Ayn Rand praises knowing other languages

[Nerian]

The learning of another language expands one’s abstract capacity and vision. Personally, I speak four—or rather three-and-a-half—languages: English, French, Russian and the half is German, which I can read, but not speak. I found this knowledge extremely helpful when I began writing: it gave me a wider range and choice of concepts, it showed me four different styles of expression, it made me grasp the nature of language as such, apart from any set of concretes.

(Speaking of concretes, I would say that every civilized language has its own inimitable power and beauty, but the one I love is English—the language of my choice, not of my birth. English is the most eloquent, the most precise, the most economical and, therefore, the most powerful. English fits me best—but I would be able to express my identity in any Western language.) - Ayn Rand

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/language.html

As a long time language enthusiast, this is a really fantastic quote to stumble upon. I have even felt guilty at times for wanting to learn other languages, and have wondered why I would even bother. I have always said that my English became stronger after I learned French.

I knew Ayn spoke three languages which was cool enough to find out. I didn't know she thought anything of it though.

In addition, I'm extremely impressed with her complete mastery of English. She did not not make any mistakes, I mean any. She retains an accent, but structurally, grammatically, lexically, she mastered English. A grand feat all in its own right! I have listened to a lot of her speeches and interviews, and have never heard anything 'foreign' about her English other than her accent. The fact she wrote Atlas Shrugged in a language that is foreign to her - learned after the age of 20! - is actually quite an incredible achievement in itself! It would have been great if she'd given some information about how she learned English so well.

I must chortle at 'Western language'. It seems Eastern languages are considered inferior. I would suggest that Japanese has a beautifully logical structure. (I suspect other languages which are similar do too like Korean.)

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Besides English, I'm also fluent in Serbian, and took 4 years of Spanish in Highschool, and 1 year of Japanese at Uni.

Out of these four, I think Spanish has the most "logical" structure. It's also, in my opinion, the most pleasant sounding and easiest to pronounce.

[syrakusos]

Last winter, I decided to read Noam Chomsky for himself on his own terms. I found him shallow and illiterate. He apparently knew only English and sought to theorize about the nature of languages from that alone.

I grew up with Hungarian in the background: English was the official language of the house... until a bunch of aunts and uncles filled up the living room at the holidays. We did listen to ethnic radio on Sundays. I started German before the 7th grade at a university "demonstration" school where teachers tried out new techniques for French, Spanish, German, and Latin (and Russian). I continued with German through high school and entered college in third year German. Later, working for Carl Zeiss, I translated laboratory manuals in metrology from German to English.

Before that, though, I had two college classes in Japanese for Business and worked for two years at Kawasaki and one more for Honda. At Kawasaki, I translated parts lists from Japanese and eventually answered the phones at night, fielding calls from Japan.

Writing for numismatics, I taught myself enough classical Greek to do my own translations of short passages for publication.

Last month, at the Goodwill, I found a book on Akkadian grammar. I saw some words I knew from a community ed class in Arabic for tourists.

[BaalChatzaf]

Chomsky's work in transformational grammars (type 3) had more impact in automata theory (a theoretical approach to computation schemes) than it did in actually producing computer based mechanical translations.

I completely disregard Chomsky's pronouncements on public policy. He was out of his depth there.

He did get one thing right though: The Cronies are in charge.

Ba'al Chatzaf