Who is Simon Ager?
Simon Ager currently lives in Brighton, on the south coast of England, where he builds and maintains websites for Study Group1 and Oban Multilingual Strategy.2 He’s half English and half Welsh, grew up in Lancashire in the northwest of England, and speaks with a fairly neutral British accent. He speaks English and Mandarin Chinese fluently and has a good knowledge of dozens3 of other languages. When he’s not learning more about languages, he spends his time informing the world about them with his site Omniglot, which is where I found him.4
I contacted Simon after stumbling upon his site and recognizing the true "nerdery" that had gone into it, something we at OmniNerd hold dear. He agreed to do an email interview with us. After polling some interested parties for questions, I gathered the best and sent Simon an email. The following is the result of our exchange.
OmniNerd - Could you give us some insight into how you grew up? (e.g., languages spoken, ethnicity/languages of parents, location)?
Simon – I was born on a snowy day in April 1970 in Morecambe, Lancashire in the northwest of England. I grew up in Silverdale, a village with a population of about 1,000, also in Lancashire. My dad is English, originally from Liverpool, and my mum is Welsh, though grew up in the south of England (Sussex) and doesn’t speak Welsh. The only language we spoke at home was English – fairly standard British English with a slight Lancashire accent.
OmniNerd - What first sparked your interest in languages?
Simon – Hearing various regional varieties of English in different parts of England, Wales and Scotland, hearing neighbours speaking in other languages (German and French), seeing the strange writing systems on the stamps I used to collect, and overhearing my mum’s Welsh lessons.
OmniNerd - What formal education have you had pertaining to languages?
Simon – I studied French and German at secondary school (11-18); French for seven years and German for six years. I then did a BA degree in Chinese and Japanese at university. After graduating, I spent another year studying Chinese at a university in Taipei. This year I studied Irish (Gaelic) for a week at a language and cultural centre in Ireland. I was also there for two weeks last year. I have taught myself all my other languages, and/or have learnt them from friends.
OmniNerd - How frequently have you traveled to areas to experience other cultures and languages?
Simon – Since my first overseas adventure – a day trip to France in 1981, I’ve been keen on foreign travel and have visited numerous countries. While at secondary school I went on a number of exchange visits to France, Germany and Austria. Between school and university I spent three months working on farms in France. During my second year at university I spent a semester studying Chinese in Taiwan, another semester studying Japanese in Japan, then went traveling in China for the rest of the year.
After graduating from university, I lived in Taiwan for five years, during which time I went to Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. And since I starting working in Brighton in 1999 I’ve been on holiday to foreign parts (Europe, Africa and Central America) once or twice each year – my most recent holiday was a trip to Ireland in June of this year. My next trip will be to Cuba this Christmas.
OmniNerd - I’ve often heard that the more languages you learn, the easier it becomes to learn a new language. Have you found this to be true? Does this apply to unrelated languages like English and Chinese?
Simon – Learning other languages accustoms you to different ways of expressing things, different sentence structures, grammatical constructions, writing systems, sounds and cultures. You might also develop good study skills, and techniques for memorizing vocabulary and grammar. Each language is complex, though not necessarily in the same ways as other languages, and therefore takes time and effort to learn. Experience of learning languages can make learning more languages, even unrelated ones, a bit easier.
OmniNerd - Why are certain languages considered so much more difficult to learn than others? Are certain languages more rule-based than others?
Simon – Many people think that all foreign languages are difficult to learn, and that those written with different writing systems are even more difficult. When I tell people I’m learning Russian, for example, they often comment that it must be very hard because it’s written with a strange alphabet. For me, the Cyrillic alphabet is one of the least difficult aspects of learning Russian.
Languages like Italian, Spanish and French are relatively easy for English speakers to learn, mainly because of all the similarities in their vocabulary. German, Russian and Latin are considered to have ‘more grammar’ than the Romance languages and therefore must be more difficult to learn. There is some truth in this – these languages all have relatively complex noun case systems and more genders than French or Italian.
