From last Saturday to Thursday, I had the honour of attending the Polyglot Gathering 2014 in Berlin, my very first conference. There were people attending the venue from all over the world: from Tenerife (Spain), Sweden, Singapore, Qatar, the United States of America, Brazil, and even from New Zealand! The gathering was fully booked and there were a huge number of languages that were spoken (even the inventor of Toki Pona attended the conference!) But something was missing. What was it?
Talossan! I forgot to put Talossan onto my polyglot tag! How could I have?! As I turned to change it, a Scots-sounding voice in my head went: “Are ye sure ye speak enough Talossan to put it on yer badge? Yer havering in Arabic, but yer Talossan is worse! Think about it, lad!”
At first, I felt embarrassed. I was a Talossan, right? So, why could I not speak this language, that seems so easy for someone with knowledge in Romance languages? I went on to think about that for a while, in between lectures and intermingling at the lunch and dinner tables. The reason for my hesitation was simple: while we have grammar books and a dictionary, we do not really have “courses in Talossan”. The current Minister of Culture, Doamnă Schivâ, has started a discussion in the Ministry on how to animate Talossans into speaking – or learning – more Talossan.
So tell us something about your thoughts. Why would you like to learn Talossan? How would you ideally learn it? What is deterring you from learning it? Send your replies, questions and short essays to BerichtTalossan@gmail.com
Talossan! I forgot to put Talossan onto my polyglot tag! How could I have?! As I turned to change it, a Scots-sounding voice in my head went: “Are ye sure ye speak enough Talossan to put it on yer badge? Yer havering in Arabic, but yer Talossan is worse! Think about it, lad!”
At first, I felt embarrassed. I was a Talossan, right? So, why could I not speak this language, that seems so easy for someone with knowledge in Romance languages? I went on to think about that for a while, in between lectures and intermingling at the lunch and dinner tables. The reason for my hesitation was simple: while we have grammar books and a dictionary, we do not really have “courses in Talossan”. The current Minister of Culture, Doamnă Schivâ, has started a discussion in the Ministry on how to animate Talossans into speaking – or learning – more Talossan.
So tell us something about your thoughts. Why would you like to learn Talossan? How would you ideally learn it? What is deterring you from learning it? Send your replies, questions and short essays to BerichtTalossan@gmail.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment