Home Language

Over the years I have learned and used the main European languages. I have lived in France, Italy and the Netherlands, and worked in Latin America, West Africa and the German-speaking countries of Europe.

The last few years I have been learning Modern Greek. At the language school on Tinos that I have attended for the last two summers, that old question came up: “Why are you learning Greek?”

Why indeed? It’s not much use outside Greece and inside Greece, many people speak English well.

Why Greek? I didn’t have a ready-made answer. I have thought through several possible reasons why I’m learning Greek, and the one that has surfaced most often is: the Greek language feels like home. Not an instantly familiar home, but rather a half-remembered space. A space with a little “déjà vu” and a lot of “presque vu.”

To be clear, this is about the language. It's not about the country, although I certainly like it well enough to go there often. It's not about the people, although I’m very happy to spend time with them and connect with them. It’s the language itself that exerts a siren attraction.

There are moments when a words seems to make sense when I'm hearing it or trying it out for the first time. Often it's because something of it has already passed through another language (even Bahasa!) or the pages of a science textbook, or discussion of medical matters with my GP wife. Of course it helps that Ancient Greek is like a source code for many European languages.

So, for me the Greek language feels like an addictive kind of homecoming: arriving somewhere and half recognising furniture, faint and not so-faint aromas, glimpses round corners, and distant sounds. It’s never being totally at home - I’m far from fluent - but often sensing the promise of being at home.