Audio description of ‘The Colour and Texture of Language’ by Annabel Harz

Artist’s statement

My artwork depicts the barriers to language-learning that foreigners must scale to encounter the joy of successful communication. Learning a language can be difficult. From my birth, visits by my father’s relatives developed my capacity to understand his Schwäbisch dialect, enabling the transition to the High German I studied in school.

Two years in Turkey as an adult allowed me to pick up some Turkish: knowing a handful of self-taught words on arrival, shopping expeditions in our local area (populated by eastern Turkish immigrants to the metropolis of İstanbul) were filled with hilarity. Armed with paper and pen, brandishing a phrase book, the victory I shared with the shopkeepers who knew no English when we could make ourselves understood was exultant!

My phrasebook attempts led to some locals thinking I knew more than I did: my carefully rehearsed compliments spoken confidently at opportune times regularly received wide smiles and a string of language I could only grin at. When I tried out my burgeoning Türkçe my Deutsch floated to the top. Clearly, my brain compartmentalised my German as a second language rather a second Muttersprache. As if to pay my German brain back for this trick, on my return I could only draw out Turkish.

In that quiet space between wakefulness and sleep, the sounds of the day filtered through my brain. Enveloped in a waterfall of strange sounds and unfamiliar melodies, I was still many months from dreaming in Turkish. Yet I got to the stage where I could say, “Gute Nacht, canım, sweet dreams!”

“You just used three languages in one sentence to say good night!” exclaimed my son. I hadn’t even been aware.

After a decade of minimal use, I’m restricted again to basic phrases. Learning a new language – especially in adulthood – is hard!

Glossary

Schwäbisch: Swabian dialect

Türkçe: Turkish language

Deutsch: German language

Gute Nacht: good night (German)

canım: darling (Turkish)

Muttersprache: mother tongue, first language

Annabel Harz has taught students from four to eighty-four years old, around Australia and overseas. She is based in central Victoria and specialises in languages. Her travels enrich her, and she endeavours to impart her wonder of the world to the enquiring minds she meets in her classes.

Annabel’s book, Journey into the Dark and the Light, demonstrates through poetry and artworks her journey to wellbeing from a place of deep sadness. She is a much better teacher for having experienced the darker side of life.

The French emperor Charlemagne said, “To have another language is to possess a second soul”. This resonates deeply with Annabel!