The Reverse Tarzan Effect

(And other Observations about Language Learning)

So, as many of you may know, I have been trying to learn to speak French for some time now – which is a little bit cocky since I barely speak comprehensible English. Anyway, I thought I would write about some of the strange pitfalls, fractal rabbit-holes, and sweet distractions that I’m encountering along the way.

There is an iconic phrase in the Tarzan legendarium: “Me Tarzan, You Jane”. I’m not sure whether it comes from Burroughs’ books or the zillions of films based on them. (Personally, I’m more of a fan of George of the Jungle.) The background of that statement is that Tarzan doesn’t speak English yet, although he somehow managed to learn to read. He’s talking to this cute young woman, Jane Porter, who is (I think) teaching him to speak. So, during one of his first attempts at speaking, he emitted: Me Tarzan. You Jane.

There is a lot to unpack there. Tarzan’s statement is not English, although it uses English words. It has no grammar, just a couple of proper nouns and two misused pronouns. But it gets its point across. It’s surprising how much you can communicate with a double handful of nouns, some select verbs (no need for tense or conjugation, that’s why the gods invented infinitives), maybe half a dozen random pronouns and a bouquet of adjectives. No need for pesky articles or venomous prepositions. If Tarzan were feeling brave he might attempt an adverb, but honestly, wrestling crocodiles would be easier. “Me go big store” isn’t English, but it’s perfectly understandable. Communication and language aren’t the same thing.

So that’s the Tarzan Effect: tossing out a heap of words and succeeding at communicating ideas – sometimes surprisingly complex ideas. Children can communicate their needs and desires with a very limited vocabulary and only a strange, partially developed grammar. (I’ve heard infants first learning English say “I go”, but never “Go I”. I’m guessing that in other languages, say Hungarian or Latin, the nascent grammar looks different.) My own language skills in French are only a click or two above Tarzan’s. (I stutter le français Tarzanique). But I think I could order a coffee if I were teleported to a café in Paris.

But what about the Reverse Tarzan Effect? I flatter myself by thinking that I can read French pretty well, or stumble through Latin or Anglo-Saxon. But imagine reading a sentence like “Good afternoon, my dear young lady. I am the Lord Greystoke, and you, I presume, would be Miss Jane Porter?” There is a lot going on there, but a naive reading results in understanding “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”

Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but honestly, not a big exaggeration. French and many other languages have formal pronouns (vous in French, Lei in Italian, and a whole system of pronouns and suffixes in Japanese.) Modern English lacks these, although Shakespeare and Chaucer were familiar with the idea. So, as a reader of French, how much am I missing when a character of inferior rank dares to address a superior with a familiar form? Imagine what would be happening if an imaginary Dickensian father would say to his son: “You, sir, shall be going to bed post haste!” How serious is it? How humorous is it? How likely is it? What is the “sir” doing? I imagine I’m missing subtleties of this sort whenever I read another language. In fact, a lot of cultural subtleties fade within a few decades, even in one’s native language.

But beyond the denotations of words themselves, even the grammar and syntax of a language carry important effects. English has the fossilized remains of a subjunctive mood “Were I to go to the store, I would purchase some icecream.” It sounds, to my ear, a bit over formal and schoolmarm-ish. But we barely notice it in fossilized phrases like “Till death do us part.” (”Do” is the 3rd person singular present subjunctive verb.) But French, for example, has a happily thriving subjunctive mood. And, more interesting to me, a slightly archaic fairy-tale voice past tense - the passé simple - which has a particular effect on the francophone ear, an effect that I don’t quite respond to yet: the reverse Tarzan effect. One is taught that the passé simple is never used in spoken French. Yet in Joe Dassin’s super-famous song, Les Champs-Elysées, you find the phrase “ce fut toi” – that weird tense mocking us poor anglophones. What is it doing to the francophone ear?

I think, in learning a second language as an adult, it’s vain to imagine that you’ll ever achieve the same responses to the language as a native speaker. You have to grow up in a culture to feel the same responses to metaphors, to turns of phrase, humor, and to some extent, the music of a language. It’s certainly possible, with a lot of work, to achieve fluency; one could make oneself into a francophone, but not a Frenchman.

One interesting angle from which to view this is Naughty Words. When I was a kid in the 50s, you could be severely punished for using the word “fuck” – made to sit in the Principal’s Office, made to suffer a Parent/Teacher Conference, endure long periods of Being Grounded (an interesting turn of phrase that I imagine came from fighter pilots), and at last, the cruel and somewhat medieval Washing Your Mouth Out With Soap. So naturally, some of these gros mots carry a powerful psychological association. The world has changed since then, and “fuck” no longer has the massive weight that once it bore. But there are still several words that I will never, ever say or write, words that make me cringe when I even hear them: racial slurs, profane references to body parts, etc. But I didn’t grow up in France. So words like salope have no effect on me. And although I find creative cursing to be a compelling art form, out of an abundance of caution I would never experiment with them in another language. Anyway, it’s interesting to see what words are naughty in different languages, and which ones are beyond the pale. “Shit” and all its translations in multiple languages, is probably a naughty word almost everywhere. Even Washoe, the famous chimp who was taught sign language, spontaneously signed “dirty” to express disgust, feces or frustration. Here, language and biology find a complex intersection.

And then there are all the animal similes: wily as a fox (Wile E. Coyote, has a totally different connotation); wise as an owl, strong as an ox, quick like a bunny. Turning a metaphorical corner, a woman can be foxy, and also a vixen. I don’t think these metaphors translate. In Western traditions, some of them came down to us from Aesop and carry a well-established classical nuance: we know about lions and hares and turtles – although the fox and grapes still confuses me; why would a fox want grapes, and what do we think about him when he can’t reach them? And in how many cultures does the phrase “sour grapes” (in whatever language) bear the same meaning? I don’t think all of these translate. In French you can be silent as a carp or clever as a monkey. I’m not sure exactly what connotations that sort of “clever” carries (malin); I suspect it’s more tricky than constructive. And then there are color metaphors. In English you can be green with envy, scarlet (or pale) with rage; you can be white as a sheet with fear. Cowardice is associated with yellow. In French, you can be green with rage; you can be “gray as rat”, which means you’re miserable and disheveled. And a crowd can be black – packed, dense, impenetrable – noir de monde.

Another sort of danger lurks in the infamous false friends: familiar words that mean something totally different in the language you’re trying to learn. A lot of these are relatively harmless. The word actuellement in French looks like “actually” in English, but in fact, means “currently”. Few francophones will get on your case for misusing it, though it may cause a moment of confusion. But it would be wise to avoid asking a store clerk whether your jar of jam contains préservatifs (condoms). These are cases where knowing English or Latin are not your friends.

And last of all, and perhaps the most subtle and perilous for the neophyte (e.g., me), is humor. It is easy to have a harmless quip be misinterpreted – misjudge the power or register of a word, accidentally stumble on an unintended metaphor or cliché or pun; to find oneself suspected of mockery or cultural appropriation. And damn! A single slip with an alien vowel can get you in big trouble. For me, at least, it’s better to be earnest than clever. In some ways it’s better to be a bumbling beginner than to have a mid-level mastery; you get the benefit of a doubt.

Anyway, these are some of the pitfalls that I’ve stumbled into. I don’t know if I will ever achieve enough fluency in French to have a fun and careless conversation with a friend. But I would be pretty happy if I could tell a joke.