How does knowing more than one language help/hinder your creative work?
I imagine that there would be numerous advantages to the creative process gained through the knowledge of multiple languages.
While I personally don't speak multiple languages (although I can still count to 100 in German and could tell you what some of the Japanese hiragana characters are), as somebody who enjoys writing in the fantasy genre it would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that Tolkien, the man responsible for the immense popularity of the genre today, spoke many different languages, learned both throughout his childhood and later education. He then went on to invent his own Elvish language, which can be learned today.
But I believe that one of the biggest advantages of studying language, in terms of creative writing, comes less from the actual language itself, and more from the cultural studies that come with it. You can't learn a language without also studying the culture behind it. To speak another language fluently one needs to have spent time in the country it is spoken. With time spent there comes knowledge of the culture and people. You learn their way of life and have a love for that place. Language has such a strong connection to place. Why would you bother to learn a language if you didn't engage with the culture and have a love, or at least, respect for it? People who dabble in languages and drop them often do so because they aren't engaged with the place of the language; they are just learning a language for the sake of it. The more you know of other cultures, including language, the more expansive your habitus becomes.
While I personally don't speak multiple languages (although I can still count to 100 in German and could tell you what some of the Japanese hiragana characters are), as somebody who enjoys writing in the fantasy genre it would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that Tolkien, the man responsible for the immense popularity of the genre today, spoke many different languages, learned both throughout his childhood and later education. He then went on to invent his own Elvish language, which can be learned today.
But I believe that one of the biggest advantages of studying language, in terms of creative writing, comes less from the actual language itself, and more from the cultural studies that come with it. You can't learn a language without also studying the culture behind it. To speak another language fluently one needs to have spent time in the country it is spoken. With time spent there comes knowledge of the culture and people. You learn their way of life and have a love for that place. Language has such a strong connection to place. Why would you bother to learn a language if you didn't engage with the culture and have a love, or at least, respect for it? People who dabble in languages and drop them often do so because they aren't engaged with the place of the language; they are just learning a language for the sake of it. The more you know of other cultures, including language, the more expansive your habitus becomes.
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