Book Review of "Through the Language Glass", by Guy Deutscher

Hello, everyone and welcome back to my blog! For those of who you are new, my name is Laura and I’m a polyglot. Throughout my life, I have studied and spoken a total of 7 languages. In fact, I love languages so much that I’m a college senior majoring in Italian Studies and minoring in French and Russian Language. But even so, as much as I enjoy what I study, I acknowledge just how urgent and important it is to preserve all languages and their respective cultures- not just those that are commonly studied and are considered “dominant cultures”, or “world languages.”

Given my passions, my mom gifted me a book titled Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, by Guy Deutscher for Christmas. As I first started reading it, I was a bit hesitant as to whether or not I would like it, but decided to push through. I’m so glad that I did.

Despite traveling for 20 days total over break, I finished this book in about a week, which is fast for a slow reader like me. I simply enjoyed what the author had to say and could not take my eyes off the page. 

This book is about more than just linguistics and language. It’s about the beauty and power of celebrating cultures different from your own. If you read all 239 pages of the book, I can guarantee that you will have a better understanding of how culture influences our thought processes and way of life and vice-versa. You will ultimately have a better grasp on how we think and why we think the way we do.

Guy Deutscher explains these phenomenons primarily through the following concepts: the perception of color, the perception of space, and how gender influences how we view the world around us. He is by far one of the most well-read and clever linguistic authors I have come across so far, as he combines bits of history and culture to formulate his thoughts about and draw conclusions on how diverse and rich languages are on all corners of the planet.

This book’s chapters are quite long, but I didn't mind them, given that each chapter has a very detailed analysis of the study of linguistics and how it has evolved over time. I especially enjoyed the examples that he gives of languages that I have studied, as I was able to understand the cultural and historical context behind certain words, or sentences without having to look up their English translations.

However, I must admit that my favorite passages were those that mentioned tribal languages and “non-world-languages” about which you rarely learn in school. After finishing this book, I realized that though we are more similar to each other than we would think, we should not discount the millions of ways in which we can perceive the world. It’s not always black and white, or as standard as you would think. For example, many languages don’t have cases, two genders, and nouns. Some languages don’t even have a past, or future tense.

When thinking about these examples through a western lens, it may seem odd, but once we break down cultural and linguistic nuances of certain languages, we often find ourselves questioning how our own mother tongue functions and why it functions the way it does. These are the kinds of puzzles and mind-games that you will be able to solve if you get your hands on this book. I promise that you won’t be disappointed.

Until next time! // Hasta la próxima! // Jusqu'à la prochaine fois! // Bis zum nächsten Mal! // Alla prossima volta! // до следующего раза! // Até à próxima!

Love,

Laura

Review of The Novel "Flirting with French"

It has been a while since I last posted a review of a language-related book, which made me want to read a book for pleasure even more. The novel “Flirting with French: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me & Nearly Broke My Heart”, written by William Alexander, had been sitting on my shelf at home for quite some time, because I had never gotten a chance to read it in college. Despite being a slow reader, I read a lot of it in just a few days, as I was instantly hooked.

If you are looking for a good read that makes you laugh, smile, and even ponder about your own life, this is just the book for you. The entire book is about William’s experiences wanting to become more than just a Francophile. His biggest change is having to learn the French language in order to truly become French.  As the inside flap of the novel says “Alexander eats, breathes, and sleeps French (even conjugating in his dreams). He travels to France, where mistranslations send him bicycling off in all sorts of wrong directions, and he nearly drowns in an immersion class in Provence… While playing hooky from grammar lessons and memory techniques, Alexander reports on the riotous workings of the Académie française, the four-hundred-year-old institution charged with keeping the language pure; explores the science of human communication, learning why it’s harder for fifty-year-olds to learn a second language that it is for five-year-olds; and, frustrated with his progress, explores an IBM research lab, where he trades barbs with a futuristic hand-held translator.”

If that description still has not gotten you excited about this novel, I do not know what else will. Before delving deep into the storyline, I did not have many expectations of what this book could offer, because I had wrongly assumed that I was very knowledgeable about the subject, but even I was wrong. This novel combines scientific evidence and facts, real life experiences, history, culture, linguistics, and modern language into a mere 260 pages. You not only learn about the history of the French language and how it has evolved over time, but also about the culture that is associated with it, which ultimately determines how language is used. He also did a significant amount of research about how he would go about self-teaching French at “such an old age” by consulting with many polyglots and language experts. You even learn a thing or two about how linguistics, therefore getting a small taste of what that field entails.

No matter how old you are, what prior knowledge of French or other languages you have, or lack thereof, I recommend this book to any reader, especially one who is interested in languages as much as I am. I will warn you that it may be hard to understand some of the nuances, words, phrases, or jokes that Alexander mentions throughout the book, as they are written in French, but do not fear if you have never had contact with the French language. He italicizes everything that is written in French, making it easy for you to look up what he is saying if you so desire. If you have studied French before, or, better yet, speak it well, you will find this book to be very enjoyable and entertaining. It may even help you brush up on your French.

I hope that you enjoyed reading this post and that you give this book a try. I promise that if you have accidentally or purposely come across this post, or even this blog, you will not be disappointed. Happy language-learning!

Review of The Novel “Mother Tongue”

I am very excited to say that this is my first book review on this blog. Although I have read many books about languages in the past, I had not started my blog then, but recently read a novel, which I was thought was worth sharing to any aspiring language-learner. The reason why I decided to review “Mother Tongue”, written by Christine Gilbert, in particular was because I could see its relevance to anyone who happened to find this blog.

Starting off with its cover and its description “My Family’s Globe-Trotting Quest to Dream in Mandarin, Laugh in Arabic, and Sing in Spanish” automatically catches your attention and makes you curious about how she reached to that point in three completely different, and what are oftentimes considered to be difficult languages for native English speakers. Christine takes you on a journey living in Thailand, China, Lebanon, and finally in Mexico by dedicating an entire part to all three countries, as well as mentioning her occasional temporary visits and stays in Thailand. Her commitment of doing so demonstrates her careful attention to detail, and all of the research that she had done prior to writing the book about multilingualism, bilingualism, the cognitive benefits of acquiring languages by a certain age, and about polyglots.

What is quirky about this book is that her mission was to raise her child bilingually, so that he could speak at least two languages natively as a child. Without spoiling too much, her journey takes its twists and turns as she realizes the challenges, the rewards, and the peaks of teaching herself some of the world’s most highly spoken languages almost completely from scratch. My favorite lines that I believe best summarize the novel are: “The gift of language is…opening up your worldview. If we want to prepare our children for the future- one that will no doubt be more globalized than ever- then that broadened sense of identity is the most useful tool a young person can have. It makes them adaptable, it helps them think about issues across cultures, and it will be a required skill for the next generation of workers” (Gilbert, p. 270).

You may be asking yourself what distinguishes this novel from other language-related novels, and this what I have to say. Christine’s and her family’s experiences differ from most in that she and her husband were monolingual before embarking on a lifelong journey and commitment to living in communities with their locals abroad. Instead of simply living in Beirut and only interacting with Americans, Christine made a sincere and conscious effort to use her Arabic skills in markets, in restaurants, and, most importantly, in her everyday life.

If you were looking for an enjoyable read that mixed scientific data and findings about multilingualism, along with real-life anecdotes of a monolingual who eventually became multilingual in many respects, then I would highly recommend this novel. Feel free to write your personal opinions after reading this novel in the comments down below.