More I
study foreign languages, more I like it! But recently I realized that there is
a big thing that I don’t accept in studying language so I protest!
Actually I
realized it studying my own language, my mother language, well, Russian language,
studying its grammar rules, studying the language as a system of signs, as a
system of rules. I was thinking about all this and I just figured out that I
really don’t accept it. And moreover another thing which I don’t agree with is
to explain language with terms and definitions of another language, for example
to teach Russian language using French terms and explanations. Of course even
in definition of language we can find such words as “structure”, “framework”
etc. But I’m definitely sure that language is more the mirror of the culture of
nation, it’s the mirror of our souls and of our mentalities as well. It’s the
mirror of our mindset, of our perceptions of the world and these perceptions
are so much different and unique.
Language is
something alive, something developing of course, something that is evolving as humanity’s
progress. So knowing all that, how we can actually study it, how can we explain
it? How can we explain a human’s soul? Can it be structured? Can it be researched
and published in books? How it can be represented as a system with strict
definitions, STRICT rules? Very often you try to explain the meaning of some
verbs, adverbs, adjectives, tenses. You make an effort to give an explanation,
a reasonable explanation of
meanings, but it’s a thorny question. To my mind, these meanings are up to
almost everybody. Don’t get me wrong, of course some basic stuff is quietly
determined and it helps you to study the language and at least to endeavor to “understand”
it. But even in this case I can give an example of children who learn to speak:
how many words they create by themselves before adults put in their heads what’s
correct and what’s not! Kids are so creative and imaginative and speaking “incorrectly”
actually they express their outlook on this world, their own perception.
But well, beyond
this basis there are myriads of things in language that are so personal and
dependant on the perception of our life and world.
So that’s
why when I study Russian language in French words, it kinda shocks me and even
makes me angry pushing me to pretend to accept this logic with my inner
rejection of such approach.
So if the
language is a mirror of mentality, so how can you explain one mentality, one
way of behavior and way of thinking with another? Kinda weird, isn’t it? I
believe that only living and feeling language, as a something alive, we can
understand the language and the culture, to feel it deeply. But dry definitions
only make the language dead. Artificial languages can’t exist cause the
language can’t live without people who speak it. The case of Esperanto proves
it. Constructed with perfect logic and simplicity, explained in details and
absolutely understandable it’s a dead language that reflects nothing but rules
and logic. So why are we doing the same with real languages that are so
beautiful and unique? Why do we want to stick them in some frames?
I’ve been
studying Russian since I started to speak: repeating after my parents, with
books, then school, where of course we, as pupils, were doing the same stuff –
rules and exceptions that were told to be the only truth, kind of pillars of Russian.
Now I’m in France studying it again and you know what: 80% of all explanations
are completely different with absolutely another logic and approach (and
sometimes with absence of it at all…). So it proves another time that we make
these feeble attempts to explain something that we still don’t know and we’ll
never fully know it.
Every of us
is a part of the language so to understand it we, first of all, should
understand ourselves. Even between two native speakers the same word can mean
different things, not to mention foreigners speaking different languages.
I speak
the language but I live it far more. Of course studying a foreign language I
need some orients to be guided by. It just simplifies the process of studying.
But nevertheless I’m fully aware that to go deeper I have to escape from this
cage (if I can call rules and definitions like that) and only accepting the
culture I can speak its language. So I prefer to be a speaker of Russian language
not just to express myself but more to be one of people who develops the
language. Because you can’t limit your soul, you just can not do it, otherwise
it will die.


