One of the fortunate aspects of my genetic inheritance involves an ease in learning foreign languages. I've always liked foreign languages. There's something very comforting about them, to me, at least, and pretty much everyone in my family has learned at least a few languages. It is, as they say, in the blood, and there is great love there - otherwise, why would we bother?
Naturally, in Europe, it can be really useful knowing a foreign language (other than your native tongue, and English, which everyone speaks by now, at least passably), though for many people I've met, the usefulness alone is not enough to drive a desire to actively learn French, or German.
So as with any other skill, I assume it is a passion that runs through your bloodline. Which naturally must mean there is also adversity.
I've always had a strained relationship with German, which I dabbled with in kindergarten, but never stuck to me. I was also studying English, which I took to like a fish to water, and French, at the time. Of course, then, I didn't really make a distinction between "Mom says I gotta learn this" and "I like learning this". So it would only be much later that I formed a real opinion on either English or French.
With German, however, the response was immediate and guttural. I did not like it. Not only that, there's something in me that actively dislikes German - the sound of the language is just so jarring and brutal to me. There seems to be no melody in German, for me, no song. It's one of those things that I don't know, and have no intention of trying to understand better, you know?
Sorry. I know some people love German, and I can understand that, as I feel the same for other languages. I'm really not trying to bash German here, just describing the intensity of this feeling.
I was doing some trip planning the other day, and while deciding between a trip to Germany and one to Italy, I found it funny that I had to check the name of a German town three times, though it was only one word, whereas for the Italian one, I remembered it immediately, despite it being a much longer name.
What determines these linguistic predilections of ours?
My mother is also a deep lover of Italian, and all things related to it, but blood isn't severely impacted by something that occurred so recently. On the contrary, with much of my family hailing from Germanic countries, if anything, my bloodline would dictate a proclivity towards German.
But it is not there.
My younger brother, though, is fascinated with it, and my eldest cousin has lived in German-speaking countries for several years now. So maybe it is there, in the blood, but just missed me.
Nurture vs. nature... again.
It seems recently, I keep coming back to this eternal question - how much of our traits are shaped by our genes, and how much by our surrounding environment? For the past 15 months, I've been actively studying Russian, and had ventured towards it in the past.
I like Russian, despite it being a difficult language that to many also sounds jarring and harsh. I just can't bring myself to see it that way. To me, Russian is beautiful and melodic, and so rich in expressions. I like Russian despite having a hard time with it, sometimes.
I liked Russian since the first time I met my teacher, and I stared dumbly and awkwardly at her while she spoke almost exclusively in Russian.
And I think I know why. My own native Romanian is heavily influenced by Russian, though also by Latin, and Germanic tongues. One of my greatest pleasures, learning this foreign tongue, has been unearthing all the origin words of some of my own.
Not only that, but naturally, due to our geographical proximity and shared USSR past, there are a lot of cultural similarities between Russia and Romania. I find myself, my home, and my grandparents in this language, in its idioms, and customs. So I can only conclude that my fascination for Russian is not borne out of genes, but out of breeding, and environment.
Russian is not one of the languages typically advocated as "useful", career-wise, in my country. German and Chinese, yes. But no one's ever advised me to learn Russian as a way to advance my career, much less now with the current state of affairs.
That doesn't matter, either. At the risk of sounding selfish, I can't wait for this all to be over, and for our relations with Russia to be back on their feet, so I can go there, and lose myself indefinitely...
... in this language that obsesses me. In this culture, in this world that draws me in with its every golden peak, expression, and poem.