I really enjoyed this Monica. I grew up bilingual in Scotland speaking Spanish and English, and my son is now doing the same (his dad is Spanish so it's the language we speak at home). We have a very different experience obviously as Edinburgh is not Miami, although there is a larger Spanish community than when I was growing up. But since reading your article I've been thinking about which words we swap in, and when we switch languages.
In Scotland we have an added layer of language within our society which is Scots. There are still people who claim that Scots is a dialect not a language. A lot of people use Scots words with English to varying degrees in Scotland, and it has a huge socio-economic judgment attached to it. Scots is traditionally associated with poor and working class communities (although historically there are plenty of examples of aristocracy and great thinkers using it too). Anyway, as always such a thought provoking piece which leaves me mulling things over for days - thank you!
Thanks so much for your comment, Claire! How interesting that we grew up with the same languages but since we grew up in such different contexts our experiences with the two are so different.
I really like reflecting on which words I swap, too. My dad is Swiss, so when I'm talking to him or my sister there are certain words that naturally come out in Swiss German. Some are obvious like a Swiss bread which doesn't have a word in English but others are sayings from my grandma and stuff like that (which is sweet that those memories live on through language).
There's a good quote about the difference between a dialect and a language--"a language is a dialect with an army." For me it's like, "The only difference is political" (since like you said most people call certain languages dialects to show that they think the language is inferior). It's always *interesting* when people who have negative views about a language still use certain words from that language (sometimes even unintentionally!).
I really enjoyed this Monica. I grew up bilingual in Scotland speaking Spanish and English, and my son is now doing the same (his dad is Spanish so it's the language we speak at home). We have a very different experience obviously as Edinburgh is not Miami, although there is a larger Spanish community than when I was growing up. But since reading your article I've been thinking about which words we swap in, and when we switch languages.
In Scotland we have an added layer of language within our society which is Scots. There are still people who claim that Scots is a dialect not a language. A lot of people use Scots words with English to varying degrees in Scotland, and it has a huge socio-economic judgment attached to it. Scots is traditionally associated with poor and working class communities (although historically there are plenty of examples of aristocracy and great thinkers using it too). Anyway, as always such a thought provoking piece which leaves me mulling things over for days - thank you!
Thanks so much for your comment, Claire! How interesting that we grew up with the same languages but since we grew up in such different contexts our experiences with the two are so different.
I really like reflecting on which words I swap, too. My dad is Swiss, so when I'm talking to him or my sister there are certain words that naturally come out in Swiss German. Some are obvious like a Swiss bread which doesn't have a word in English but others are sayings from my grandma and stuff like that (which is sweet that those memories live on through language).
There's a good quote about the difference between a dialect and a language--"a language is a dialect with an army." For me it's like, "The only difference is political" (since like you said most people call certain languages dialects to show that they think the language is inferior). It's always *interesting* when people who have negative views about a language still use certain words from that language (sometimes even unintentionally!).
Thanks again for your comment y hablamos pronto,
Monica