I even spent some siesta's hours in Latin lessons.
Rosam, rosa, rosae, rosazzzzzzzz …
One of my parent's cat. Nicknamed Garfield...
I had a goal, more than a dream : to live in Italy.
When I was a child, I had the chance to meet my great-grand mother.
She was Italian and I loved to spend hours with her.
It’s strange, when I think about it.
She was living in a small house, in the south of France. A fairy tale house, you know.
But not a princess’s house ! The witch one ! Old and crooked.
Not this one, believe me ... This is "just" my dreamy house. I'm totally in love with her.
The wood stove's smell used to perfume the principal room, in winter and summer, because she cooked on it.
Her small garden was a GardenLand, for me. There were monstrous snails in this garden and I spent hours to push on their eyes, just to admire how they could retract them.
I used to lay down on a deckchair for long minutes, waiting for the thousand flies to walk on my legs and arms. It was giving me such a very pleasant tickling feeling.
This is funny, I still remember this feeling with heat, sun and flies and quietness …
Call me weird.
I’m not sure she used to talks a lot. And I don’t remember her voice, today. But I know we used to talk.
Then, a couple of years ago, my grand-mother (her daughter in law) told me :
“When you were a child, you loved to stay with Mamé.
- Yes, I know.
- You never had difficulties to understand her.
- ??... What do you mean ?
- She was talking in dialect. It was very difficult for me to understand her. For sure, Papi (my grand-father, her son) used to. But you too. And this was so strange.”
I was really surprised.
Because, for me, as a child, I never imagined my great grand mother was talking to me in Italian dialect. She used to talk to me and I used to understand and reply to her. No idea in which language.
I realised she used to talk to me in dialect, that I understood and I used to reply in French, that she understood.
Language is not a barrier. It’s a magical way to communicate, which is innate.
I know I'm saying something evident.
My friend Casanova’s children speak English, Italian and a little bit of Russian, naturally.
We are able to speak different languages.
I don’t know if talking to my great grand mother gave me easiness to speak Italian. But when I lived over there, I was thinking in Italian, I was dreaming in Italian. Some words were coming to my brain in Italian and not in French anymore.
And here are my questions : do you think it’s possible to forget our native language ?
And if not, why a language is set in our brain for ever ?
