Language Autobiography

Introduction and Reflection:

The purpose of this project was to write a “language autobiography” about how language is a part of ourselves, and connect it to a larger idea. At first when writing this, I wasn’t sure what larger idea I was going to connect to, but as I wrote my scenes and about how my language is a part of me, I started to realize how language is a huge part of people’s identity; how it makes them different from everyone else. As I started to write about this, ideas flowed easily, and the essay seemed to write itself at that point. The part I had the most difficulty with was writing my descriptive scene, and about my experiences with language, but the rest after that was much easier for me.

Essay:

Languages are unique; they change and differ in many ways. When most people hear the word “Language,” they think English, Spanish, French, or other languages. Languages are a lot more than just that, whether it’s a dialect from Texas, or the Xhosa click language. Different languages can be have different words, or sounds, or grammatical syntax’s, but the one thing all languages have in common is that it tries to express something; an idea, or desire. If you ask someone from Alabama what language they spoke, they would probably answer with “Regular English”, and if you asked them what language someone from New York spoke, they would most likely answer with “English with a New York accent.” Everyone thinks that their own version of English is correct, and that everyone else is speaking differently.

Everybody speaks his or her own version of English, even people who live in the same neighborhood. If you look at the world, only some countries speak English. If you look at the English speaking countries, only The United States speaks “American English.” If you look at the US, only New York speaks with a “New York accent.” If you look at New York, only Brooklyn speaks with a “Brooklyn” accent. If you look at the families in Brooklyn, each individual family speaks differently, and everyone in the family speaks differently. This narrowing process can be done for any one person in the World. If you were to listen to everyone in a family speak, you would assume everybody spoke the same way, but the differences are very subtle, such as word used frequently in between pauses, or the speed they talk. All of these differences can separate that person’s individual way of speaking from everybody else’s.

When I think about how I speak, and how my family speaks, I always think that I speak “normally”, and that my words and sentences are “correct”. But what do “normal” and “correct” mean? When it comes to language, there is no such thing as “normal”. If everyone speaks differently, how could you single out one language to be the “normal” language? This also means that everyone is “correct” in the way they speak; you can’t decide that one person’s way of talking is “incorrect”. I then tried to think of how I speak differently from others, and various words and phrases came to mind; things that me and my family said that I doubt any other people used. For example, we sometimes call my brother Colin “Scooterby”, a nickname he got when my family went skiing. It was our first time as skiing, and my 6 year old brother was standing there completely bundled up in coats, snow pants, goggles and a helmet. He was practically unrecognizable in all those clothes. Around the end of the day we had gotten all the way down a hill, and were waiting for my brother. We didn’t see him, and we were worried he might be hurt. “Where is Colin?” my dad asked me, as I had gotten down after him. “I don’t know I replied, I didn’t see him fall though.” My dad was concerned, and said “I hope he’s alright.” We waited a few more minutes, and my dad said “I’m going back up to see if I can find him, wait here.” I said “Wait! I think I see him!”, and sure enough, my brother, came slowly sliding around the bend in the hill, covered in jackets. “Scooterby’s fine!” my dad said, and even though he had never said that word before, I knew exactly what it meant, and we still call my brother “Scooterby” to this day. My dad will also sometimes call me and my brother “Skraelings”, and while this is an actual word that Vikings used to describe the indigenous people of North America, my dad gave it a new meaning that only we know.

There’s a reason everyone’s language is more similar to those they are around a lot. When you are a baby, you learn a language by listening, and repeating what you hear. In a sense, you are copying someone else’s language; but because you are copying from more than one person, your language will be a combination of more than one person’s language. It will be similar to all of them, but different, and therefore unique. It’s not just from your parents that you learn language though, you learn it from friends, teachers, television; you learn it from anything that you can hear the language from. The more time you spend with one specific thing, the more it influences you. Your language is constantly developing and changing, and it will never stop unless you separate all contact with the outside world.

Language is just another thing that makes individuals unique. If you look at the way you speak, the words you use, the way you say them, your language stops feeling “normal”, but it doesn’t seem wrong. You can trace the words you use, and your speech quirks to different groups. I generally speak “calmly” with my words evenly spaced, which is something that my dad does. I sometimes say the word “like” a lot to fill blank spaces in my speech, which is something my friends would do in elementary school. My mom and dad have had the biggest impact on my language, I use similar words to them, have similar speech patterns, and combine the differences in their speech to make my own language.


Citations:

Rickerson, E. M.. The five minute linguist. N.p., 2004. Web. 6 Jan 2012. <http://spinner.cofc.edu/linguist/archives/2005/05/how_do_babies_l.html?referrer=webcluster&>.



Boeree, C. G.. "Language change and evolution." . C. George Boeree, 2003. Web. 6 Jan 2012. <http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/langevol.html>.

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