The plank in the eye of the English Language
A LIE
Many Americans can identify with a particular experience in their foreign language classes in middle and high school. We spent most of those days in class groaning like an Israelite in the wilderness. You might have said something like "Spanish is too hard! What were they thinking when they made this language?"
Then out of our ignorance we said, "English is so much easier!"
I was one of those people back in the day, but the past couple years I have had the experience of learning language with renewed vigor. During that time, I also have spoken with many folks who were trying to learn my native language, English. As we compared notes about our frustrations, I learned a couple things.
1. Learning any language (with the exception of pig-latin) is inherently difficult. When you were a kid learning your mother tongue, you didn’t have the self-awareness to note how difficult the process was. It takes years!
2. Every language has seemingly ridiculous rules, followed by exceptions to those same ridiculous rules.
3. English is the CHIEF OF SINNERs when it comes to rules, exceptions, and sources of frustration. Even things which we English speakers think are “simple” have layers of complexity that we have simply overlooked due to overfamiliarity.
Don't believe me? I shall demonstrate.
AN EXAMPLE
Think you know the meaning of the verb "Put"?
You had to learn all its prepositional modifiers, which you never realized, are a BEAST.
Put off
Put on
Put out
Put together
Put up with
Put up to
Put down
Put away
Put aside
Put back
These prepositions all give the verb "put" a slightly different, contextualized meaning to which most English speakers never give a second thought. Speak with someone learning English, and they will likely mention these prepositional modifiers as one of the nastiest things they need to memorize.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
I recently became frustrated with how Swahili has a "negative" verb tense. It doesn't really have a word that does the same thing as English's "No" or "not". I longed for the simple days of negating things in English. However, beneath the facade of simplicity lies many a booby trap.
Future Tense:
I will do it --> I'll do it. The normal contraction use of apostrophe.
I will not do it --> I'll not do it. It works, but sounds exceedingly snarky.
I will not do it --> I won't do it. Wait, did we move the contraction over from "I will" to "will not" and now all is copacetic? What's up with that?
Past tense:
I did it. Of course, that works.
I didn't do it. That is the right negative, but now we have 2 do's. Do do? Let's turn it around and see how do do looks in the positive.
I did do it. Well, now it sounds like you are being defensive. This only makes sense if someone is refuting another's claim that in fact they did NOT do something.
YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE
And then there are plurals. I was shocked to see how much of Swahili grammar branches off the need to know the singular and plural forms of nouns. Then I learned that there are about 6 different ways to pluralize a noun, and the only thing you can do is to straight up memorize them, if you want to sound remotely intelligent.
As I tried to study these nouns and categorize them in their proper plural form, a feeling akin to righteous indignation arose. But then again, I realized the lack of rhyme or reason to pluralizing English nouns.
The plural of person is people.
The plural of child is… cheeple? No. Children.
The plural of mouse is mice.
The plural of house is… hice? No. Houses.
The plural of leaf is leaves.
The plural of tooth is… teethes? No. Teeth.
Eye Logs
Jesus famously said in his sermon on the mount:
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3)
We, as native speakers of American English, are often quick to throw stones at other languages and cultures we do not understand. While much of this exercise is poking fun at languages, the “righteous indignation” that I mentioned earlier was only half-joke / half-truth. I have certainly made the mistake of placing moral importance on trivial differences and inconveniences between different cultures and language. All the while I can be blind to the sheer magnitude of the differences and inconveniences that I force others to accommodate/reckon with.
We pray for humility as we continue to learn the language and culture of the people around us. Thankfully, humility often comes with the ability to laugh at ourselves. We have done a lot of that recently, and we look forward to sharing with more folks in that laughter.