Rainbow

Decided to call today’s post rainbow. Not because I’ve seen one (though today being a very VERY wet day), but because I’m longing to see one. But well, I’m not going to write about rainbows. Go ahead and read the subject on Wikipedia on your own if you are interested.

I’m gonna write about languages today.

Ah, yes… This is one of my favorite topic to talk and write about. Talking about the history of languages (the Babel tower), the language groups, the semiotics, the philosophy of language, and of course the good old topic of linguistics.

Ever since I was little I had been awed by people who are multi linguists. In fact, I was raised in a house where the people speak multiple languages. My dad can speak Indonesia, Chinese, English, Hokkienese, and Cantonese. The greatest thing is that he learnt all the language (with the exception of Indonesian language) all by himself. My mom can write better in Chinese though (she studied in a Chinese-curricula school back when Indonesia still have one).

How about me?

Well, Indonesian is my native language and speak it rather well. My English is a bit less fluent (but since I’m living in Singapore, naturally my English became Singlish -_-’). My Hokkienese is basically passive (Only listening. You do NOT want to hear me speak Hokkienese. My pronunciation can give someone a heart attack). I understand a bit of Chinese (hawker vocabs and monkey language being the main communication medium to buy food from the stalls). My japanese is still in primary level, although I can understand some of day-to-day conversation. My Italian can be shot to death. ‘Nuff said.

But one thing I realized when I’m pursuing my passion to learn languages. Simply that learning more is equivalent to having more keys to open more doors. With more languages, I can interact with more people, read more books, watch more movies, understand the opera (*sigh* I should brush up my Italian again). And it is beautiful to understand writings and movies in their original language. Translation can be good, but they will never convey the exact meaning the author want to deliver.

Language is beautiful. It conveys the depths of its speaker or writer. It is the basic thing that keeps a communication going. And like a stroke of the brush, can create ideas that come to life. The more languages we can understand, the more we can see the different colors of the same fabric of humanity. Languages is the key to many locked doors without which we can’t open.

So yeah, current project : study Chinese language. After that I’ll think of another thing to master. Dateline will be one year from now. Let’s see if I can make it