Or were you alone?

You speak, obviously, but they are not always your words. You take responsibility for them, you must, but still, they are not, organically, yours. Living in a second language requires being comfortable with borrowing and never owning.

Perhaps that is your difficulty. Words are your weapons, they always have been, and using weapons that are not your own is both too intimate and too approximate for your tastes.

You understand now that in order to live in that second language you have had to cross a border. But who saw you come here? Who bore witness to that border crossing in the dark?

Seriously?

I studied linguistics in graduate school. I learned about languages on the verge of extinction, dominant cultures, and the efforts some countries, governments even, have made to wipe out minority languages. And then later, finally, to preserve them.

But can it go too far?

And I'm not talking about the goofy translated word for word movie titles in Quebec.

This morning while driving to work, I heard on the radio (and it was FranceInfo, kind of like NPR at home, not some cheeseball station) that, in an effort to preserve and promote Catalan, a director has been given a grant of €15000 to make a film in Catalan.

A pornographic film. In Catalan.

The government official interviewed said that their wish was that people realize that Catalan touches chaque petit recoin de la vie. I doubt he realized that saying every little nook and cranny while talking about a pornographic film undermined the seriousness of his message.

Anyone know how to moan in Catalan?