Language

Language. Language is one of those crazy aspects of life that we often take
for granted as part of being human. Many people might even say its part of
what makes us human. Personally I would have to disagree with that though.
If you work around animals, you know they have a language. If you've ever
owned a dog, you know it has its own language, both for communicating with
other dogs and for communicating with you. Most animals don't use words
like we do, or nearly as many sounds, but its usually pretty easy to read
them if you know the signs. Female fur seals growl or snarl or snort when
aggravated and often their eyes are all huge and buggy. Male fur seals
whimper or growl. They all do this BEFORE they try to attack or bite or run
away or whatever. They give you warning signs that are pretty universal to
understand.

However, I have recently learned there is one language in the animal
kingdom I may never fully understand. Dutch.

As I may have mentioned previously, Jan 7th brought an influx of people to
the Cape. A helicopter arrived that day carrying a crew of Chilean
researchers. However, they weren't all Chilean. One sector of the group is
actually a dutch girl and her assistant. She is technically half Chilean,
but is pretty much full on dutch for all practical purposes. Luckily she,
and her assistant Pete, speak english quite well because otherwise our
communication would be better off with Pete whimpering and Elisa just
snarling while staring at me with big buggy eyes (this is not to imply they
are constantly aggravated by me or threatening to attack me, we actually
have gotten along quite well thank you). Sure you might understand a few
words here and there, like listening to REM's Its the End of the World as
we know it (ya, go listen and prove to me you know any line other than the
one), but overall part of you will always feel like they are just making up
sounds on the spot with no real meaning at all just to confuse you. Even
words they repeat for you, slowly at that, you cannot pronounce. And don't
even think about trying to read it because whatever rules you thought
existed about consonants and vowels are just tossed right out the window.

Also, fun fact, it turns out they do not actually call it a Dutch Oven in
the Netherlands. Nope. Its a stovenpot. Or some other word that starts with
a 'B' but is near impossible to say let alone remember. And yes, I realize
that stovenpot (probably spelled way wackier) actually kind of makes sense
for a big pot you can put on the stove. My next mission is to discover why
the Dutch live in the Netherlands, which is the same as Holland.

Language also brings up other issues for me, namely how spoiled/ terrible
the US is about them. I was lucky that taking a foreign language was a
requirement at my high school, and our teachers were actually pretty
decent, so i speak a little spanish. But when you compare Americans to
people from other countries, it just sad. The Dutch girl here speaks dutch
and english fluently, spanish decently, can understand german and french,
and probably by combining all those would do ok with italian and who knows
what else. Her argument is that nobody speaks Dutch but the Dutch so you
have to learn other languages if you ever want to communicate. That is
true, but it just speaks to how spoiled we all are to speak english. Most
of the world has been pressured to conform to our standards.

I'm not saying that every person must speak multiple languages to be a good
person or anything, but I do think understanding another language gives you
greater insight into another culture. With more insight into culture comes
more understanding, respect, and cooperation which would make the world an
overall better place.

People also need to learn languages earlier. Its no secret that children
learn things, especially language better than adults or even adolescents.
When we are born, we have the ability to understand and hear any language
in the world. ANY LANGUAGE. We wont necessarily comprend it, but we hear
it. As we get older, we lose the ability to hear certain sounds that are in
languages outside of our own. There is a reason its much easier for an
english speaker to pick up spanish or french or german than to learn
Swahili (or Dutch…). Many african languages use over 100 different sounds.
English uses forty something (look it up). By learning different languages
earlier, even if they use the same sounds as our native language, we mold
our brain to hear that language better and set ourselves up to learning it
a lot easier. If you have the opportunity and ability to raise a kid
bilingual, and I mean from early early on, I say do it. Ya its a lot of
work, but they will be lucky in the end. If nothing else, teach them
Spanish or Chinese because spanish is becoming the dominant language in
many parts of the US and the Chinese are going to take over the world
sooner or later.

This concludes my random thoughts on language. I have had a lot of fun
recently talking to the Dutch crew and making a fool of myself trying to
learn a few worlds, or even just city names outside of Amsterdam. I do like
how they say "no" (like in english). Its a very deep, almost scottish
sounding "oh" where it like you are trying to open your jaw as wide as
possible while still keeping your lips pursed together. There are a few
other good ones too.

Oh and in case anyone is wondering, they also don't have a term in Dutch
for when you are in bed with someone, fart, and pull the covers over their
head to make them smell it, which is also commonly referred to in America
as… you guessed it, a Dutch Oven.