The World's Patrick Cox tells us about Keith Brooks, a man who loves languages, but is still looking for that perfect one to really commit to. So he's trying out a new one every week and blogging about his experience. His blog is called 37 languages.
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MARCO WERMAN: OK, we all know that -- like it or not -- Valentine's Day is nearly upon us, which – like it or not – may be a reminder for some people that they haven't yet met their ideal partner. “At perfectmatch.com, we understand that it's not easy to find the person who's right for you.†Though of course, online dating does promise to help. But what if it's not a person you're after? Not a person, but a new way of communicating? Well, here's The World's Patrick Cox.
PATRICK COX: Meet Keith Brooks. Brooks lives in Louisville, Kentucky. He's 24. He works in Web Design, and he's looking for the perfect foreign language.
BROOKS: The language that I would define as “perfect†would be one with a really rich vocabulary.
COX: With that in mind, Brooks has come up with a method for finding his dream language. But before we get to that, a bit of personal history. As a kid, Brooks was an unusually quick learner. He was also just plain unusual. At the age of 9, he would devour language textbooks from the library.
BROOKS: Like, for example, if I got a Russian book, I would just go through Cyrillic and memorize the alphabet, and then, “Hey, I'd be done! Let's go to something else.†And I'd go to Arabic and then French. Really interesting childhood I had.
COX: And then there was Spanish, Brooks first love.
BROOKS: You know, I really love speaking it. It was probably the first language that I actually really devoted my time to studying, but I just feel like there's not a draw there anymore.
COX: He's just not that into it. At college, Brooks studied linguistics – what else? But try as he might with French, German, Russian, what have you, he couldn't settle on a language. Now, though, he has hatched a plan. It's a blog. It's called 37 Languages. Here's what he does. Brooks spends a few days in the company of a language, say Finnish or Serbian. He studies the language's history and culture, its writing system, its grammar, and of course the richness of its vocabulary. Then, he writes it up in his blog. Since December, he's done this with 13 languages. This, by the way, is part one of the process. It sounds as though part one is like speed dating.
BROOKS: Yes. That's exactly what it would be if it were dating.
COX: If it were dating? Well, after Brooks has speed-dated 37 languages -- he's really excited about Armenian -- after that, he'll drop all but 10 of them. And then you've got these 10 that you're going to go on a real date with?
BROOKS: Yes. Those 10 languages, they'll I guess get a call back. And I will do a more extensive review of those languages. I'll use the writing system, I'll speak in the tongue of those languages. And that will probably be at least a week per language.
COX: A whole week? Now there's commitment. Brooks illustrates his blog with embedded videos and songs sung in each of the languages he's checking out, like Slovenia. Or, if traditionally clad folk singers with a mountain backdrop don't cut it, there's something a bit more contemporary in Brooks's post on Hindi. Keith Brooks hopes to spend quality time with all ten of his finalists this spring. Then will come what he calls the hardest part – leaving nine of those languages behind and committing to a single tongue.
BROOKS: I am, you know, worried that I might make the wrong choice and pick the wrong language, but if that happens, then you know, I'll just go to another language that I probably like just as much as the one that I selected.
COX: There are after all, plenty of fish in the linguistic sea. So which language is the early favorite to become The One? Brooks says he feels really drawn to Norwegian.
BROOKS: I love the way it sounds. I love the vocabulary. I love the, you know, little features like the retroflex that's kind of trilled.
COX: Mmmm. Irresistible trilled retroflexes. Pillow talk for the phonetics crowd. Keith Brooks says that once he makes his final choice, he'll immerse himself in his chosen language, even to the point of going to the country where it's spoken and kind of cohabiting with it. Now, that would be true love. For The World, I'm Patrick Cox.
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37 languages project