Living in the Metaverse
gonzo phenomenology of virtual worlds
As you probably concluded from all the missing articles and strange constructions of sentences, English is not my mother tongue. At least, it is not a mother tongue of human me.
Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to meet and talk to someone in my mother tongue. And… huh… it was really a surprise.
We got easily through first couple of sentences when I started to feel a bit strange. I felt just like when I am speaking English in the real life. Conversation goes, but every now and then I have to rethink what I'm going to say. Words were missing at some points. (Ok, some of unicode characters were missing too, but that is completely other topic.)
Then I realized, dandellion Kimban's native language is English. Never mind the fact that her typist feels much more free in some other languages. She speaks english since her first day on the grid. It is her natural way of communication with other residents. Both human and avatar were used to that fact but none of us expected that level of confusion once we switch to what is expected to be easiest thing to do: speaking typist's mother tongue. Once I realized what is going on it became easier. But, it was a bit of out of character experience.
As always, I want to hear from you. Do you use different languages in RL and second life? If so, does your avatar feels strange in non-english situations? Does this all mean that non-native english speakers are more likely to develop an avatar different from their RL selves?
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18 Responses for "Avatar’s Mother Tongue"
Oh, how I hate you! I had a theme for tomorrow and you stepped on it!. *sighs* Anyway, my fault for being so slow :-p; I’ll write it anyway, but now I have to add a link to you and say you comed with it first *growls*.
I am from Spain but all the people I met at SL talked in english, and so did I. I had the advantage of years of practice, but still it was hard for me to express myself sometimes. The day I got friends who talked in spanish, I quickly noticed that with them I wasn’t my SL self anymore, it was the RL one talking.
Believe me, even if like (a lot :-p) my RL identity, she isn’t as daring, witty and teasing as yours truly :-p; that’s why I usually keep away from spanish communities; people is wonderfull, but it dilutes my “true” identity.
Hey, don’t miss the subject just because I had nothing else to do this morning :) That way we could all stop writing right now.
I’d love to try out different languages in SL - in RL I cannot pronounce anything properly, even in English ;) , and when I’ve tried speaking someone else’s tongue I get corrected, which kinda dulls the chat. With text chat in SL, that shouldn’t be a problem!
Well, that’s what I thought anyway. A German chap I tried chatting to said I spelled a word wrong…..
and who speaks Malay in SL?
satu lagi untok jalan
Benja
[...] idea for a post, and suddenly someone does it before you have the opportunity. Dandellion writes here about how his avie mother tongue is english, even if it isn’t the RL one. I’ve found [...]
The rare times that it happened to talk in my native language (which is italian) I didn’t feel that experience as OOC. Of course it would be easier for me to develop my AV character much better if sticking to italian communities. But then I will be missing all the fun in meeting new people. I have to say too, that I like to practice english language in SL and that missing some words it’s just a way like another to stimulate my brain in trying to explain the things I’m thinking at that moment. But just now, I’d like to reverse the question. Lately I found myself “thinking” in english about SL when I am not online. I am driving, gettin home and I’m thinking about my SL and I’m doin it *in english*… What’s happening? Am I the only one? Is SL coming over my RL? Is Eidur developing a personality so strong that I’m starting thinking the way she’d like?
Hehehe…. at last we have an avatar that feels fine out-of-english. :p
No, you are not the only one that thinks about second life in english. I don’t know how much I owe the blogs for this but I find myself quite often thinking off-line in english. Really, where is the border?
That question about avie developing its own personality springs over and over again. Lot of us feels more “daring, witty and teasing” in a mesh than in a body. That is kind of natural. After all, second life is more safe in many ways. It gives us opportunities to try out things we would never dare (and some that never came to our minds) if there is no protecting layer of keyboard and monitor.
But there is something more, at least for us with language issue. Mother tongue is the very basis of cognitive system. Thinking/speaking in different language means thinking differently. Not different things but in a different way. For most of us, variations are tiny, we’re in the same family of languages and globalisation is doing its job. (Yes, I am a fan of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis).
And third thing that comes to my mind is related with each one’s proficiency in the language avatar is using. Sometimes I just feel slow, ineffective and a bit dumb. But, I think I’ll leave that issue for the one of the next posts :)
Oh I always feel slow, ineffective and dumb, I just try to cope with it :)
An interesting issue I read on another blog (sorry I can’t remember which one…) was about anglosaxon native people that not always seem to recognize your speaking limits.
