Jak rozmawiać w języku, którego się (prawie) nie zna?
How to Speak a Language you (Hardly) Know?

Summary/Abstract: The essay opens with a reference to Pierre Bayard’s attempt he made in his book How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read at disclosing a certain cultural illusion having to do with reading and talking about what has (not) been read. The presently proposed consideration reflects upon not a selected topic of utterance or speech (not quite well known to the uttering person) but instead, its language (which is not completely under his or her control). It is noted that language communication tends to tacitly assume two illegitimate rules: [1] command ought to be grasped of a complete code; and, [2] without the said condition being met, no efficient communication is feasible at any instance. Yet, these rules have been many a time abolished in the communicational praxis, where representatives of communities being mutually alien culturally and language-wise are confronted. A synthetic foreshortened image of civilisation-related experiences is the meeting of Robinson and Friday in Daniel Defoe’s novel. The asymmetry in their communication occurs as one of the actors superimposes his own language on the other, precluding upfront any reciprocal relation whatsoever. Friday, initially a mute man, gradually gains increasing linguistic competence, rejects his native speech (and his own culture together with it), eventually consenting for superiority of English (the language and its associated customs) wherein he inevitably assumes a weaker position. Taking the side of the inferior party, the author offers him ten pieces of advice of how to use a language one can hardly speak, to survive, and stay within the confines of a communication game.

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