The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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Spr Bosco won the Institute's new MOD Award for Language Achievement in 2017. "I joined the Army in 2013 and trained to be a fitter (vehicle mechanic) before joining my operational unit in 2015. I'm a combat engineer, so sometimes I'm in the workshop, fixing a JCB; sometimes I might be on the ground, working on a bridge. Learning Arabic has given me some interesting opportunities. I was recently in North Africa, and I'm currently on an exercise for personnel who need to practise working with interpreters, so I'm role-playing the Arabic-speaker. I'd always been interested in learning Arabic. My mum is Lebanese so it's part of my culture and heritage, and I'd learnt my dad's native language – Italian – living in Italy as a teenager. Arabic is also a useful language for me professionally, and I got on the course after scoring highly on the Modern Language Aptitude Test. The course ran from September 2016 to July 2017. We studied in small groups of 6-7 for 6-8 hour days, with short one-on-one sessions. It was a really intensive ab initio course, taking us to level 2 ('functional'), so we'd brush over the vocab during the day and revise at night. We mainly learnt Modern Standard Arabic, with an emphasis on the military and geo-political context. So at the beginning we could talk about terrorism and international affairs, but not order a coffee, although we did cover all the basics later on. In North Africa, my Arabic was useful, although I mainly communicated in French, which I learnt at school. Going forward, I would like to improve my French, Spanish and Arabic – languages I already speak – rather than starting to learn a new one." 12 The Linguist Vol/57 No/2 2018 www.ciol.org.uk FEATURES interpreted on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, where you wear body armour, same as everyone else." As for the specific languages military linguists are required to learn, it's very much dependent on operations. Over the past 25 years, Arabic "has always been a key" to Bagnall's career, while "Albanian and Serbian were crucial during the Balkans conflict". Reflecting on his greatest linguistic challenges to date, however, he says: "The hardest language I've learnt so far has been Afghan Pashtu. The grammar is a challenge, but the most difficult thing is that there isn't an accepted standard. In Arabic, while there are many dialects, there is a 'correct' version of formal, newsreader Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic. But Pashtu is predominantly a spoken language that was only committed to writing in the early 1900s. It's caught up in its geography too; Afghanistan is mountainous, so communities are isolated and language develops within them." Despite his advanced skills in the language, therefore, he could still meet Pashtu speakers from certain valleys and fail to understand them. "It's maddening! You spend 18 months learning a language and still can't understand it. And you could do a translation from English into Pashtu, hand it to four different Pashtu teachers and they will all mark different things wrong. I've experienced that." Passion and aptitude Mercifully, Bagnall's life today is far less infuriating. Currently living on the UK military base between Greek-speaking Southern Cyprus and Turkish-speaking Northern Cyprus, he says, "I'm in a very privileged position where I can walk five minutes in one direction to speak Greek with locals and five minutes in the other direction to speak Turkish with locals – and I do both regularly." Married to a linguist, "We speak Greek and Turkish whenever we go for dinner, or if we have a family day out. My son's got the knack too," he notes proudly. "He's 12 and he can get by in Greek and Turkish. We lived in Italy for a couple of years too, and he picked Italian up. And although he can't speak Arabic or Russian, he can read the script. If he sees a sign written in Arabic, he can pronounce it. He has the ability and the interest, and those things need to come together." Encouraging the next generation is paramount for Bagnall. "There will always be a need for linguists in the military," he says. "We need people with both a passion and an aptitude. There are tests you go through when you apply, and you don't need to be able to speak any of the languages that we're interested in at that stage. We'll do the rest. Although," he adds wryly, "if you joined with Russian or Arabic, that would be quite handy!" For his achievements, Bagnall was honoured with an MBE this year. Clearly choked, he says: "I hadn't seen that coming and I am absolutely blown away by it." Describing 2017 as an amazing year, he also cites his IoLET award as a highlight. "That came like a bolt out of the blue as well! I have that award on my desk; it has pride of place. To be given that by the Chartered Institute of Linguists – it doesn't get any better than that!" Now he just has that tricky Chechen-by- way-of-Russian to master. And then, if his career to date and personal passion for language learning are anything to go by, David Bagnall will move on to yet another linguistic challenge. The Berlitz Spanish course has a lot to answer for. David Bagnall won IoLET's new MOD Award for linguistic achievement in November 2017. For details, see page 11. ALEXANDER BOSCO, ROYAL ENGINEERS For writers' biographies for all feature articles, see page 34. David with local policemen in Iraq in 2008