By Fr. Christopher Stoley
Sacred Heart Church, Crete
Hispanic Ministry
I’ve read a few different studies that have made two claims: first, that when an English speaker is learning a new language, his or her voice will get higher when speaking that language, and that a non-English speaker learning English will have the opposite effect (his voice will get lower speaking English); and second, that when one learns a new language his personality will change, based on what language one is speaking.
I find that to certainly be the case in my experience. Especially in the first situation. It would explain why my natural speaking voice is that of Barry White, and why when I speak Spanish, I sound like a fairy princess. If I spend a whole day doing Spanish, I usually need to go play sports, shoot guns, smoke cigars, and lift heavy weights to recover my voice and remind myself of my masculinity afterward.
In the second situation, I have noticed that in my life as well, which makes sense. Language is more than a collection of words from a lexicon that are then strung together to make a logical sentence. Words contain nuance, cultural background, emotion, and countless other details that go missing when you look only at the lexicon. In learning a language, one adopts everything contained in the linguistic background.
In other words, you learn the culture and personality of the language, along with the vocabulary.
That makes sense, of course. Have you ever told an English language learner that a food will “knock their socks off?” I have. They usually just stare. It’s an idiomatic expression that doesn’t necessarily have an equivalent in their language or their culture. But someone who is proficient in English automatically gets the context of the phrase, what it means, and why it’s an important part of who we are.
I have found that in learning Spanish, I absolutely manifest my personality in different ways depending on the language. I am absolutely the locked-in Anglo, German/Irish/Polish white guy when I am talking to the Anglos of the parish, but I am very much Hispanic – to a certain degree – when I am speaking in Spanish. I think this is important because if I can understand not only the vocabulary but the cultural background of the language, I can better understand and serve my people. I can understand why they might be habitually late to things, or why there might be certain concerns and worries, or where the idea for certain practices may be coming from.
You also begin to see similarities between the various cultures. For example, in Crete, we are mostly Hispanic, but are also largely Czech. I stumbled upon a realization that might come across as an attack, but I promise it’s not: Czechs and Hispanics are the same people.
Hispanics are Czechs from south of Texas. Have you ever listened to Mariachi or Banda music and Polka music side by side? It’s the same music! Have you seen the traditional Mexican dresses they use for dancing versus what the Czechs use? It’s the same thing! And the individuals are the same stubborn, hard-working, loving, generous people who don’t know how to use clocks. There are just enough differences to keep it from getting boring, but the similarities between the cultures are astounding.
I have grown to really appreciate learning Spanish, not because of the skill-set or the ability to communicate, but to bring all of these cultures together in a parish that would otherwise be divided. It takes time, but in the last five years that I have been in Crete, I have seen so many amazing leaps forward, and to be a part of that has been really special. And it would never have been possible without gaining these “multiple personalities” from learning a new language!
