(Still OT) Nationalism, language and monoculture [was Re: Python Worst Practices]

[Tim Delaney]

On 5 March 2015 at 09:39, Emile van Sebille <emile at fenx.com> wrote:

> On 3/4/2015 12:40 PM, Tim Delaney wrote:
>
>> A related thing is when you have multiple multi-lingual people talking
>> together where at least two of their languages match (or are close
>> enough for most uses e.g. Spanish and Portuguese). They'll slip in and
>> out of multiple languages depending on which best expresses what they're
>> trying to say, and no one will involved realise.
>>
>
> Except for my poor grandmother who hadn't understood a word my mother had
> said the previous ten minutes.  :)


The phenomenon I'm talking about involves people switching languages
mid-sentence without the participants noticing. It mainly occurs with
people who grew up speaking multiple languages, and commonly switch between
them in their thoughts. If your grandmother learned her second/third/etc
languages after she was a teenager then it's likely she mainly thinks in
one language and translates to others.

It can also be seen with people who have recently had long-term saturation
exposure to a second language - for example, exchange students who have
just come back from a year's stay. When I'd recently returned from Brasil
(20-odd years ago now ...) there was one time when everyone was a native
(Australia) english speaker and had a mix of latin-based second languages -
that was close enough for it to happen.

Tim Delaney
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