No, this is not a slam against any of you that speak a language other than English. Rather, this is something that I've noticed in myself, and I'm pretty sure it must be just an autistic trait. I have noticed that, whenever I see/"read" something in a real language other than English, it keeps me awake at night just thinking about it. It happened with someone's translation of a TobyMac song on a dc talk forum; I still think about the one time I heard Rammstein (or whatever their name is) and it still creeps me out, as does a foreign-language version of a decade-old Disney computer game demo (the dub of Piglet's voice was so shrill…ugh!); and, just last night, I made the mistake of watching Spain's version of the Wizards of Waverly Place theme song online after catching the end of it on Disney Channel.
Foreign languages don't just scare me in real life, though. I've had dreams about them (or, at least, simulated versions of them) and they creep me out, too. I don't even think I could count on one hand the dreams that I've had like that. More than once, it's been about hearing them on TV. In fact, once, I had a dream that was almost entirely in fake German. The dream was that I was laying down in a hospital waiting room, and that's what was on the TV in there. There was even a fake German "version" of The Happiest Millionaire, complete with closed captioning on the screen in some brightly colored, Old-English-style print. (The only line I remember from it was "Stooooooooop en esto gluven," which probably means nothing in any language.) The dream concluded with Jason and Maggie Seaver (yes, from Growing Pains) arguing in English about whether or not they should continue the German shows.
That happened years ago, but similar things also happened recently. Just a few days ago, I had a dream about a rock band dancing around a library (really) and singing songs in Latin. I woke up scared after that one, too. I expect it will happen quite a few more times.
I don't know why foreign languages scare me like they do. I have nothing against anyone of any race/culture/ethnicity/etc. In fact, I studied Spanish in high school and enjoyed it quite a bit. Foreign languages don't always scare me, anyway; I have Josh Groban's "Canto Alla Vita" on my iPod, and it has gotten quite a few plays. It's probably just an autistic thing. Who knows? Maybe my "fear" of foreign languages will help me actually learn and be able to speak them! I did pretty well in Spanish class; should I try French, German, and Latin? What do you all think? Let me know.
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