Sentences in Greek, possibles
John Schwandt
jschwandt at nsa.edu
Thu Aug 8 14:41:12 EDT 2002
Mark Wilson wrote:
>Yes, I AM claiming that no one THINKS in their second language. And
>I AM also saying that it is impossible to THINK in a dead language,
>no matter how much one devotes himself/herself to studying it.
Mark, are you fluent in any other language besides English? I would
enjoy hearing testimony from people who are fluent in a second language
and have spent significant time in the culture which surrounds the
second language. I know it is possible to think in new languages. I
have experienced thought in Greek and then a moment later realized that
I was thinking in Greek. I have dreamed in Greek. It must be possible
to think in a second language. How else is learning new aspects of our
own language possible? Right now my two year old son does not even come
close to using relative clauses and I confuse him if I use them. Yet he
can and does think in English (as well as thinking non linguistically
-lets not linguists corner the market on thought). Relative clauses are
a foreign "language" to him, yet he will soon learn how to understand
them as well as use them in his thinking process.
He is also a good counterexample to your "1 percent" concern. He
probably only knows 1% of all the English that I know. I am a far cry
from knowing what percentage of English I know. No one knows 100% of
any language not even great minds like Shakespeare. Languages are
always in a state of change. Even "dead languages" (BTW biblical Greek
is no more a dead language than Elizabethan English is. At most it is
merely a dead dialect) when view as a snapshot have forms and syntax
that are questionably part of the language or vary from village to
village. Nevertheless my son at his 1% level is able to think in
English. To say that since we only have 1% of biblical Greek (I have no
idea how you could even assess such a percentage without knowing the
whole), there is no way we can think in biblical Greek is a non sequitur.
One more counterexample:
I have spent some time in Greece working toward fluency in modern Greek.
I often talk to my son in biblical Greek and use many Greek picture
books. I am convinced that when he wishes to give thanks for something
he often thinks EUXARISTW and he often thinks "thank you." Even if it
is only thinking one word, I believe that is sufficient to prove that we
can learn to think in another language.
ERRWSO (I thought it)
John Schwandt
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