A few minutes later my field director referred me to boilerplate language I had approved.
If I pull my linguist's hat firmly down over my ears, it enables me to observe language change objectively.
The writer, who suffered a severe cerebral haemorrhage himself 18 years before, was defiant: "No one can be more alert than me to the language surrounding stroke.
"It gave me a relationship to language that I could merge with other relationships to language that I had cultivated," he said.
I'm flawed, and I still have many, many things to learn, and in a way I felt that writing in the language was another way for me to learn the language.
In French, I explain: I love the French language, but my grammar stinks... and this is too important -- too complicated for me to struggle with language.
I love lyrical writing and to me language is as integral to a work of literature as character or plot.
"He allowed me to keep my language," Mr. Miramontes explains.
It is a wonderful experience for me to teach my language to different people.
They paid for me to take English language courses at the British consulate.
