Night #23 - Rosetta Stone

Or, the method Rosetta Stone advertises without the need to shell out hundreds of dollars for the starter program but with the stipulation that you need to be famous and dead and in a museum while the tablet resides there. This appears to be the method by which museum exhibits learn languages.

Ahkmenrah, for example, learned English at Cambridge while on display at the Egyptology department and possibly also while under examination by archaeologists. During this time, presumably the tablet was with him, allowing him to interact with whoever was with him in the middle of the night, but he was also surrounded by the language during the day, essentially hearing it twenty-four-seven even though he was dead for about half of that. Therefore, it's likely he picked it up "in his sleep".

The same could also be said for the other exhibits, with the notable exceptions of the Huns and Christopher Columbus. Octavius, Jedediah, Ahkmenrah, and Sacajawea are all on the same linguistic page, and every day people give tours in the museum during their open hours, conversing in English because it's the official first language of the US. Therefore, while the exhibits "slept", they were exposed to English, and during the night, they are further exposed by interacting with other speakers of the language, from fellow exhibits to the night watchmen. They have chances to use the language, so they practice, and they get better, and by the time Larry is hired, many of the exhibits are demonstrably fluent.

The Huns and Christopher Columbus, by choice more than anything else, most likely, choose to use their native tongues to communicate. Both parties can understand English, as they are capable of forming intelligible responses to Larry (Columbus in particular) when he queries them in English. They simply choose, perhaps for reasons aesthetics dictated by culture, to use their respective native tongues most of the time.

The Huns and Columbus are capable of English, because they've been hearing it for decades, just like every other exhibit in the museum and possibly in museums far and near across the country, evinced by the Smithsonian's collection, which hasn't been around the tablet for years on end. They seem to magically know English right out of the gate, and Kahmunrah even tries his hand at French, indicating that French tourists have dropped by his exhibit. Perhaps hearing English day in and day out for God knows how long allows them to work out the mechanics on their own.

Until Word of God confirms one way or the other, we'll never know for sure.

Next on "For the Love of Night at the Museum": my last truly serious post for a while, wherein I delve into some of the greater (but more subtle) themes of the movies, barring the "heart messages" of finding yourself.

Countdown: 353 Days to NATM 3