Dear Julien Punai Aga (阿甲),
Today is your second birthday, and this is my gift
for you:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j41zxol47s0j6pj/_LangAcqusitionNiPunai.docx?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j41zxol47s0j6pj/_LangAcqusitionNiPunai.docx?dl=0
Here you’re looking at a “language log” that I’ve
kept for you. These are the words and phrases in the languages you’ve learned
to use to perceive the world around you during the two years (& 9 months) you’ve
lived in it.
I hope you will remember that you have all these,
and you have been all these.
You have been plurality.
I hope that you will never find the need to choose
one (language/culture/identity) over another even though many people will try
to make you do so (Forgive them; they are ignorant, and it’s not their fault);
I hope that you will understand no one person or
thing needs to dominate, and that you do not need to single any one out;
I hope that you will be able to resist competition,
ranking comparison, and singularity, i.e., the stupid, unreasonable, and
utterly contradictory attempt to be or to possess the best or the most (contradictory
because if everyone claims the best then obviously its abstract meaning cannot
be), that is the disease and cause of pain for my generation and many before me,
and that, if not changed, will destroy humanity.
ALL are complete; ONE is not.
I hope you will never see yourself as a composition
of parts – a “mixed” person of percentages, but a continuation of whole – you
are 100% of all that you are and would like to be.
I hope you embrace and enjoy you-you-you-you-you,
and I love you-you-you-you-you.
Papa/Jimmy/把拔/lin-lau-pe(恁老爸)
(p.s.1 This log does not show all that you’ve
already known. As a linguist using the currently accepted scientific methods, I
can only observe your linguistic “performance,” but not directly your
“competence” – if you know something in your brain/mind/soul but never uttered
it, or when you uttered it, I didn’t not hear it or perceive it as you
intended, then that something is not kept in this record. Still, you have
acquired it.)
(p.s. 2 Your learning of languages has been light
speed – yep this is just a metaphor ^_^ - especially in the last month, your 23rd
on earth. I won’t be able to keep up very soon. I may just keep the
documentation of your new utterances for another month, or shorter than that, and
then I’ll stop; Then I’ll just enjoy being amazed by you, and selfishly take
your amazingness as your gift for me. That is why this language log is my gift
for your 2nd birthday.)
