82. Learning curves

Was just filling up a form where I was required to fill the 'Languages you know' table. I was tempted to write C, C++, Java, Perl...but considering the fact that it was a pretty important form, went ahead and wrote the usual four.

1. English
2. Hindi
3. Tamil
4. Telugu

The question intrigued me and with all the idle time I'm having right now, all I needed was a poke, however useless the poke was. The question cannot measure the adeptness with which I used or the fluency with which I spoke those languages. I sat about thinking the various extents to which I knew each language, which one was I more comfy with and why. Now for most of the gen pop, the order of the languages one knows follows a predictable pattern. The degree of comfy-ness with the set of languages one knows most generally is as follows.

1.Mother-tongue > 2.English > 3.then by Hindi(if the mother tongue aint Hindi already) > 4. other languages known(if any)

But for me, a TamBrahm born and brought up in Hyd, followed by a 4-year stint in Gujju-land, followed by a 2 yr stint in the North of India, the order of comfy-ness has changed from time to time.

Learning a language is fun and a gradual process. Slowly I've learnt, sometimes also un-learnt the languages I know, un-learnt due to sheer lack of people around to speak that language(for long periods of time). So I thought, why not plot the learning curves of each of the languages I know and see if there's pattern.

And then, I plotted this.....