My relationship with language learning has gotten more and more complex, and perhaps that’s a reality that comes with being a language scientist and philosopher (anyways, that’s what I’m led to believe a linguist is…)
German and Turkish are pretty easy to explain, if there’s a lot of stories I can spout off about concerning both. I lived in Germany and Turkey, and I continue to recreationally and academically use both in regular amounts. Blackfoot as well- I live in Montana, I have friends and mentors who speak, and we speak to each other pretty regularly.
Though, one language that I’ve gained extensive knowledge of, and yet barely use at any conversational capacity and struggle to find any place to use, is Tuvan.
The problem starts with the Montana-Tuva connection, in that there’s barely any if one at all. Notably, one of the biggest cultural exports from Tuva is Xoomei throat singing, which actually has a bigger following in Japan than it necessarily does here in the United States. I started learning it outside of that though. It really started with my first in-depth look into comparative linguistics. When I lived in Turkey, I had neighbours which were Uzbek, Turkmen, and Azeri. Of course, there were many Turkic minorities in Istanbul, and hearing the languages spoken in different amounts opened my eyes as to what parts of language change where and perhaps when. I’d never met a Tuvan speaker through that process, but I’d learned of it after I’d started reading about what I was hearing in Turkey. So, my connection to Tuvan was already with its layers of abstraction from the beginning. Move me away from Asia and then from large Urban Centers in general, and then my only connection becomes being a distant, interested party. Doesn’t necessarily help that right now, it’s particularly hard for a US citizen and a native Tuvan speaker to meet.
Though, I can still say a lot. Because structurally I know enough about Turkic, I could easily say things like Мен Монтанада чурттап тур мен, мен тыва дылга чугааланып билир мен, things like that. I still have a hard time describing a lot of the things in my life outside of just “I live here” and “I do this”. So I’m left here with a lot of theoretical knowledge about how the language *can* work, and not much reinforcement on how it *should*. And so, I’m stuck with a vision of the language which is mostly filtered through abstraction and western academia. Not exactly looking fondly on that one.
There’s a decent amount of language media I can consume, but not much of it is of the variety where I can model a conversation. But, nonetheless, I’ll take this opportunity to take inventory of my materials and writing here on my blog. Whatever next I can describe despite the layers of abstraction I face should be good. I’d love to talk to someone who can more adequately describe the cultural elements of using the language. That’s the direction I’d like to go with this, if possible. But, until then, this is the place where I try to at least say something novel in the language, day by day.
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