August 11th, 1978 (Friday): For the Love and Loss of Language

Tonight I dusted books again.  What a world of lost ambitions these represented!  I was doing the language section.  I have novels in French, German, Arabic, Japanese, Latin, Russian, and Portuguese.  I have some volumes in Danish and an Italian phrase book as well as a Turkish one.  And, of course, I have a number of books in Spanish (I wanted to read Garcia Lorca in the original).  

I ran some across some of my Arabic lessons-I have the tapes but I need a reel to reel tap recorder.  I reviewed the lessons I was trying to learn to write Arabic as well as to speak it.  And now the Mid-East is in such a constant conflagration, I don't suppose I'll ever get there after all!

I wish I had a chance to start learning languages earlier because I have a flair for translation, not for the spoken, but for the written word.  I want to know a lot of languages because words fascinate me.  I always envied my friend, Bill Sinclair, who could speak any language after he'd heard it for a while-from Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese) to Mano.  I hope Petey will be interested in languages.  He knows some sign language (from "Sesame Street") and watches "Villa Allegra" faithfully because he's interested in Spanish (and he's learned some Spanish words from Cindy and Lolita next door). 

Since my breakdown, I've forgotten almost all the foreign languages I knew...I only remember a few words of French, and a smattering of German-a few Spanish, Russian, and Arabic phrases.  It's heard to start again from the beginning.