Would it seem ridiculous to say that speaking a language is an art? After all, nearly everyone in the world can speak some kind of language and we know that art is limited to the talented few. It takes skill and practice to become a great artist, whether one is a painter, a sculptor, a musician, a dancer, or a writer. Speaking a language hardly seems to require skill or much practice. The speaker simply listens and acquires and begins speaking without noting the day on which the first utterances were made. No one walks around with a sticker pasted on their forehead stating, "I spoke my first word on April 1st, 1970."

Great artists' works are chronicled and their development over time is traced through their works, divided into convenient stages of development: the early stage; developing confidence; the productive stage; the morose period; maturity. They attract followers and students who attempt to first imitate and then exceed them. They achieve immortal fame, often acquiring along the way a most comfortable living.

Language teachers on the other hand never attract such attention, fame, or standards of living. Language teachers are not regarded as artists. They are instructors, mechanics who teach the nuts and bolts of the language to nuts and bolts. Speaking a language is regarded as a tool, like a paintbrush was to Picasso. Yet there are times when the tool is recognized as art, as is the case with certain violins. May not speaking a language also be recognized as art?

What elevates us above other animals is not that we can speak, but that we can speak beautifully. What is the difference between a gorilla and someone who grunts out harsh monosyllabic words, or a frightened chimpanzee and shrieking, ear-piercing orators who takes no care of the sounds and beauty of the words being massacred by their mindlessness?

How we speak is our plumage. A pretty face loses value if the sounds it produces when it speaks are grating and send shivers down our senses' spines. The ugliest person, however, is elegantly elevated by speaking in beautiful, gentle tones that sooth us. Eliza Doolittle would still have passed for a princess if she spoke like Audrey Hepburn, but looked like a member of the Addams family. What nearly sent her back to the gutter was not the fact that she wasn't really a princess, but that she blurted out "Move ya bloody arse!"

I am an art teacher!

27 June 2002

Dion Marc Delport

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