Learning Languages

Yesterday S taught me Chinook.

More truthfully, she taught me Chinook and ASL.

Actually, she shared a few words with me and told me I was killing fairies when I translated into English.  I have a stick and a stone on my kitchen counter now:  they were the props.  The Chinook word for Stick is....Stick.  The Chinook word for Stone is Stoon (very Nordic or Old English. Apparently the original Chinook language has been heavily influenced by English.) The ASL gesture for stick is forefinger and thumb of each hand held an inch apart, in a pre-grasping position.   The other fingers are balled loosely into the palm.  The tips of the fingers point to each other and pull apart, creating or drawing a stick as they move.  The ASL gesture for stone is two loose fists, thumb outside.  The curled fingers of the dominant hand land lightly but firmly on top of the non-dominant hand:  a stone on a surface.

S is learning the language from native speakers at PSU because it is in danger of being lost.  She is a little frustrated because people don't really care about learning the ASL.  I found the inclusion of ASL both distracting and compelling.  It's distracting, because I'm so used to dividing mind and body when I am learning something, and when learning is integrated I find it difficult to figure out where to put my focus.  Also, when I reach information overload, it's a total overload.  I remember in college, I used to study and write in the lounge of the Fine Arts building.  When I couldn't take it anymore, I would run around the building and look for friends to distract me.  It was an either/or thing:  turn off the mind, move the body.  Move the body, turn off the mind.  (Maybe this is why I can't talk during sex?)

However, including ASL in the process is compelling for the same reason it's distracting:  because it draws on muscle memory as well as mental memory.  You have so many more hooks to hang your learning upon.  And, it's a familiar method.  When I learn music or play an instrument, it's a full mind-body experience.  I am integrating words and notes with specific physical motions.   As with language, the mental/physical integration is vital to the finished product.

I had thought that this comparison was less applicable to the the vocal instrument, but at this year's choir retreat we learned* to increase resonance and lessen fatigue by standing loosely and letting the head balance on spinal column.  It was a bizarre feeling, because I am so used to tensing physically when I work mentally:  I clench my jaw and hunch forward.  At the computer, I assume the goose-neck posture so common today.  I don't see a flaw in the product, but there's a definite flaw in the process.  I get so weary, and my body gets repetitive motion injuries.

Still, it also seems necessary to separate mind and body, to focus on specific areas of the process.  I plan to practice my newly-acquired viola da gamba (thanks, D and Reed College for arranging the rental!), and part of that practice will be a monotonous string-crossing exercise, purely for the sake of increasing muscle memory. The goal is to learn to hit the right string as I play.  You need to be able to watch the music, not the bow, after all.

We have this conundrum, a version of the mind-body problem.  Language and music are both communication tools.  To learn them, we have to practice them. To get good, we can't just, as S says, throw a lot of processor space at them.  To practice, we need to separate mind and body.  To get good, we need to integrate.   And, in the final analysis, we need to integrate with other people, which is probably why communication must be taught physically and learned from another person.  If you learn from a book, or from old pictures (which is how many old instruments are reconstructed), you miss out on that integration.  And, you probably miss out on some key information.   So, how do you combine physical and mental, repetitive and generative techniques?

A favorite poem (The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart) and a compelling play (The Language Archive) both touch on these thoughts. But, in the meantime,  I've already forgotten how to say, "What is This?"  A final conundrum to puzzle over:  do I try to learn many new things because I want to broaden my connections and do my part to keep culture(s) alive, or do I just want to avoid the tedious practice required to actually be good at a few?

*Body mapping techniques taught by Cynthia McGladrey