For thousands of years there has been a tradition in the Western world of comparing the grammar of many languages with Latin grammar, which itself was based on Greek. Until recently, most grammar books for English and many other languages compared the grammar of these languages to Latin, and have tried to find grammatical structures that correspond to those of Latin. Any words or structures that don’t fit the Latin model tend to be ignored or lumped together in vaguely defined groupings. Languages with few or no inflections, genders, etc., such as Chinese, are considered as having ‘no grammar’ or ‘hardly any grammar’.
OmniNerd – Once you know a few languages, is it safe to assume that new grammar-based languages are easier to learn due to the familiarity of structure in other languages, or are they just as hard as the unstructured ones like Chinese?
Simon – No matter how many languages you already know, synthetic (inflected/grammar-based) languages tend to be more difficult than analytic/isolating languages like Chinese because learning all the inflections, etc., is hard work.
Languages with regular grammatical patterns, like Swahili and Turkish, are less difficult than more irregular languages, like English and Greek. Regular grammatical patterns can be learned once then applied to all relevant words, while irregular patterns have to be learned individually.
OmniNerd - Many people these days are advocating teaching languages at much earlier ages. Do you think schools should start language training even earlier, say Kindergarten?
Simon – Yes, foreign language instruction should start as early as possible. Instead of formally teaching languages though, you could use them as the medium of instruction at least some of the time. Bilingual or trilingual teaching would give all the children the opportunity to become fluent in two or more languages.
OmniNerd - Do you think certain languages are better for certain things? Some say that English is excellent for technical work, but that Welsh is infinitely more musical.
Simon – In theory, every language has the same expressive potential, i.e., what you can say in one language can be said in any other language. In practise, some languages lack the vocabulary to talk about certain things, though there’s no reason why the necessary words couldn’t be coined or borrowed if people felt the need to discuss such matters. For example, in the fields of computing and related technologies, English is the dominant language. Speakers of other languages tend to borrow and/or adapt English words to talk about such things, or coin words from the native stock.
People use their languages in different ways. They may avoid particular topics or feel uncomfortable about expressing their opinions directly. For example, some Japanese people who speak English apparently feel able to express themselves more freely in English. This is not because it’s impossible to say the things they want to say in Japanese, but rather because in Japanese culture you tend to leave much unsaid and approach things in a roundabout way.
In Wales most stand-up comedians perform in English, even if they speak Welsh. Many Welsh people feel that the Welsh language is ill suited to this kind of comedy, though things are changing as more and more comedians are starting to use Welsh in their acts.
OmniNerd - What are the primary difficulties in translation? Is it possible to express something in Greek that one cannot adequately convey in English? How much of the message is lost when one translates something, in your opinion?
Simon – Translation is the art of paraphrasing. Each language uses different forms of expression. When translating you try to find the nearest equivalent expressions in the target language. A good translation should read as if it was written in the target language. This is difficult to achieve, especially when translating novels, poems and songs. Some things you can say in Greek might be difficult to translate into English, and vice versa, and familiarity with the source language/culture might be necessary to understand the translation.
OmniNerd – Do you find that the solution to such non-1-to-1 situations is simply more words (e.g., the multiple forms of the word "love" in other languages and the need to couple "love" with other words in English)?
Simon – I rarely do any translation these days, so I’m not sure how translators solve such problems. I think they would use more words to translate unfamiliar concepts, or perhaps leave some words in the original language and provide a glossary.
OmniNerd - Do you think slang is an integral part of the development of language or a harmful agent based in lazy usage?
Simon – Slang is an integral part of a language. People can be very creative, imaginative and innovative in their slang. As soon as slang expressions become part of the mainstream language, as often happens, new terms are coined to replace them.
OmniNerd Could you give us an example of what you mean?
Simon – Slang words for ‘good’ are constantly changing – I say cool, which is mainstream now; others might say wicked, phat, bad, groovy, etc.
OmniNerd - How, in your mind, is language tied to culture? Can the two be separated?
