The screenshot above is part of a comment I wrote as a response to a reader on the topic of the Romanian /r/. It was an unconscious and sincere mistake, and I could not help it but to chuckle as I discovered it days later.
There is no doubt that being a polyglot impacts the way you express yourself in speech and in writing, with influences from the various languages you know popping up here and there when you least expect it. Knowing many languages certainly helps you communicate better in your native language; as a side effect, this may cause you to mix grammar or expressions inadvertently from different languages: interference. From my experience, this is not a bad thing: this makes you second-guess yourself and forces you to double check what you're saying. Ultimately, you end up improving not only your native language, but also all the languages you know.
What was going on at a subconscious level when I typed that, I wouldn't venture guessing. As for the probable cause, though: I was wanting to write the comment in Romanian (about Romanian), reading the visitor's message in Portuguese, while making a reference about Spanish. Writing it all in English. You be the judge of whether the typo is justified.
The corrected version of this would of course read "the regions", though I'm leaving this one uncorrected for posterity.
Thus, the typo would translate directly into Romanian as regiunile—regions-the, placing the definite article after the noun (contrast Italian with the article before it, le regioni).
2 comments:
I think you've just been inducted into that well-known secret society, the Balkan Sprachbund.
I shall be a proud member, John.
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