Ever faced the “why are you studying language x” question?
November 13, 2019 7:11 PM Subscribe
I don’t have any Jewish heritage really - I do have some Ashkenazi family but it’s so far back that it has no direct significance in my life - so that fact that I’m studying Hebrew always prompts the question of why I bother studying the language. Plus I’ve got the whole “Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?!” a couple of times.
I study Hebrew because I love learning languages and, more specifically, I love Hebrew literature and would love to read the originals and not just translations. I also happen to think it’s a very beautiful language. Plus what happened to learning a language for the sake of it?!
I’m interested to hear whether any language learning experiments have received similar responses.
I study Hebrew because I love learning languages and, more specifically, I love Hebrew literature and would love to read the originals and not just translations. I also happen to think it’s a very beautiful language. Plus what happened to learning a language for the sake of it?!
I’m interested to hear whether any language learning experiments have received similar responses.
Best answer: "I love Hebrew literature and would love to read the originals and not just translations" sounds like an extremely socially acceptable reason to learn a language! That's what I said every time anyone asked me why I was learning German.
posted by value of information at 8:06 PM on November 13, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by value of information at 8:06 PM on November 13, 2019 [15 favorites]
I got this a lot, particularly when I was younger, in the context of choosing a language to study in school. My folks were always mildly baffled that I went for French instead of Spanish or Chinese, because the latter two would be much more useful, supposedly. I haven’t had any luck retaining it, but I am back at French again recently, equally uselessly, but it’s fun.
posted by Alensin at 8:16 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Alensin at 8:16 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Them: "Why are you studying Hebrew?"
You: "I love Hebrew literature and would love to read the originals and not just translations"
Them: "Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?!”
You: "Some of my favorite Hebrew works speak to this very question."
Them: "By why are you studying it?"
You: "I love learning new languages. Do you know any other languages?"
posted by bluedaisy at 8:26 PM on November 13, 2019 [11 favorites]
You: "I love Hebrew literature and would love to read the originals and not just translations"
Them: "Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?!”
You: "Some of my favorite Hebrew works speak to this very question."
Them: "By why are you studying it?"
You: "I love learning new languages. Do you know any other languages?"
posted by bluedaisy at 8:26 PM on November 13, 2019 [11 favorites]
Best answer: Just wanted to say you're under no obligation to tell strangers what you do or study. I often don't tell strangers what I do for a living (I write about politics) because I don't enjoy many of the responses I get. Instead, I tell them something anodyne that seldom generates follow-up questions.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:38 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:38 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]
Best answer: Not sure if this answer is true, but you could say "Oh, I wanted the challenge of a whole new alphabet and reverse direction reading" just to get those people off your case.
That acknowledges the sticking points that some of them probably have in their head about Hebrew (vs Spanish or something more accessible to an English speaker) and it also makes you look like a bad-ass for picking the hard thing. :)
posted by mccxxiii at 10:01 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
That acknowledges the sticking points that some of them probably have in their head about Hebrew (vs Spanish or something more accessible to an English speaker) and it also makes you look like a bad-ass for picking the hard thing. :)
posted by mccxxiii at 10:01 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I studied Hebrew for years and am aware of no Jewish heritage. My answer was that I love learning languages and that Hebrew was a great challenge and a beautiful language.
If people were being annoying about it I would've kept saying "but why not?" because they clearly lack imagination and so can make the effort to explain why I'm being odd. Would they object to Urdu or Russian or Italian? I'm not remotely interested in a bunch of grown men running around after a ball but I can use my imagination to accept that much of the world enjoy that odd past time and I don't keep asking them why!
posted by kitten magic at 10:08 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
If people were being annoying about it I would've kept saying "but why not?" because they clearly lack imagination and so can make the effort to explain why I'm being odd. Would they object to Urdu or Russian or Italian? I'm not remotely interested in a bunch of grown men running around after a ball but I can use my imagination to accept that much of the world enjoy that odd past time and I don't keep asking them why!
posted by kitten magic at 10:08 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I recommend the alternate script:
Them: "Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?!”
You: “Thank you for letting me know you are an anti-Semite.”
