How Being Multilingual Changes You, From Trilingual 'Life of Pi' Novelist Yann Martel

Novelist and "Life of Pi" author Yann Martel has lived a life of travel and multilingual adventure. Nothing opens the mind like travel, he says, and nothing defines the self, or how we relate to one another, quite like language. Martel adroitly compares the linguistic practices of different nations, noting how the French are often hungry to adopt English words, but French Canadians resist such intrusion. And he dispels linguistic myths, such as the Inuit having more words for "snow" than other languages. Trilingual himself, Martel gives an insider's account of this fascinating topic. Martel’s latest book is ‘The High Mountains of Portugal’ ().
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Transcript - I think my travels and speaking sort of more than one language — French is my mother tongue and I speak Spanish quite well — it does shape you of course. I think mainly traveling especially opened up my mind. My parents — I had the luck of having parents who were peripatetic, first of all as students and then as diplomats. They worked for the equivalent of the secretary of state. They were diplomats working for Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department. So we lived in Costa Rica when I was a child. I also lived in Paris, in Mexico as a young man. And then I got that bug and on my own I continued traveling. So traveling to me is like reading in a sense. You are in a foreign element encountering foreign characters and they mold you. Because when you travel you necessarily open yourself up. I mean I just arrived in New York this morning out of what’s it called — Union Station? Or is it Penn Station? Whatever it’s called here. I come out and suddenly I’m in the heart of New York and you can’t ignore that. You cannot ignore what’s happening to you when you travel. And so it opens you up. It was a lot colder this morning in New York than it was in Washington, so even just the weather. But then all the people. The way they walk, the way they talk. There’s a buzz of activity of New York as opposed to sort of the quieter pace of Tempe, where I was earlier. That opens you up. And then when you encounter different people, you realize to what extent there are different ways of being on this Earth. Obvious ways of speaking, but ways of thinking, ways of dressing, ways of eating, ways of relating to each other. And then in a sense what that does is it gives you options. Each one of us can be slightly different than what we are, you know. Life is a matter of taking what you’re given and then going with it somewhere. You can evolve. You can change. You can learn. You can relearn. And I think traveling teaches you that. And as for languages, language is an interesting one because I find languages can both be an open door and a closed door. So yes, growing up speaking more than one language, learning more than one language and speaking more than one language, it shows you comparative ways in which things can be explained. So there’s all these differences between English and French. One thing, for example, that was lost in English that we still have in French is different levels of familiarity when you’re talking to people. So in French, when you know someone well, you will say, "Tu." Comment vas-tu? How are you? But the "tu" is a familiar form of you. It implies that you know the person well. Either the person is younger or is an intimate.