I had more than a discussion and a misundertanding thx to this. I guess someone will always be happy to criticize every single word or sentence you say…
Oh, there is a joke that anglo-saxons believe that everybody understands them if they speak slow and loud :)
Now you mention the different ways of thinking associated to languages, is true I always think in english while programming; even more, if nobody but me is going to see it, I put all the comments in english, too. It seems I find spanish too convoluted for technical thinking (of course, that doesn’t means I am bad at “convoluting english” :-p).
Now when you mentioned… interface on my computers and mobile phones are always in English. Things like cancel, save, post, quit and alike can be translated but I just don’t get them that way. It is partly that those things developed in English, and partly because my first years with them were without posibility of localization and with literature in English.
But, benja mentioned malay and that is the different language family… How diverse it is?
Well, same here, I am Dutch and of course speak mostly English in SL. I do talk to other Dutch people once in a while, and that is weird. It feels like I’m exposed and my Dutch writing looks so stupid. As said before, talking in another language makes me think differently. Then switching back to Dutch, I can’t easily find the same ‘flow’.
While I can chat and switch just fine when I’m on a separate Dutch chat room and in SL at the same time, suddenly switching to Dutch -in- SL is problematic.
It must be a psychological thing. From day one, even second one on SL, I associate it with bein mainly English. The entire SL client is English, the SL site is and the very first notecard you receive is. From then on, all people I met, I started talking English to. So for me, Sl = English. Then to suddenly forget all that and talk in my native language feels unnatural.
Interesting topic. I am a translator in RL and English comes naturally, as natually almost as my native Dutch. But Laetizia can speak both, because Laetizia is not really a role I play, apart from the difference in gender. She reacts like I would react and even does typically male things like building an armoured car.
But I can relate to how a different language makes some things easier. It creates a distance between yourself and the words. Your own language relates directly to childhood memories. You can tell a girl ‘I love you’ - it’s just a song (any of countless millions of songs actually). But when you tell that to her in your own language, it is so much more - it’s what you’d tell your mother as well.
well, for bilinguals (like me;) that doesn’t much matter - they learned to switch context like natural way of life, like breathing… but then it is fun for us to observe situations where anglo-saxons come to place where e.g german group (german, dutch, etc) prevailing and they have to cope somehow: they ask e.g. for help, got it in English and then helper turns back to talk to his own company e.g. in Dutch, and… voila, they got lost and go somewhere else ;)
The situation of bilinguality is one that is of interest. I understand that switching is natural, but are there situations or things you prefer to “do” in one and not in the second language, both in RL an SL?
And about sims that are mainly in non-familiar language… I love that Okinawa sim, where nipponese is dominant. If I really need it, I can use that great invention named Babbler, but most of the time I enjoy the flow of kanjis which I don’t understand and that strange feeling of being not in the conversation. Strange mix of solitude in the middle of the crowd.
sorry for delay, this kind of things not always stay in top priorities of life… I have “first” language which I learned first and it was first till 3yrs old, then I was “switched” to second one which is main at the moment… and there were other languages attached to me less (mean less knowledge of them, still I know them as “better quit smething than nothing”), and was English coming somewhere in the school. Actually, nowadays I use first one only in emotional bursts and when talk to (remote) relatives, and second one is used in non-work environment (home, close friends, blogging), and at wok it is mostly English (tho sometimes i do switch back to second language when think on serious topics). Actually, barrier between second and English is quit soft - once (we were guests at friends place) I was watching satellite TV feed where poor channel had Discovery channels semi-translated (one feature program in second language, one in English), and i haven’t noticed those switches AT ALL, only my wife was giggling of me because on here question I had replied in English instead of second language as usual ;) And in SL, the very second language community is rather minor enough to ignore them ;)
[...] came across an interesting new (to me) blog, with a fascinating post, Avatar’s Mother Tongue, that also has a good comment thread. The premise? As you probably concluded from all the missing [...]
Ha, I feel the same way. I avoid the company of French avatars, as I find that I don’t chat in French (my RL mother language) as smoothly as I do in English.
More and more I am glad I wrote this post. I am not alone :) It is the similar kind of relief when I found out that others dream SL too.
I need to rethink all this… it turns out that foreign language helps us immerse into environment and feel more natural. Any psychologists around?
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