To be clear, that is an egregious and socially unacceptable response to hearing that someone is learning Hebrew. Please be aware that people who say this to you are engaging in anti-Semitism. Plan your response accordingly and rehearse it ahead of time so that you can be confident in it, whether it’s explaining to someone why they have said something anti-Semitic (which you are not obligated to do) or if it’s just frowning at them and turning away.
posted by bq at 11:05 PM on November 13, 2019 [22 favorites]
Them: "Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?!”
You: “Thank you for letting me know you are an anti-Semite.”
To be clear, that is an egregious and socially unacceptable response to hearing that someone is learning Hebrew. Please be aware that people who say this to you are engaging in anti-Semitism. Plan your response accordingly and rehearse it ahead of time so that you can be confident in it, whether it’s explaining to someone why they have said something anti-Semitic (which you are not obligated to do) or if it’s just frowning at them and turning away.
posted by bq at 11:05 PM on November 13, 2019 [22 favorites]
Best answer: Two thoughts from a serial language learner.
1) Popular culture in America (if you are writing from America...) and the consciousness of the general populace here show very little awareness of or appreciation for the depth or significance of the cultures of foreign lands. An extreme case, perhaps: I studied German very seriously for years and have often been painfully aware that in America it is mostly conceived of as the language of the perpetrators of the holocaust and WWII. (Though, it must be said, to my recollection, no one actively challenged the validity of my studying it for these reasons.)
2) Another great talking point for Hebrew -- if you are looking for one -- is that it is a singularly successful case of language revival, having through active collective intention been turned from a rarified literary language of rabbis and religious scholars to one of an entire society. For people who are offended by the study of Hebrew because they really dislike Zionism this might worsen matters. But otherwise, it might give additional material for you to convey what's fascinating about the language.
(One of the reasons I study Welsh is that it is going though a revival of a somewhat different sort, given the different circumstances, as the Welsh attempt to preserve and expand its use as a living language in the face of the hegemony of English. And I find the issues around practical language revival really interesting.)
posted by bertran at 11:12 PM on November 13, 2019 [5 favorites]
1) Popular culture in America (if you are writing from America...) and the consciousness of the general populace here show very little awareness of or appreciation for the depth or significance of the cultures of foreign lands. An extreme case, perhaps: I studied German very seriously for years and have often been painfully aware that in America it is mostly conceived of as the language of the perpetrators of the holocaust and WWII. (Though, it must be said, to my recollection, no one actively challenged the validity of my studying it for these reasons.)
2) Another great talking point for Hebrew -- if you are looking for one -- is that it is a singularly successful case of language revival, having through active collective intention been turned from a rarified literary language of rabbis and religious scholars to one of an entire society. For people who are offended by the study of Hebrew because they really dislike Zionism this might worsen matters. But otherwise, it might give additional material for you to convey what's fascinating about the language.
(One of the reasons I study Welsh is that it is going though a revival of a somewhat different sort, given the different circumstances, as the Welsh attempt to preserve and expand its use as a living language in the face of the hegemony of English. And I find the issues around practical language revival really interesting.)
posted by bertran at 11:12 PM on November 13, 2019 [5 favorites]
Best answer: I studied German very seriously for years and have often been painfully aware that in America it is mostly conceived of as the language of the perpetrators of the holocaust and WWII. (Though, it must be said, to my recollection, no one actively challenged the validity of my studying it for these reasons.)
Huh, I wonder why that could--
Please be aware that people who say this to you are engaging in anti-Semitism.
--theeeere it is.
What the hell is with people? I'd ask in response to the "what's the point" remarks, "it's my time and my money, why does it bother you so much?" but I'm a grumpy little muskrat person.
Usually when people are being nosy or annoyed about others spending their time in ways that don't affect them, it's because they're insecure about not doing anything useful with their own free time. Feel free to ignore the question.
posted by peakes at 1:58 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
Huh, I wonder why that could--
Please be aware that people who say this to you are engaging in anti-Semitism.
--theeeere it is.
What the hell is with people? I'd ask in response to the "what's the point" remarks, "it's my time and my money, why does it bother you so much?" but I'm a grumpy little muskrat person.
