Second Soul

A Czech saying really stirred my heart this week. It goes something like this: "When you learn another language, you gain a second soul."

So true.

It has been impossible to avoid, or ignore, rather, the constant influx of memories that have been surfacing from my first time spent in Jarabacoa. Most of you know this place simply as 'the DR' because Jarabacoa is not a word that is easily remembered by English-speaking folks who've never been there. But, as I've been reminded of this week, we are not just going to the DR, we are going to a specific town, nestled in the Cibao Valley, virtually settled in the heart of the island of Hispaniola (this is the name the entire island is called, DR + Haiti). 

Because the Cibao is surrounded by mountains, the language there has taken on a life of its own apart from the rest of the island. In a book I found here at MTI about the Dominican Republic, the Spanish spoken in Jarabacoa is described as a dialect and it says that "Archaic speech patterns predominate, and individual words may be phonetically altered through slurring, consonant omission, or nasality." I never really traveled to other parts of the island while serving in DR the first time and so never really picked up on this nuance in speech. Although folks I worked with who were from the Capital, Santo Domingo, would occasionally joke about the differences in how their fellow Cibaoeños spoke, my ear wasn't discerning enough to tell the difference.

Why am I writing all this? Because language and culture and geography are indelibly tied. Clint is not going to be learning Spanish, as a native of Spain would teach it. Clint, just as I did, will be learning how to speak, not Dominican, but Jarabacoan.

We sat at the dinner table last night with a Venezuelan, a French woman (who also speaks Spanish) and my beloved friend Amy who was my roommate in Jarabacoa for 2 years (she's visiting this weekend). We discussed what is considered to be 'proper' Spanish and 'proper' English and debated a bit about the importance of learning what is 'proper' as opposed to learning what is actually spoken where we'll be going. 

Jarabacoans consider the Spanish they speak to be natural, right, normal, and good. The English I speak, I consider to be natural, right, normal, and good. Someone from London I'm sure would disagree, just as someone from Spain would rankle at the sound of Jarabacoa's version of Spanish. If we are going to be learning from a specific people group and are going to be a part of their culture and lives in order to truly love them and share God's love with them, do we need to learn the speak the purest form of their language or learn to speak the way they do?

What do you think?