From language, with love
Exploring linguistics and adolescence in Monteverde, Costa Rica
My home-stay family — the Cruz Salazars — makes food for me. Carne asada con arroz, frijoles, y ensalada. True tican food. I attempt to converse with my interim grandmother, faulty Spanish causing a bit of laughter and lighthearted strife. Stress rolls off my shoulders.
Sixteen-year-old Marcelo sits across from me at dinner, a small table adorned with bowls and plates separating us. He tells me, in slightly broken English, that he is learning my language in school. I reply, just as tersely, that I am learning his, too.
Let’s trade, he says.
He asks me about the word “y’all,” and the southern part of me laughs. I reply with a brief vosotros, the translation. He looks at me quizzically. I nod and offer up a new word in its place. Ustedes. Ah, he smiles — yes. He understands now.
I grin and ask him if his favorite English word is yes. He pauses briefly, thinking silently.
Yes.
The joke is lost on him, but we laugh anyway.
this little market
of ours,
an outlet made for
linguistic currency.
how does one say
lost
in spanish?
perdido.
como se dice
desconocido
en inglés?
unknown.
thank you
for your
business.
Language is perhaps the most important point of development within the human timeline.
Our Neanderthal ancestors speak with grunts and intonations in order to communicate. Broken sounds that have little to no semantic meaning. Barbaric. As is their nature.
Language becomes a type of genetic inheritance amongst them— those who learn from others become adaptable. Those who do not? They fall victim to a rapidly changing environment. Language becomes mandatory.
Our ancestors are tribal persons. Community is invaluable to their survival. Their capacity for language develops into a method of social grooming. They begin to see individuality amongst themselves. Differences are noted, discussed. Their language responds. It evolves as their communities do — separately. They are unable to communicate with the outsiders any longer. Otherness forces itself down their throats. The idea of language barriers form long before the words are there.
i break my tongue
ten times over,
just for you.
these phonemes
tumble through my teeth
and onto your lap.
you laugh.
behind a smile
i remind myself,
i’m adaptive.
you say my acento
does not taste like
Tennessee Whiskey
on your tico lips.
oh.
well,
i moved away from there
lifetimes ago.
The house is quiet, and Miriam — mi abuela — sleeps silently in her room. Marcelo sits across from me in the living room. A Spanish dubbed American movie is on the television. We joke about how intense the Spanish language sounds. Tan dramático. I tell him I love studying how languages work, a mi me fascinan. He goes quiet for a moment. His head tilts.
Marcelo asks me why descriptions come before subjects in English. Not sure, I sigh. Instead, I answer him with a similar question. Why do descriptions come after subjects in Spanish? He pauses. Eyes toward the ceiling.
We like to establish what we’re talking about before we describe it. The subject is more important, he says.
I like that, I tell him, me gusta. I wish English did that, too. Marcelo nods.
I don’t have the heart to tell him that we often make subjects out to be objects in our culture.
perhaps there is
innateness in our
happiness, this
wildly contagious
feeling.
when words fail us,
a smile is all-telling.
a laugh needs no
translation.
yet,
the words that
follow our joy?
maybe language
came about to
connect these
quiet moments
between our
bliss.
but —
who will ever
know?
I sit down on the first day of my upper-level linguistics class. I am handed papers, syllabi, course overviews. I date them.
January 5th, 2017.
Professor Lee-Schoenfeld tells our generative syntax class that today we will learn about universal language theory. A linguist named Noam Chomsky developed it, she chuckles. We smile, nervously.
All languages share — at their core — the same pieces that allow generation of sentences, she tells us. Adjectives, Adverbs, Nouns, Verbs — in every language. The differences in word order and usage are what create unique language systems.
She goes on to say, beautifully so, that we are all born with the innate ability to learn these different aspects of language. We adapt to the word order and originality of these languages prior to the age of four. Language is in our genetic code. Innate. A mutation occurred, perhaps. It was viable and advantageous. It flourished.
She asks us to turn the page.
you look slowly
out of the window,
how wild, how wild.
wild like your blood
as you slowly caress
your own skin.
wild exists in
your bones, love.
this place?
brings it out of you.
this place draws out
the years of exaltation
nature put us through.
you are wild,
it pierces you like
stinging rain.
breathe.
Marcelo sits with me at dinner. I have returned late from campus, again, lo siento. I was working on my documentary, I tell him. It is okay, he hums. Está bien, siempre.
He asks me if I can help him fix his laptop as we are washing our dishes, it will not start. There is too much English for him to do it himself. Of course, I say over running water. But only if you pay me with Spanish.While working, I teach him words like “restart,” “password,” and “charger.” He teaches me “understanding,” “grateful,” and “happiness.” After an hour, the computer boots up successfully. He grips my shoulder. We celebrate with a round of video games and laughter.
I only have una pregunta para ti, I later tell him. What is vos? Is it like tú?
Vos, Marcelo begins his reply, es formal. Es como ‘you,’ pero… tico. He throws up air quotes with his fingers and grins.
Oh. A Costa Rican kind of you, I whistle.
I ask him when I should use vos. He only shrugs. I am not sure, he tells me.
Contigo?
No, he chuckles. No conmigo.
I begin to think he finds humor in my confusion.
Thanks for reading! I love feedback. Spread language, spread love. :-)
