User:Eldin raigmore
| HERE IS PLACE FOR A PICTURE, MAYBE A PICTURE OF ME! :)
| |
| Birth: | 1952 C.E.; City of Texarkana, Miller County, State of Arkansas, United States of America |
| Profession: | MY PROFESSION |
| Natural languages that I write: | U.S.American English |
| Natural languages that I read well: | English |
| Natural languages that I speak well: |
Southron U.S.American English, Trans-Mississippi Confederacy regional dialect; Southron U.S.American English, Western Confederacy regional dialect; Southron U.S.American English, white ethnic dialect; Southron U.S.American English, black ethnic dialect. |
| Natural languages that I (questionably) understand: |
non-Southron U.S.American English; non-black, non-white dialects of U.S.American English; non-U.S.American English; French; German. |
| Natural languages that I read sort-of well: |
French; German. |
| Other natural languages I know a bit of: |
Hindi; Mandarin; Russian; Spanish; Tamil. |
| Created conlangs: |
A handful or two of unnamed sketchlangs; A not-yet-completed interstellar-multispecies conlang provisionally named Reptigan; A not-yet-completed ancient-medieval conlang provisionally named Adpihi; An unnamed, contemplated possible diachronic link from Adpihi to Reptigan. |
| Other conlangs: | CONLANGS THAT I KNOW/USE/AM INERESTED IN THAT OTHERS HAVE CREATED |
| Interests: | MY INTERESTS |
| More information: | MORE INFORMATION |
I am trying to make this cohesive. ("Coherent" will do, I suppose, if "cohesive" is out of my reach.)
I) Source of Pseudonym.
The name "eldin raigmore" is a pseudonym. That's why I don't capitalize it.
I borrowed it without asking from the novel (it's the hero's name) "World Out of Mind" by the Scottish S.F. writer J.T. McIntosh, whose middle initial might be I or L instead of T, and whose last name might be M'Intosh instead of McIntosh.
- See also [[{{{1}}}]] for more information
I would have asked, but I couldn't find out either the author's name nor the title of the novel until after I had already begun using it. Now it's easier to just keep using it unless and until somebody tells me I've violated someone's right to the name. If I have done so, I apologize, and will cease immediately; but I'm hoping and guessing it's O.K.
II) My personal linguistic history.
I was born 1952 C.E. in City of Texarkana, Miller County, State of Arkansas, United States of America. I was raised until about age 21 mostly in City of Texarkana, Bowie County, State of Texas, United States of America. The East Texas version of American English is my L1 and various American Englishes are the only language everyone agrees I'm fluent in.
In 1959 my parents decided to become missionaries. The (American) Methodist Board of Global Missions decided to send my father (then the only pathologist/coroner/medical examiner for the "Four States Area" -- the parts of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma that are nearest each other) -- to teach at the Christian Medical College and Hospital in City of Vellore, State of Tamil Nadu (then known as State of Madras), India.
My parents went to Scarrett College in Nashville Tennesse to learn Urdu and Hindi. While we were there, we four children -- my older sister, me, my brother (younger than me), and our sister (the "baby" of the family) -- were all taught in experimental classes at teachers' colleges. I was taught Spanish, so I guess Spanish is my first L2. (My father could actually speak Spanish, including quoting poems; and my wife speaks Spanish well enough to be the one called to the phone by the medical-supply firms and law firms she works for. Me, I don't speak it so well.)
We traveled to India, originally for a 2-year contract; but while there we extended it to a five-year contract. However, after just 19 months, we had to come home, because both of my parents had to be hospitalized.
In India I attended two English-speaking schools. The one I attended most was Vidhyalayam, in the village of Bhagyam, a suburb of Vellore. All of the children in the Medical Compound (where foreign doctors, foreign hospital staff, foreign medical-college faculty, etc., lived) attended that school; and Indian families who worked at the College or Hospital and had an English-speaking child could send their children there, too.
Almost all of our teachers were Indian ladies. All but the Principal were Christians.
Not many people there were Americans, and only we were Southrons.
My sister was asked to spell "Puzzle" by her Indian teacher and spelled it "Pea you zee zee ell ee". She was shocked and disconcerted to hear her teacher tell her that was "wrong". Her British classmates came to her defense; "No, Miss! American children say 'zee' instead of 'zed'!".
So, in addition to learning about Seventh Day Adventists going to church on Saturday and not eating meat, and Australian doctors having trouble talking to Indian policemen [Dr.:"B-A-S-E." Cop:"B-I-S-E." Dr.:"No, 'A'! 'A', the first letter of the alphabet!" Cop:"But,.. 'I' isn't the first letter of the alphabet?!?"], and learning to spell "chapel" as "sea hech yay pea yee yell", I was taught Hindi and Tamil.
So Tamil and Hindi are my second and third L2s. We were in a Tamil-speaking area so I picked up a lot of Tamil vocabulary and can still read and pronounce some Tamil script and understand some Tamil words. Most of it has faded, however. I was not at an age where I was worried about grammar at all, so I doubt I learned any Tamil grammar.
Nobody spoke Hindi where we lived. Most people would fall back on English whenever Tamil didn't work; most of the rest would do the reverse, falling back on Tamil whenever English didn't work. So my Hindi education was no better than my Spanish education.
My parents, however, both learned Tamil quite well.
After 19 months, everyone in the family had at least one illness (my brother had two). Most of these were perfectly treatable in India (except my father's lung infection). Most of them could be contracted in America (especially including my father's lung infection). None of the children needed to be hospitalized; but, since both of the parents did, and my father had to return to America, it was thought we should all return to Texas.
In High School, Junior College, and College I took French. I got good enough at it to make my way around in Turkey among people who had no other language in common with me. So I guess French is my fourth L2. My father could actually speak French.
In Graduate School I took Scientific and Technical Reading German and S&TR Russian.
I translated a paper by Felix W. Hausdorf for my German teacher. The hard part was, when I translated "unabzahlbar" as "uncountable" or "nondenumerable", he still didn't know what it meant.
In situations where I try to speak German among many people who speak it much better than I, I get told "eldin, you don't speak German!" But, if I claim not to speak it, and then meet a Polish lady who speaks German but not English, and translate between her and the rest of the group, I get asked, "eldin, why didn't you tell us you can speak German?" Maybe that will give you an idea how good/bad my German is; I can't pass for either a German-speaker or a non-German-speaker.
As for Russian, I can pronounce and understand a few Cyrillic words. I guess my Tamil's probably a tad better than my Russian.
So my fifth and sixth L2s are German and Russian.
I made friends with another graduate student who was born in Taiwan and married an American man. They made me their daughter's god-father. They brought the baby's mother's parents from Taiwan to live with them. The grandfather spoke English, but the grandmother spoke only Chinese.
Another graduate student -- a Japanese-born American with a Finnish surname -- was trying to teach me to read Spaceship Yamamoto, while my god-daughter, my compadre, my commadre, and the rest of that family, were teaching me Chinese. Maybe I have a little Chinese as a seventh L2.
I'm not sure I should really claim all seven of these as L2s. I have had conversations only in English, French, and German (I suspect my French is as good/bad as my German -- I can't convince people I speak it, and I can't convince them I don't). I have read an occasional sign in Spanish, Tamil, Russian, Turkish, and Chinese -- quite unreliably in some cases. I mean, even in French --- drive around Quebec and you see these big arrows pointing down the street with the word "DIRECTION" written on them. What are you supposed to think? "Yeah, that's a direction, all right. --- so, what?"
