” and not like what is spoken in the streets.
It was a good conversation for that, to remember that there is no language on this planet that does not have varying levels of “code” that is used for different social situations. I tend to forget that in my own country there are regionalisms that are used to mark inclusion into a particular group of “in the know” people. I just think of saying “y’all” or “yinz” as regionalisms (which they are) and forget that they are an open signal that there is a language exclusivity that I might never be able to break into. “Surely we all speak English in America,” you might think. And we do. We all generally speak a generalized English, but the more we are comfortable with our region, the more we will use those regionalisms in more and more circumstances.
We all “know” that in a professional business environment, for example, we would hold back on our peculiarities of speech to attempt to speak the broad general American English. But in our private office, or with our friends or our family, we go into our comfort language.
It’s no different anywhere else. And as language is used to mark who’s in and who’s out, so it is used in context between those who are within the culture of Haiti and those who are, like me, without.
And that is okay! One of the things that can come from people studying languages is the idea that by learning a language we “become” identified with the people who speak their language from their youth. “Look, I can say ‘where is my pencil?’ in your language! Let me into your intimacy and let me gain authenticity in doing so.”
But that is not how it should be.
Not everything is about us who are learning a new language. We are learning a new language, after all, because we want to know more about this world and about the people of this world. And we want to be able to connect with new people. All well and good.
That just doesn’t make us “them.” They are still going to have their own culture and world and meaning and being without us, the tourists and the partners. It is okay to go home at the end of the day, happy with the connection and happy that we do not have the power to make ourselves into their intimates.
That’s today’s lesson, for me.
And of course, I am speaking of those who can voluntarily learn a new language due to curiosity or even need, but for their own purposes. There is an entire topic of conversion and conquest that requires people to learn a new language from their conquerors, and that, of course, is as much the opposite of what I’m doing here as is ice from steam.