Language Phobias

"IF you don't use it, you loose it." This exhausted adage probably isn't any truer than in the realm of language learning. In fact I'd venture to say that nothing is more fatal to an acquired language than disuse.

However, I have a hunch about another acquired language threat. But it's heretofore nothing more than a hunch. It is completely untried and I have absolutely no personal experience that proves whether it would in fact prove fatal to an acquired language. The Hebrew Experiment will change that.

Allow me to explain. I have a morbid phobia of learning languages that are perilously close to the languages I've already learned. Don't misunderstand me. I know that few languages are islands and that most languages can host family reunions with their linguistic relatives. However some cut it a bit close. The veritable twins of the language world.

Take for example Portuguese and Spanish. There are a host of languages that are similar, so to speak to Spanish. Italian is quite similar, the matriarch Latin of course, but even French and Romanian are quite like it. But Portuguese...I don't know. I've heard stories from my Spanish speaking friends who've attempted it. They shake their heads with a chuckle and relate how during the time they attempted to learn it they came out speaking a sort of self-invented Esperanto if you will.

So I stay away from that tongue, and if I meet someone from Brazil or Portugal I'll speak to them in Spanish they can speak in Portuguese, misunderstandings will be infrequent and communication possible I'm certain.

But, on the other hand, I know my stance on Portuguese is cowardly. I'm limiting this marvelous, wonderful, almost boundless organ that is the brain. As one devoted teacher of language acquisition put it, "our brain is a Ferrari but we only use it to drive to 7-11." Maybe he's right. Maybe one can acquire perilously similar languages and speak them as separate entities. Maybe I'm being a linguistic curmudgeon in my avoidance of Portuguese.

But what, you might ask does this have to do with "The Hebrew Experiment." Allow me to explain, I've been studying Arabic for a few years now and to me, Arabic is to Hebrew as Spanish is to Portuguese. Lethal? I certainly hope not. My greatest fear in this experiment is not failure, or even that my ADD tendencies will cause me to abandon the project mid way through (but its def a close second), no its that this little foray into Hebrew will cause me to end up speaking a Semetic Esperanto, rendering both my Study of Arabic and Hebrew virtually useless for communication. Or that it at least prove to be an Arabic setback. I guess it remains to be seen.

But I'll sally forth, I guess its time to take this supposed "Ferrari" on a road trip. I only hope that, in my case, its not actually a Ford Focus.

Stay tuned, tomorrow begins the Hebrew Experiment. In spite of my reservations, I'm actually extremely excited to venture into a language that I find both intriguing and eloquent.