On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 12:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Also, languages don't substitute cleanly for each other in this manner. I believe Arwel Parry explained this here a while ago - pretty much everyone who speaks Welsh also speaks perfect English, but Welsh is his native language so he still thinks (and hence writes) better in it. (Arwel, correct me if I've stated this wrongly!)
I am not so sure that Welsh is the best example. According to the books (which may be wrong), English [dialect] is the first language of the most of [young] inhabitants of Wales. The best example are maybe the billions of non-native English speakers (including myself) who think in their native language and speak and write in English.
My "linguistic competence" for English exists, indeed; but it is at very low level. The most of my English is equivalent to writing mathematical calculus by non-mathematicians: Even I know what "or", "and", "by", "from"... mean, I don't process them as I process equivalent words in Serbian. If it is not about relatively simple and straight forward sentence, I have to analyze them like any student of mathematics analyzes some mathematical problem.
And note that I read and wrote much more text in English than one average non-native English speaker who uses English as a medium for communication with foreigners.