Languages

Those of you who have actually read my Portals Series will know that I have a love for languages. After all, the Portal Seeker, imbued with the magic of Wisdom, has the ability to learn to speak in almost any language of the Portals. Others become multi-lingual as well, learning them in a variety of different ways, from the old-fashioned to the fantastical. But language and learning to communicate with others is an integral part of a handful of the books in my series.

Of course, nerding out on languages comes from my general love of learning.

I speak a smattering of languages to differing degrees. Of course, my strongest command is in English, my first language. But as a child of a Marine Corps officer, I lived for nearly three years in Okinawa as a toddler (from aged 16 months to almost four years of age), so I was immersed in Japanese as well. While I didn’t have the opportunity to continue to learn that language and actually lost it, I firmly believe that the time spent there helped me to cement a love for languages and helped me to be able to pick up connections from other languages.

In secondary school, I chose Spanish as my language requirement and actually can speak it with fluency. For me, it was a choice of practicality. I lived at the time on the west coast of the United States in an area that was predominately Hispanic. I wanted to be able to understand what was being said. I also wanted to communicate with those in Mexico I was becoming friendly with, since my church often went to a couple of places in the Baja California pennisula on mission trips. Because I was able to grasp both the language and the accent, I even worked as a translator on some of those trips.

I still am conversationally fluent in Spanish and use it often, practicing with friends as I can. I use it at my place of work, to the point where those who speak it will sometimes seek me out because they know I will help them and not make fun of their struggles in English because I still struggle in Spanish on occasion. It has always been a bit of a joy for me to watch the bewilderment of certain people when I switch to Spanish because I do not look like someone who would know the language with my gray eyes and dark blonde hair.

I am also able to carry on simple conversations in American Sign Language, trying to learn that so that I can be of help to those who need it. While I will never be fluent by any means in that language, it has always been an interest to me to be able to speak without the use of words and I try to learn as much as I can and speak to those who speak it when I can. It’s one of the reasons I incorporated the character of Freddy into my serial novel The Magician.

What’s the point of this post, one may ask. Why am I typing all of this out?

I share this because it’s one of the ways I seek to love people. I try to learn other cultures and learn other languages as I can. I love to hear the musicality of the various idioms and words. And in today’s climate, where anyone who doesn’t “look like us” is an outsider and to be feared, I see people for who they are, not who they “should” be. Just like the Portal Seeker.

For me, languages are also about connecting to the past. I am also able to read some French and German (and own dictionaries for both languages) since my own family history comes from what are now those two countries and I have worked with documents from both. My maternal great-great-grandmother came from Alsace and spoke what the family called German (though it was likely the Alsatian dialect since some documents stated she was French). According to stories from my maternal grandfather’s family, she never spoke English even though she immigrated to the country as a married woman in 1880, when gaining entry to the county as an immigrant was much easier. She never became a citizen, though her children did. (Side note here – her American born daughter-in-law, my great-grandmother, actually LOST her citizenship in 1901 because she married into the family. She regained it back when my great-grandfather became a naturalized citizen in 1917). I have always thought of her when I hear bemoans of “why can’t these people learn English?” because she was one who seemed to never have. But I think she understood English anyway, just as I believe, through the documents I have on her, that she understood if not spoke Alsatian, German, and French.

And then I also think of the group that meets in the basement of the tiny church I attend in my little swath of the Midwest. It’s a group of people from the community that have come together to help immigrants who do want to learn to speak English. Some of these immigrants speak multiple languages already, ranging from Spanish and Russian to Swahili and their local dialects and languages. They have faced hardships just to come here, much like my great-great-grandmother did when she left Alsace. Wars, famine, political unrest, and other factors have caused them to pick up and move to a land that has always welcomed them. Yet some still call them names and tell them to go back to where they came from. Some still can’t welcome them, even though hospitality is one of the basic tenants of every major religion in the country.

Languages tie us together. But they divide us as well. And if we are to create bridges that connect people, we have to be able to understand where others are coming from. And while I certainly can’t understand everyone’s story, I will try my best to reach out and help them understand that their story does matter and that their language is important. It’s why I continue to try to learn what I can about language and continue to practice the languages that I do speak.

Learning languages. Learning cultures. Learning stories. Learning that the world is a great deal smaller than any of us expect, yet larger than any of us can imagine. All of that is possible.

But we all have to take that first step. While not all of us can be multilingual, all of us can learn to appreciate the cultural makeup of others, especially if we profess to be a lover of learning.

Stay magical, friends.

Write your own story.

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