The Gift of Language

I witnessed an interesting thing while waiting to pick up my kids at school.

Now that we are in LA, the cultural diversity is so extreme, compared to Northern Michigan, it takes a little getting used to. In the area we live, there are as many Armenians as there are Hispanics, so the sounds around you in a group of people and the patterns of the spoken word that are swirling around all at the same time, take on a bit of a Minestrone Soup quality.

I bet you thought I was going to get all poetic hu? Ha! So the thing I witnessed, that I thought was so cool was this little second grade boy. He came out of the school gate, quite excited about an issue with some books. He was speaking in that delightful, excited kid voice, in perfect English. His mother, who greeted him warmly, responded in Armenian seeming to show interest in what he was saying. As he responded to her, either positively or by correcting her, he continued to speak in English while his mom spoke in their native tongue. Then, as the conversation evolved into a more level tone, the mom started to speak English, saying, "Well, we ARE waiting for you, so you don't need to pass the time on the playground." Then as the boy became a little agitated he started speaking in Armenian and his mom was making her point in English. As they both started talking at the same time and the conversation became elevated, every other sentance or so was in English and another in Armenian.

It's not like they were using some hybrid version of Amen-glish or Englenian. Each complete thought or sentence was being expressed entirely in either English or Armenian. I thought, how cool to be so comfortable with a language that it is interchangable with your own.

It was pretty neat.

It made me want to take up my French lessons again.