Usually when people are being nosy or annoyed about others spending their time in ways that don't affect them, it's because they're insecure about not doing anything useful with their own free time. Feel free to ignore the question.
posted by peakes at 1:58 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
Oh and PS (to avoid abusing the edit window): I spent four years learning French long before I even thought of moving to France, and while I took some razzing about it only being useful for vacations in Quebec no one ever went into a swoon about the horrors of the war in Algeria when I pulled out my French 102 textbook. The people bringing Palestine into these conversations are not only engaging in anti-Semitism but are likely deeply ignorant of history as well.
posted by peakes at 2:05 AM on November 14, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by peakes at 2:05 AM on November 14, 2019 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Yes, I've heard this when I started learning German. (I'm Polish). Maybe not "why would you do it?" but "German? Really?"
As to how I'd answer the
Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?
"Well, if you look at it this way, that could be an argument against learning any language, ours included, no?"
posted by M. at 2:21 AM on November 14, 2019 [10 favorites]
As to how I'd answer the
Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?
"Well, if you look at it this way, that could be an argument against learning any language, ours included, no?"
posted by M. at 2:21 AM on November 14, 2019 [10 favorites]
Best answer: Plus I’ve got the whole “Oh how could you ignore what they do to Palestine?!” a couple of times.
Are they asking you this question in the irretrievably colonialist language, English? How can they even stand to flap their complicit gums?
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:22 AM on November 14, 2019 [7 favorites]
Are they asking you this question in the irretrievably colonialist language, English? How can they even stand to flap their complicit gums?
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:22 AM on November 14, 2019 [7 favorites]
Best answer: Where on earth do people get off asking why you *bother* with something like a language? Why do they bother with half the things they do? Honestly.
I used to get a lot of questions while studying Greek and Latin and would make up stuff to tell people, like that I heard the guy in The Graduate say "One word: plastics" and thought he said "classics." Or that I was convinced there was a lot of money in it. My real reasons were a lot like yours and sometimes I tried talking about how I fell in love with Greek literature, but those people who like to ask truly aggressive questions will just keep lobbing them at you for as long as you're willing to play along. Some people are genuinely curious though. And some are probably partly aggressive and partly curious, and it can be fun to actually discuss your reasons. That antisemitic shit I would shut right down though.
posted by BibiRose at 10:53 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
I used to get a lot of questions while studying Greek and Latin and would make up stuff to tell people, like that I heard the guy in The Graduate say "One word: plastics" and thought he said "classics." Or that I was convinced there was a lot of money in it. My real reasons were a lot like yours and sometimes I tried talking about how I fell in love with Greek literature, but those people who like to ask truly aggressive questions will just keep lobbing them at you for as long as you're willing to play along. Some people are genuinely curious though. And some are probably partly aggressive and partly curious, and it can be fun to actually discuss your reasons. That antisemitic shit I would shut right down though.
posted by BibiRose at 10:53 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
I've found that "Because I want to," is a useful answer to a variety of MYOB-type questions.
For the other, "What an odd thing to say," can be a useful phrase to keep on standby.
Tone of voice, of course, is everything.
posted by WaywardPlane at 11:21 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
For the other, "What an odd thing to say," can be a useful phrase to keep on standby.
Tone of voice, of course, is everything.
posted by WaywardPlane at 11:21 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
There's a lot of great Israeli TV with no English subs.
posted by Obscure Reference at 2:54 PM on November 14, 2019
posted by Obscure Reference at 2:54 PM on November 14, 2019
Best answer: Brooding on this question I feel as if something that should have been said on this thread hasn't been, but I'm not sure exactly what that is. So I want to add two quasi-random thoughts.
First, the world we live in is a very messy, often toxic place. Injustice abounds, both at home and abroad. People who put in the real effort it takes to learn secondary languages beyond what they need to get by are imo to that extent amongst the forces for good in this world as they necessarily practice understanding for the other, humility towards alien systems of signs and care and conscientiousness about the exact meanings of linguistic utterances.
