"As If We Sing to One Another All Day"

 In the introduction to his book, The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide, Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky explains the amazing phenomenon that comes with natural language acquisition:

Every speaker, intuitively and accurately, courses gracefully through immensely subtle manipulations of sound. We not only indicate, for example, where the accent is in a word like "question," but also preserve that accent while adding the difference between "Was that a question?" and "Yes, that was a question."

It is almost as if we sing to one another all day.

We do not need to be taught such things: if they were taught in school, we would find them hard and make a mess of them.

In this regard, the way we use the sounds of language is like the way we use "down" and "up" with certain English verbs: I have never heard a child, however small, or anyone, however stupid, make a mistake when discriminating among such expressions as: "Can you put me up?" and its cousins—"Don't put me down," "It brings me down," "I wasn't brought up that way," "Then what it comes down to is, why bring it up?" and so forth. If we learned these distinctions by making charts and memorizing them, or by rules, we would blunder.

It is the same with what Robert Frost calls "sentence sounds." Because we have learned to deal with the sound patterns organically, for practical goals, from before we can remember, without reflection or instruction or conscious analysis, we all produce the sounds, and understand them, with great efficiency and subtle nuance. [. . . It is a] skill, acquired like the ability to walk and run [. . . ]

The hearing-knowledge we bring to a line of poetry is a knowledge of patterns of speech we have known to hear since we were infants. If we tried to learn such knowledge by elaborate rules or through brute, systematic memorization, then just as with the distinctions involved in putting up with me and putting me up, we would not be able to use them as fluently as we do.

Wouldn't it be lovely to acquire second languages in such an automatic and natural way as our first? We can't perfectly recreate the process from first to second languages, but we can approximate it. This is the genius behind the highly successful methods of Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone language learning. (And, of course, there is actual immersion. But that is not always an option.)

As Pinsky goes on to explain in his introduction, there is a time and a place for going on to learn and attend to the rules, rhythms, and reasons behind language use. To attend to these intricacies is the essential purpose of his book. When we become aware of the patterns—be they grammatical, structural, or syllabic—that underlie and govern the use of language, our ability to employ and enjoy language increases.

Language is primarily and essentially spoken and heard, and only secondarily becomes abstracted to symbols to be written and read. We naturally learn our first language through listening to words and phrases spoken in context. Gradually we begin to imitate the sounds and find ourselves speaking. Only much later do we learn the alphabet, phonics, etc. to read and write.

Precisely because of our propensity to invert the natural process of language learning in traditional textbook approaches, the learning of second languages, especially so called "dead languages," can be a tough slog. First you learn the abstracted symbols—alphabet, reading, and writing—and then, if you succeed wildly, you may figure out how to pronounce individual words and phrases without every time doing the mental gymnastics of transliteration/phonics, accent, and pitch navigation. 

Learning a language backwards, by the book, does not get us to the easy fluency and delight of a living language learned through hearing and speaking. We resort to studying a textual artifact rather than entering and participating in a living word. As a result, we "find [the subtle manipulations of sound] hard and make a mess of them." We blunder.

Is this a necessary drudgery, or is it due to a lack of imagination? Innovators like Pimsleur and Rosetta founder, Allen Stoltzfus, show us what imagination can do.

With imagination and innovation, we keep the song alive.

Unanticipated Benefits of Learning the Greek Alphabet

. . . It helps with teaching English literacy. Which is quite natural since so much of our English vocabulary comes from Greek roots.

I often find myself explaining to Katherine that "in this word, the 'a' sounds like an alpha." Just now, she sounded out the word "Christmas" wherein "the 'ch' sounds like the Greek letter chi."

Start the Greek EARLY

It's never too early to start learning the Greek alphabet.

Here's a handsome board book we use in our house starting with newborns and on up: Little Bitty Baby Learns Greek.

You can also start them on Hebrew with the parallel book in the set: Little Bitty Baby Learns Hebrew.

More About Early Language Acquisition

I don't think it is controversial to acknowledge that the Unites States is way behind Europe, Canada, and other developed countries in teaching and learning world (or "foreign") languages. One major way we go wrong is by leaving out world language education until the high school years.

