Languages

I'm not quite sure when I stopped blogging in English - from memory, it must've been around December last year. It just kinda... stopped, and I didn't feel like I had anything worthwhile to say in the language of my adopted country. Or more to the point: like anything I had to say in English just wasn't very good, or didn't make much sense, or just didn't flow right. If that makes sense. However, I know pretty much exactly why I felt that way - roundabout last December it became increasingly clear to me that Australia (or, at least, Sydney) and I just didn't operate on the same level anymore, if indeed we ever had. Add a splash of social isolation, a dash of insecurity and a thimbleful of good old Eurocentric hauteur and this little émigré retreated quick smart into the comforting Panzer of his mother tongue. It does seem interesting to me how many expat bloggers blog in their native languages, even if some (or maybe most of them) seem to be at least bilingual. Maybe in these oh-so-postmodern times of the globalised white collar workforce (or whatever appellation people like me are currently lumbered with), language is the last retreat before the forces of culture shock and an innate sense of un-belonging.

Just mentioning this after reading petite anglaise and other English expat blogs. Sometimes over the last couple of months, I have been wondering whether blogging exclusively in German might not limit my audience somewhat but then again, I never set out for this little number to be even half as popular as petite's obviously is. It was only ever meant to be a little update for friends overseas but considering it's been going now for 2 years, and my audience is as limited as I always wanted it to be... well, call it jealousy ;-) Wouldn't be such a bad thing to be part of such a vibrant, albeit virtual, community as petite is. Maybe I'll open a little side venture blog in English, or start blogging more in English here, who knows.