Learning a secondary or foreign language is thus really something to be proud of but people who haven't done it can't really grasp the experience of doing it or what it involves.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said that a language is a form of life. Another philosopher, Heidegger, called language the house of being. It's a system of signs that allows us at a basic level to inhabit our often uninhabitable world, and each individual language does this in irreducibly unique ways. It is an adage that a language is not something one learns but rather something one joins. But one does so without being able to know beforehand what that will entail and how the language will change us, because the world of the new language is as it were not visible from the world of the old one. It's a marvelous mysterious process and we should try to turn people who don't know about it on to it, imo.
Second, even though political states tend to be very interested in language formation and education, because having official unified languages helps them with their state-building projects, languages are not fundamentally instruments of states, just as in a liberal view a society should not be totally or mainly subject to the dictates of the state. Learning a language may be joining something like a linguistic community, but it is not therewith signing up to be an advocate for any particular political agenda.
I hope these thoughts help you orient yourself learning Hebrew in a distracted and shortsighted world.
(Oh, also, whatever one's religious opinions or ethnic affiliations, not the only but probably the most fundamental text of Western civilization is mostly written in the ancient form of Hebrew. Knowing Hebrew, seems to me, would allow one to access some deep strata of our own cultures -- or of Western cultures, if your native culture is other -- that are otherwise imperfectly accessible. For many this would be payoff enough for its study.)
posted by bertran at 6:15 PM on November 14, 2019 [6 favorites]
First, the world we live in is a very messy, often toxic place. Injustice abounds, both at home and abroad. People who put in the real effort it takes to learn secondary languages beyond what they need to get by are imo to that extent amongst the forces for good in this world as they necessarily practice understanding for the other, humility towards alien systems of signs and care and conscientiousness about the exact meanings of linguistic utterances.
Learning a secondary or foreign language is thus really something to be proud of but people who haven't done it can't really grasp the experience of doing it or what it involves.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said that a language is a form of life. Another philosopher, Heidegger, called language the house of being. It's a system of signs that allows us at a basic level to inhabit our often uninhabitable world, and each individual language does this in irreducibly unique ways. It is an adage that a language is not something one learns but rather something one joins. But one does so without being able to know beforehand what that will entail and how the language will change us, because the world of the new language is as it were not visible from the world of the old one. It's a marvelous mysterious process and we should try to turn people who don't know about it on to it, imo.
Second, even though political states tend to be very interested in language formation and education, because having official unified languages helps them with their state-building projects, languages are not fundamentally instruments of states, just as in a liberal view a society should not be totally or mainly subject to the dictates of the state. Learning a language may be joining something like a linguistic community, but it is not therewith signing up to be an advocate for any particular political agenda.
I hope these thoughts help you orient yourself learning Hebrew in a distracted and shortsighted world.
(Oh, also, whatever one's religious opinions or ethnic affiliations, not the only but probably the most fundamental text of Western civilization is mostly written in the ancient form of Hebrew. Knowing Hebrew, seems to me, would allow one to access some deep strata of our own cultures -- or of Western cultures, if your native culture is other -- that are otherwise imperfectly accessible. For many this would be payoff enough for its study.)
posted by bertran at 6:15 PM on November 14, 2019 [6 favorites]
You are not alone: I am Jewish and I work with Yiddish, and I get the "why do you study / perform / use Yiddish" question all the time, almost always from other Jews. Personally, I have learned to respond in as abrupt and rude a manner as possible, simply saying "It is MY language!" This is guaranteed to tick off Israelis (my Hebrew is limited to the Aramaic vocabulary of Yiddish and things I learned in Hebrew school) but, hey, that has been the history of local Jewish languages for the last 80 years. Using Yiddish sends a message that "I am Jewish but I am not Israeli."