Simon – Language and culture are closely related in complex ways. To many anthropological linguists language and culture are inseparable. Linguistic anthropologist, Michael Agar, coined the word "languaculture" to refer collectively to language and culture. The theory of linguistic relativity, the weak form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, claims that it’s easier to think about things if you have the words and grammatical categories in your language to describe them. Michael Agar’s explanation of linguistic relativity goes like this: "Language isn’t a prison; it’s a room you’re comfortable with, that you know how to move around in … But familiarity doesn’t mean you can’t ever exist in another room; it does mean it’ll take a while to figure it out, because it’s not what you’re used to."5
When a group of people abandon their native language in favour of another one, as has largely happened in Ireland, they loose some of their culture, but at the same time they carry over quite a lot of that culture into the new language. The way people speak English in Ireland is influenced by the Irish (Gaelic) language it terms of pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary and grammar.
OmniNerd - How did Omniglot come to be?
Simon – In 1998/1999 I tried to set up a website design and translation business. Unfortunately I wasn’t very successful in doing that, but while putting together a website to advertise my services, I got interested in how to make multilingual webpages. This led me to start reading about various writing systems and languages, and eventually to create Omniglot.
OmniNerd - You are clearly a skilled web designer. Do you feel that your ability to learn spoken human languages helps you learn logical languages like those used by computers?
OmniNerd - What do you hope people take away when they visit Omniglot?
Simon – I hope that visitors to Omniglot find the information they’re looking for and spend some time exploring the site and finding out new things. I also hope that they find the information on the site interesting, informative, useful and inspiring.
OmniNerd Do you have a specific target audience, or do you try to make the site usable by all?
Simon – I try to make the site usable and accessible to all.
OmniNerd - Is this site a group effort, or do you go at it mostly alone?
Simon – When I first started working on the site, most of the material came from books. These days most of it comes from the web and from visitors. I’m still the only person working on the site though. I also do my best to answer all the emails from visitors, something that seems to take up more time than I spend on the site.
OmniNerd - What are your aspirations for the future?
Simon – I plan to continue adding to and improving the content on Omniglot for the foreseeable future. One day I hope to be able to earn a living from the site. It currently generates a modest income from advertising, but that isn’t quite enough to live on just yet. If my income from the site increased sufficiently, I’d be able to work on it fulltime, and maybe even take on an assistant or two. I’d continue improving what’s already on the site, and would like to add various other things, such as online language lessons.
I plan to learn more languages, including Czech, Norwegian, Arabic, Korean and Hindi, and to become fluent in some of the ones I already know, particularly Spanish, Irish and Welsh.
I’d like to become better at playing the tin whistles and singing, to learn one or two other instruments – perhaps the guitar, piano and/or some kind of bagpipes – and maybe to start playing the clarinet and saxophone again (I gave up about 16 years ago).
We at OmniNerd would like to thank Simon for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions. We wish him the best of luck in the future. If you would like to learn more about Simon, Omniglot, or languages in general, the following resources will help you get started:
- The Omniglot Web Site: http://www.omniglot.com
- Simon’s "About the Author" page on Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/aboutme.htm
- A list of frequently asked questions Simon gets concerning languages and his site: http://www.omniglot.com/faqs.htm
1 Study group aims to build a thriving, world-class business, offering outstanding educational opportunities. They respond to the needs of international students, delivering the programmes they want in the locations they want. The Study Group web site can be found at http://www.studygroup.com/
2 Oban Multilingual Strategy is a world leader in multilingual SEO, multilingual search and all forms of international online marketing. The Oban Multilingual Strategy web site can be found at http://www.obanmultilingual.com
3 Simon has a fluent/semi-fluent knowledge that includes French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Esperanto, Welsh, Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic, as well as a basic knowledge of Portuguese, Italian, Taiwanese, Cantonese and Russian. Amazingly, this list only highlights some of the languages he knows. See the information section at the end of the article for details on how to find out more about Simon’s language base.
5 Agar, Michael H. Language Shock: Understanding The Culture Of Conversation." New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1996.
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