Words and octopuses

Words are tricky things. They don’t always mean what you think they do. But at the same time, they mean exactly what you intended to convey. The person listening, or reading, is however not always aware of what you are trying to communicate.

Words, the collectively agreed upon association of noises. Agreements structured into languages and dialects. Arranged into codes only those informed are able to decipher.

A certain sound or spelling of a word can have one meaning in one language and a different meaning in another. Even in the same language, a word can have several different meanings and even changes in intonation of the same word can make the phrase completely different.

A word I like to use as an example of a multitude of meanings is ‘gift’. In English, as I’m sure you already know, it means something that you give to someone as a present. In Swedish it can either mean the verb ‘married’ or the noun ‘poison.’ Fertile ground for word play.

Like so many other people, I get money in exchange for my freedom. I spend five days a week at a company that does business internationally and we have offices in a handful of countries. Our business language, with colleagues and clients outside of France, is English and the level of English varies a lot from person to person. My English is often too advanced for my colleagues, so I am forced to simplify if I want to be understood. I concentrate on using as few and as basic words as possible. It doesn’t come easy for me and I find it unnatural.

From time to time there are minor disagreements between colleagues. I find myself intervening as a mediator to smooth out cultural and linguistic misunderstandings. I have a lot of personal experience and training in second language communication and I know it’s not always easy to get your point across in the most diplomatic way when you don’t fully master the vocabulary.

I love words. I’m not an expert in any way but I enjoy being able to express myself correctly. Words are powerful. Words are useful. Words are magical.

I have a deep admiration for the octopus. It is a marvellous creature that has been around for the past 296 million years which is incredible compared to our species, the homo sapiens, that is estimated to have arrived only 300,000 years ago (source wikipedia for those numbers.)

The octopus can pass through impossibly small openings. They’re masters of disguises and can change colour and shape in the most astonishing ways. They have an excellent sense of touch and they sense taste through the suction cups. Some species of octopuses create ink that they shoot out in self defence to protect them from predators. They have three hearts, and nine brains, one main brain in the head and a smaller brain for each tentacle. They are highly intelligent and are known to be proficient in problem solving and mazes.

In a documentary I watched about a year ago it was said that the only reason that octopuses hadn’t evolved to be as sophisticated and complex as humans is because they die after mating. The female starves to death as she watches over her eggs, and the male becomes senescent. His body goes into biological ageing and he dies just a few months after his progeny has been conceived.

The octopus is a visual learner and acquire its skills from observing. Which gives you quite the disadvantage when you lack the social structure of a tribe, a consortium, a family. They have the capacity and intelligence to evolve but as most octopuses are solitary and rather aggressive it is difficult to advance together. When two octopuses collide it’s either to fight or to mate, and often they don’t seem sure about which one of the two it is.

Until recently it was thought that all octopuses lived in isolation but underwater “cities” have been discovered off the coast of Australia (search for Octopolis and Octlantis for more information) and it would be interesting to know if these grouped individuals far better than the loners.

How lucky we humans are that these creatures have a communicatory and reproductive disadvantage. As it stands right now, they are forced to fend for themselves right from the start, to fight for survival. When they meet another octopus they’re not able to communicate and will fight to death, unless the urge to reproduce is higher than the instinct to fight, and that brings death too.

As humans we don’t always agree but with the right words in the appropriate places we can be clearer with out intentions. But it seems we can’t even agree on what word to use for what to call the the octopus in plural. Octopuses, octopodes, and octopi. I’m sure that if they had words, structured like we do, they’d be able to set the record straight once and for all.

My life, my languages

Since this is one of my first blog posts here I thought an introduction was in order. I am a song writing/tune singing, amateur novelist and wannabe linguist. People ask me what I do for a living and to be honest it’s not easy for me to give an answer to that. Most of the time I answer that I’m a singer/songwriter, because that’s what I have always been and always will continue to do until the day someone decides to press mute (and then I will continue anyway).
To pay for my bills, on the other hand, I do various translating jobs and have just got involved with a small business to be their official photographer of online goods.

I was born in the north of Sweden in a little house in a big forest and has to days date moved 14 times, a fact that I blame on my traveling ancestors. My native tongue is Swedish and thanks to the Swedish educational system I started learning English at a young age and quickly became proficient in this. I was not terribly gifted in school so I was happy to discover that I was at least good at music and English. I also started studying German and Spanish but quit both classes for various reasons. Let me just say that a bad teacher can severely ruin the pleasures of learning.

After the normal run of school years I was tired of homework and exams and decided on a sabbatical year. I worked teaching little children to paint and sing and spent my days reading stories and playing, which was fun until it got to the end of the day and I had to go home to an empty apartment, without any friends, in a town I didn’t know. In hindsight the year passed quickly but I know it felt like an eternity. With my sabbatical year finished I couldn’t wait to get back to studying and I thirsted for singing something else than “Twinkle, twinkle” all day long. I applied to a Rock Musicians College and got accepted after auditions. Another year passed and I applied to study abroad, English speaking places only. I got accepted to two very good universities but chose the one in Scotland since they offered one-on-one instrument tutoring.

The following is complicated but please bare with me. I managed to understand the Scottish accent and got my diploma in Music Performance. I got myself a boring job as a switchboard operator for an international computer company, just so I could make enough money to get away from the constant rain I had endured during my years in Scotland. By a series of fortunate consequences I moved to France. I didn’t know a word of French before I arrived here less than two years ago and now I’m close to fluency level of understanding and speaking but in writing things are a little slower. But I am still learning and I enjoy it tremendously.

I’ve always found languages very interesting and my dad always told me that people will listen to you if you speak in their own language, both literally and metaphorically. I call myself trilingual plus extra and I try to constantly learn more in as many languages as possible. I’m not sure, but I suspect my love for languages is closely linked to my firm believes of the notion that music is a universal language that can speak straight to our hearts.

There you are, the factual me. If you want to learn more I guess you’ll have to stick around and read as I update.

Tack, thank you and merci for reading.