Some of the most active people working in Yiddish today are non-Jews like Yiddish theater actor Shane Baker. And you haven't lived until you have stood on a folk festival stage in Europe performing Yiddish songs while people stand in the front row screaming "But what about the Palestinian situation?" at you. Not much you can do about that.
posted by zaelic at 11:43 PM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
Some of the most active people working in Yiddish today are non-Jews like Yiddish theater actor Shane Baker. And you haven't lived until you have stood on a folk festival stage in Europe performing Yiddish songs while people stand in the front row screaming "But what about the Palestinian situation?" at you. Not much you can do about that.
posted by zaelic at 11:43 PM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
I got this sort of response from a close family member when I said I was taking German lessons online, for fun. (This was a while ago.) There's no connection to the German language within my family, except for another relative who learned it from studying and living in Austria.
Close family member was very surprised and kept asking me why, and said that I could spend my time learning [different language] that would be so much more helpful and beneficial to me. It sort of felt like I was being told I was wasting my time.
I kept saying that I was doing it for fun, and my goal wasn't to become an expert or a scholar on the language. To give some background: I like listening to classical music and honestly I just wanted to learn some language basics (elementary stuff like articles, plurals, common verbs and sentence structure), so I didn't feel totally clueless when seeing titles of pieces in German, or listening to opera or lieder in German. It's like when I listen to a song (in English) I really like, I'll always want to check out the lyrics to it. At the time, a friend had reintroduced me to the Brahms Requiem, and that led me to revisiting other classical music with German text, and some of the English translations seemed...creative...so that was why I wanted to be less ignorant about the language. It was pure nerdiness that made me want to learn, and doing so with music I enjoyed was really fun!
I didn't explain all that, though... I think I summarized and said I wanted to be a little more knowledgeable to help with understanding classical music. But that still apparently wasn't enough of a good reason and he said I'd spend my time better with [different language].
So I just said something like, "Learning this makes me happy. Of course I get that there are other languages that are more commonly used here, but yeah this is a hobby that I'm enjoying right now. And I'm going to keep going for as long as it does make me happy, because not a lot of things make me this happy." And that finally seemed to be a reason that couldn't be argued. I mean, what could they say - "I don't want you to be happy"? No idea, but the issue didn't come up again after that.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 12:13 AM on November 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
Close family member was very surprised and kept asking me why, and said that I could spend my time learning [different language] that would be so much more helpful and beneficial to me. It sort of felt like I was being told I was wasting my time.
I kept saying that I was doing it for fun, and my goal wasn't to become an expert or a scholar on the language. To give some background: I like listening to classical music and honestly I just wanted to learn some language basics (elementary stuff like articles, plurals, common verbs and sentence structure), so I didn't feel totally clueless when seeing titles of pieces in German, or listening to opera or lieder in German. It's like when I listen to a song (in English) I really like, I'll always want to check out the lyrics to it. At the time, a friend had reintroduced me to the Brahms Requiem, and that led me to revisiting other classical music with German text, and some of the English translations seemed...creative...so that was why I wanted to be less ignorant about the language. It was pure nerdiness that made me want to learn, and doing so with music I enjoyed was really fun!
I didn't explain all that, though... I think I summarized and said I wanted to be a little more knowledgeable to help with understanding classical music. But that still apparently wasn't enough of a good reason and he said I'd spend my time better with [different language].
So I just said something like, "Learning this makes me happy. Of course I get that there are other languages that are more commonly used here, but yeah this is a hobby that I'm enjoying right now. And I'm going to keep going for as long as it does make me happy, because not a lot of things make me this happy." And that finally seemed to be a reason that couldn't be argued. I mean, what could they say - "I don't want you to be happy"? No idea, but the issue didn't come up again after that.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 12:13 AM on November 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thank you for the very insightful responses everyone! So incredibly helpful and made me feel a lot better. And yes, thank you to several posters for confirming that there is an element of anti-Semitism in the negative reactions I’ve experienced. That’s what I felt, too.
Oh and the irony of being told off for studying an “imperialist” language in English.
PS: Bertran, I spent part of my childhood in Wales - pob lwc with your Welsh language explorations :)
posted by bigyellowtaxi at 6:38 AM on November 16, 2019
Oh and the irony of being told off for studying an “imperialist” language in English.
PS: Bertran, I spent part of my childhood in Wales - pob lwc with your Welsh language explorations :)
posted by bigyellowtaxi at 6:38 AM on November 16, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:22 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]