[catch23]

The daughters spoke a language distorted by a lifetime of isolation. "When the sisters talked to each other, it sounded like a slow, blurred cooing."

It's interesting how isolation does to a spoken language in only one generation. I'm guessing they had nobody but themselves to talk to, so any mispronunciation would be greatly exaggerated.

[ahoyhere]

My husband & I lived in Vienna and we were the only people who spoke out loud to each other on a daily basis (especially in English), and we understand each other very very well in any case, and we got the point where we often didn't even speak in complete sentences over a mere matter of months. When we traveled abroad for a month in an English-speaking country, it took me several days to feel like I was making sense to strangers again! After that I made sure never to go so long without talking to other people out loud again.

[dalke]

I found that my own English changed after being in Sweden for a few months. I learned to pronounce 'r's and 't's and make a few other changes so that local people could understand my American accent better. Then upon returning to the US I had to unlearn those habits.

[ahoyhere]

Me too. It's amazing what you do to get by. You probably simplified your vocabulary some too, I expect? I know I did. Living in Austria was hell on my previously prodigious vocab!

[kahawe]

That is interesting - when I was working abroad and only spoke my second language, English, almost exclusively every day for a good three months... it did feel strange and unfamiliar to go back to my native tongue of German at first once I was back in Austria. I haven't forgotten anything, I just initially had to make a more conscious effort especially since some things are a lot easier and more "fluent" to say in English somehow.

[Evbn]

Were you in a few monastery?

[ahoyhere]

Haha, no. But the Viennese are not a very welcoming people and it was hard to make friends, and my husband and I ran a company together so it was very easy to be just by ourselves. Vienna is not a place where you can chitchat with your waiters or the people on the bus. It's considered rude.