A longing for language

The story of my love for languages begins with my father.

Me, my father, and brother biking in Germany

When I was four years old he told my mother that he didn't think he could ever be truly happy if he didn't get a PhD in Egyptology.

She thought he was being ridiculous. "You couldn't be happy?? What about your successful career as a doctor? What about your family? Don't we make you happy?"

A year later we moved to Germany where my dad soaked in the academic waters of ancient history and language. We were there for three months, in which time, I am told, I learned to speak a few sentences of German.

His study time was cut short when the doctor covering his practice back home left town. Fearing for our financial security, he quit the program and we returned to the U.S.

The school I attended started foreign language classes in sixth grade. When I reached that grade my dad was studying French, so I started learning French too. When I was in eighth grade my dad's French phase had passed and he wanted me to pick up German. Still, it would be a shame to give up my French. He suggested I continue with both languages.

French was taught during 4th period, when the German students had their lunch. German was taught 5th period, when the French students had lunch. When we asked the principle at our small college-prep school if I could study both languages he scratched his head and said “But when will she eat? Lunch is an important period too.”

“There is a five minute break in between class periods.” suggested my dad.

“I'm sure Mme. Bohn would let me eat my lunch in class.” I offered.

It was soon settled, and for the next four years I took both language classes. Each time I entered German class I was lost, out of place. I could hardly respond to questions because every word I reached for was French. After a few minutes there was a distinct shift. I loved the feeling of this moment, of transforming from one language to another. In that “click” into German mode, the French vanished, replaced by a different sentence structure in my mind and a different feeling in my mouth. I had arrived.

Feeding birds at the botanical garden in Berlin, Germany.

When I was 14 years old I spent one month in France as a foreign exchange student. When I was 15 years old I spent one month in Germany as an exchange student. After each trip our family did some traveling together, often looking at places we might live the following year.

My family in Switzerland

I loved these trips, and just before leaving both exchanges I had the exciting feeling that I was just starting to get it, I was almost thinking in another language, I was almost understanding, almost able to carry on a conversation.

Throughout my middle and high school years my dad maintained a dream that next year his linguistic passion would be realized. The multiple plans he made to relocate fell through, and when I was in college he had moved on to Chinese.

After I was married, my parents lived in China for two years. The Chinese thought my dad spoke very well. They could understand him and he could talk about a variety of subjects. He felt frustrated that he couldn't understand the native speakers better, and he hated the food. My dad hasn't “kept up” with his Chinese since then.

When I was born my dad already spoke fluent German, and in the next twenty years he studied French, Latin, Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Coptic, Arabic, Classical Ethiopic, Hebrew, Akkadian, and Chinese. Both my mom and my dad shake their heads about his passion for languages. He enjoyed it, felt compelled to seek knowledge in this area, and attained a working fluency in each language he studied. He spent hours, days, weeks, years of his life pouring over books and memorizing words, but for what?

He kept a journal in ancient Egyptian, which he can no longer read. Half the languages he studied were dead, no longer spoken. He sometimes says now that much of his language study was a waste of time.

I remember the moment I realized that I had this same passionate pathology, a drive to learn so strong that I would gladly reorganize my entire life around it. The moment came after I had graduated from college, years after I had studied or spoken any language besides English.

My three children were asleep upstairs and my husband  asked if I wanted to watch a few new movie trailers with him. I sat down and as the trailer of a foreign film started, I heard French spoken for the first time in five years.The scene played, and I understood. The sounds, soft, held more in the throat, were beautiful to me. In comprehending their meaning, some dormant part of my mind awakened with transformative longing.

My whole being yearned to be bilingual, better yet, trilingual or fluent in five, six, seven languages. With my sweetheart's blessing, I began submitting job applications for him in foreign countries. When I told my mom about my schemes she laughed.

“You definitely get this from your dad. It must be some sort of genetic curse.”

I smiled. “Maybe it's a gift.”

“I don't get it. Why exactly do you want to learn another language so badly?” she asked, “You already speak French and German.”

In answering that “why” I first corrected the misconception that I spoke French or German merely because I had the ability to understand both languages with the help of a dictionary, if they were spoken slowly. I wanted to attain complete, native fluency, the ability to speak and understand and write a different language just as well as I would if I had been born in that tongue instead of English.

“But Why?” my mom asked, “Why do you want to become bilingual?”

I think it is part of my soul's search for truth, for understanding and transcendence.

“I don't get it” she said.

I tried to explain, with examples that stirred my longing.

There is a collective consciousness, a heritage of experience inherent in our words, grammar, and expressions. Emerson said that language is fossil poetry, that each word at the moment of it's creation was “a stroke of genius, and obtained currency because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer.” He was right.

Our selves, cultures and this world are shaped by our languages, in ways we frequently take for granted.  For an example, take the English word debate, which originates from the Old French debatre, meaning to fight. What if the word had come instead from a root word meaning to dance? What if instead of opponents, there were partners? What if the art itself, the discovery of truth, had higher significance that personal conquest? It would have taken a different culture entirely to create a word for debate based on dance, one that viewed the process as a joint endeavor searching for truth rather than a contest. But doesn't the word itself perpetuate the combative nature of a debate?

We place ourselves in time with the future being in front of us while the past is behind. But what if it were the reverse? What if in our language the past were in front of us, because we have seen it. The future is unknown, shouldn't it also then be unseen, behind us? If our language were this way then going forward would be remembering past lessons, and progressing to tomorrow would be visualized by stepping backwards, always viewing our history and fully aware of our inability to predict the next step.

Why should up be good, and down bad? If it were reversed, would subterranean homes be more common? Would the height associated salary phenomenon be reversed, with a person earning, on average, more money for each inch shorter they were? Would heaven be underground?

I want to better understand how language effects my mind, my self.

I want to see the collective heritage and living memory of another language and view the world through its lens. Will it be the same? Will the truth be clarified if I can see through different tongues?

I want to give my children the opportunity for greater compassion, to realize all cultures and languages are filled with people who belong to their human family, and that our common humanity means more than our differences.

And so I study, and dream. I dream of our family traveling, being immersed in different countries and cultures. I dream of learning five languages in five years.

My first triathlon

I hope you'll join me on my journey. Thanks for reading.
-Jenny