I like learning languages. It’s fascinating to see the different ways of expressing things, to feel the shapes of new words in your mouth and to train your ears to hear new sounds. I like it as a hobby, however, not as a necessity. This has several effects. First, it means that I don’t do it nearly as much as I would like. Learning a language takes long term commitment that is hard to maintain purely through self-motivation. Second, it means that I’m not bound by any practical considerations.
I’ve taken a few German classes. That was years ago now, and I’ve forgotten most of it. It’s not really practical in my day-to-day life here in the United States, but “economically justifiable” and I do see snatches of it on Mastodon.
Some of my ancestors emigrated from Norway, and that is the origin story that has had the most prominence in my family. So I’ve always been interested in learning Norwegian. Just not enough to ever devote much time to it. Resources are more scarce than for German.
I’ve learned a decent amount of Esperanto. This is something that I’ve been meaning to write about for a long time. Mi iam priparolos ĝin pli.
And then we get into my classical inclinations. I had a mind to study Classics in college, though it never quite fit in to my schedule. I was disappointed to not be able to take any of the classes in Latin and Greek that my school offered. I even pondered Old English, though I do not know of any classes accessible to me that teach that. I have a dual language copy of Beowulf with the original text in it. The fragments of recognizable words that can be made out through the years have an alluring quality to them.
I’ve come to realize that what I really like with a lot of these is the thought of having learned them, of already knowing them, than actually doing the work. If you could pick a language to learn without any practical considerations—time, materials, people to talk to—what would it be?
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