YES!!
From Joey Comeau I am other people, Helen DeWitt:
Part of the attraction of a different language, though, is that the mind, immersed in this new medium, finds the possibility of a different self. When people do ugly things they don't use a separate language for them - so the words we use every day, 'if', 'and', 'the', 'but', 'you', bring back memories of that ugliness. If you escape into a different language you leave all those ordinary words behind; the words of the new language are innocent, harmless, have no history.
YES. YES A THOUSAND TIMES OVER. That's why my secret life is in English, this other self, and my flesh life is in Spanish, and how never the twain shall meet. These two persons, the English-me and the Spanish-me, can't coexist in the same place, for I am either one or the other. German-me and Italian-me are different people, less developed, but people nonetheless, and I am Other even when I am Self.
I *am* other people. Are you other people, flist?
Part of the attraction of a different language, though, is that the mind, immersed in this new medium, finds the possibility of a different self. When people do ugly things they don't use a separate language for them - so the words we use every day, 'if', 'and', 'the', 'but', 'you', bring back memories of that ugliness. If you escape into a different language you leave all those ordinary words behind; the words of the new language are innocent, harmless, have no history.
YES. YES A THOUSAND TIMES OVER. That's why my secret life is in English, this other self, and my flesh life is in Spanish, and how never the twain shall meet. These two persons, the English-me and the Spanish-me, can't coexist in the same place, for I am either one or the other. German-me and Italian-me are different people, less developed, but people nonetheless, and I am Other even when I am Self.
I *am* other people. Are you other people, flist?