Yes, I am very aware that my last blog post was in August. Whoops! Stuff happened and then new school happened and then A levels happened and this is the first evening so far that don't have mountains of homework that requires immediate attention. Hopefully, I will be able to get back into blogging a bit more now that I am able to manage work better. Fingers crossed! But I haven't been able to do a lot of leisurely reading recently as all my reading time has been taken up with school reading (and there is a LOT!) But enough excuses!
Anyway, today, I just wanted to discuss an idea that someone mentioned to me at school a couple of days ago. It was that you can never completely know your mother tongue, whatever that may be. For me, that is English.
Of course, when you meet someone that says that they are bilingual, you immediately assume, as correctly defined in a dictionary, that they can speak two languages fluently. But to what extent do you understand the word 'fluent'? Does it mean that they understand and know and use all the language? And isn't it interesting how we assume that it does, when, defined straight from the dictionary, it only means a high level of accuracy in the speaking, writing, reading and listening of a language.
I study French and Spanish at A level and I hope, by the end of the two years, that I will reach a suitable standard in order to converse with natives of different countries in their own language with relative ease. But I will never speak all of the language, no matter how much I study, and in the same way, despite saying that English is my mother tongue, I don't know all of the English language and I never will, no matter how much I study it. This is because there are certain areas in the English language, be them colloquial or intellectual that I will never study and never be able to study in enough detail in order to give me the right to say that I speak all of the English language. I have given up all sciences and so there will be science terminology that I will never learn , that I will never need to know but that are part of the English language.
Also, it is very easy to say, 'Well, just study English everyday, all day, until you learn the whole thing; study the dictionary.' But language changes with culture and with generations. Already, as an obvious example, the word 'gay' has a different meaning to the meaning it had a while ago. So, while I might feel that I need to spend all day every day studying the English dictionary of 2015, by 2016, it will have changed and my knowledge will be incomplete again. I suppose another point is that language defines culture and vice versa. When humans had only mastered limited distinguishable sounds, their culture was something completely different. So, in order to know all the language, you must learn all of the culture and that as well is impossible.
Okay, that's all. Just a little thought that I wanted to share. It interested me a lot.
Clare