There is a plethora of research verifying the observation that second (and third, etc.) language acquisition in the early elementary grades carries clear multifaceted benefit for students and society. Here are few general points summarized from the research:

Students who begin learning a second language early, namely, by third grade, show greater learning proficiency across subject areas and disciplines, and especially in basic English-language skills, because language learning enhances cognitive development overall and because literacy and thinking skills transfer from one language to another. Students also gain exposure to other cultures and people groups. Additionally, young students are ripe for language learning as research indicates the greatest plasticity in children's brains before the age of ten. (See Lipton 2003.*)

Society benefits from a multi-lingual populace, not only from the enhanced cognitive development and appropriate cultural sensitivity of multi-lingual individuals, but also from the advantages accrued to business and national security. Those who wish to advance the national good through government service in areas such as intelligence, diplomacy, or the armed forces can meet an acute, chronic need by acquiring second language proficiency, especially in certain "less commonly taught languages" (LCTLs). (See Malone, Rifkin, Christian, & Johnson, 2005.)

Minority groups also benefit when their mother tongue is preserved. Preserving such heritage languages seems similar to preserving fine art or archeological artifacts. As mentioned in the previous post, Greek is the special heritage group of the Christian Church, as are Hebrew and Latin.

Language is one of the highest and most complex of man's creative productions in which he images his Creator, the pre-existent Word. How will you incorporate secondary language development in your child's education?

Greek: The Language of Our Birthright

As Christians, we have our own heritage languages to preserve, the languages of Scripture and of the Church Fathers and saints, which are not simply artifacts but are living witnesses to Divine Revelation. When we lose our ability to access the original texts of the divinely-inspired authors, we lose our birthright as a community.

It seems that, even among pastors and clergy, fewer and fewer are acquiring and maintaining fluency in biblical languages and integrating such knowledge with their ministry in meaningful ways. Who then is left to create, maintain, and update our English translations? How do we as a faithful lay community participate in the preservation of this most sacred revelation and provide accountability to the seminarians and scholars who hand us translations for adoption?

Our primary heritage languages in the Church are Hebrew, Greek, and, in the West, Latin. Latin instruction, although perhaps not as strong as previously, has an established history in American education and continues to linger in private and classical schools.

However, I would argue, that especially for Orthodox Christians, Greek should be given priority because it is the language of the New Testament but also of the Septuagint, which the Orthodox Church considers a divinely inspired translation. Thus, you get both Old and New Testaments with one language, not to mention the early Church and Byzantine Fathers. Hebrew then, is important but not as essential as Greek.

Learning the Greek of the Septuagint, of the New Testament, of the Early Church and Byzantine Fathers is a huge task to attempt as an adult on the side. (I know, I've tried.) Most of us are too limited in terms of time, energy, and interest to even think of such an undertaking. But this is not the case for school children in the primary grades.

When given an interesting curricular program and an enthusiastic teacher, what first-grader wouldn't thoroughly enjoy the challenge and thrill of cracking and practicing a foreign language? For the well-loved and un-jaded school child (sans learning disability), the world is her oyster and learning is truly a delight—as God intended it to be. She is rightly uninhibited by adult concerns; she has no financial or time constraints to keep her from her seasonal vocation, namely, to discover the world and enjoy it. It is the parent-teacher's job to provide the structured and unstructured learning opportunities and encourage discovery and enjoyment in a fun and loving environment free from shame an inappropriate compulsion.

I don't think public or even very many private schools are about to start offering Kione or Byzantine Greek, so consider this one more compelling reason to homeschool!

Once students have tackled Greek and/or Latin in the early elementary grades before they think it's work, learning modern languages will be a breeze in middle school, high school, and/or college. By becoming multilingual we can seize the personal and community benefits of maximizing our God-given potentials in this area as well as in others.

Let's not profane our birthright by exchanging it for the porridge of monolingualism.



*See specifically "Foreign Language Instruction: What Principals Should Know" under "Articles on FLES*."