Advanced Essay #2: Language and Society: A Glimpse into the Eyes of a Confused Traveller

Jack Sugrue

Mr. Block

English 3

December 10, 2017

I’ve been honored with travelling the world many times in my life. Much of that has come with the Keystone State Boychoir, or KSB. A memorable event from one of our tours was over the course of my second international tour with KSB. We spent the tail end of December 2015 and the beginning of January 2016 in Chile and Peru. We stayed in several cities with four host families over the course of the trip. Of those 4 homestays, only one of the hosts spoke conversational English. It was very challenging: we had to live with people we could barely communicate with (at this point, I had taken only a couple months of Spanish, so I knew practically nothing). One memory I remember clearly was with our homestay in Calama. They spoke no English. When we arrived in Calama, they picked us up, and took us to their small, one-story house. Lunch was on the table, so we ate. The two of us (me and another choir kid, Jamie) ate mostly in silence while the large family made small talk in Spanish. The food was delicious, and we expressed this to them as best as we could.

“Muy bien,” we said. “Gracias.”

We spent most of that afternoon in the guest room. At some point, one of our hosts came in our room, and said something to us in Spanish. I looked at Jamie, and he looked back at me. We both shrugged. The “conversation”, if that, was one-way: he tried to communicate what he was talking about, and we didn’t get it. Finally, he said one English word: “Shower.” It clicked. He was going to show us where the shower was. We thanked him and he showed us the shower. It was one of many interactions of this sort with our hosts.  It was tough for both , but they were still amazing hosts. We stayed in Calama for two nights, and they were very hospitable and lovely to us. At the end of our stay there, they presented us with some gifts from Calama. I got a small handbook from them that I still keep around, among other things. They were absolutely lovely, even though we didn’t really speak to each other much.

It’s tough being in a place where you don’t speak the language. However, it’s an inevitable fact of life. No one person can speak every language. Even those who are multilingual will find themselves, at some point, communicating in hand gestures or pointing at something or just having an awkward moment of that sort. Miscommunication is as unavoidable as communication. Despite the awkward, broken, language-bits you speak to someone else, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Language, as a whole, is what diversifies world cultures - almost as much as traditions, religions, and the like. People not only have their own languages for their own regions, but also establish dialect and other colloquialisms. There’s an interesting concept from a Chicano writer that touches on this: “There is no one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experience” (Anzaldúa 39). British English and American English is one such distinction: it sets the US apart from the UK in more than just an ocean.  Linguistic distinction is also such a creative way to look at the world. Along with cultural differences, even within one language, there are characteristics of every language that makes them unique and interesting from a linguistic point of view. A “universal language”, though ideal for communication, would rid the world of not just culture, but linguistic creativity. Tom Scott spoke on this very eloquently in “Fantastic Features We Don’t Have in the English Language”: “If English had utterly dominated the world and stamped out every other tongue, then we'd lose not only these rich languages, but we'd lose the insights that we gained of what the human mind is capable of.” There are so many ways to speak, to read, and that’s important to remember when speaking to someone who doesn’t speak your language well. It’s very important to treat people like our hosts in Calama treated us: with hospitality, decency, and respect. Though it can be easy to see people who don’t speak English well as “uneducated” and “dumb”, it’s important to understand how their grasp on English is just one part of their intricate personality as a human being.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Borderlands/La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. 33-44. Print.

Scott, Tom. “Fantastic Features We Don’t Have in the English Language.” YouTube. Tom Scott, 31 May 2013. Web. 10 December 2017. https://youtu.be/QYlVJlmjLEc?t=210