I had to write this “Linguistic Autobiography” for my linguistics class, figured it’d be ok to post.
At a young age I can remember reading the works of J.R.R. Tolkien; The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished tales, and many other works of his and I can remember how much they have captivated me. Even to this day, his works still continue to bind me to their pages at times and I’ve found the reason to be is the rich collection of languages Tolkien has imagined for his tales.
Being from Ishpeming, MI (near Marquette) my world revolved around mining. My father works as a senior electrician at the Empire mine and we are so connected with the mine that my back yard includes what’s left of Cleveland Cliffs Mining Operation’s Barns and Heckler Mine, which at one time was North America’s worst mining disaster. My parents and I built our house in a 50 acre plot on the outskirts of Ely Township, surrounded by woods I was sheltered from most people my age when school was out so most of my time was spent with my family, namely my grandmother.
My grandmother is a woman with a very rich Finnish background; one could argue she knows more Finnish than English. Amidst pasties and “toot-care,” a Finnish meat pie, she would share with me stories of her youth, from before World War II that would occasionally be broken with a Finnish word or two when she forgot its English counterpart.
In high school I began making it a goal of mine to read The Lord of the Rings once a year, both because of being inspired by The Lord of the Rings trilogy being released during that time and because I felt there was a real message in the story that I could learn. Nevertheless, my reading and rereading of the tale exposed a deep appreciation I had for the length of detail Tolkien installed in his work. It was no secret that he was a great linguist and I found myself studying more and more about the languages in his books than I did the characters. When I saw the connections between his created languages and real languages I began to branch out and work with them. I became exposed to Latin, Gaelic, Dutch, Runic, Spanish, and Japanese within the first 2 years of my high school education; many of these languages I still work with today.
Two years into High School I became involved with the “elite chorus” of Westwood High School, Voices in Motion. In that, I sang in many different languages and eventually I was selected to become a member of the 2008 Michigan State Honors Choir where I sang in Latin and Gaelic. It was during this time that I discovered my affiliation for foreign music when a friend of mine exposed me to an Icelandic band, Sigur Rós. I was instantly hooked to their music and continue to be so today. Not only dues Sigur Rós sing in Icelandic, but they also sing in what they call Hopelandic, “the language of hope.” It’s not a real language, it has no structure, rather it revolves around the same idea as classic American “Scat;” it consists of sounds which to me are like raw feelings, not translated into human speech as most songs are, but just raw, very powerful, emotion. Because of their uniqueness and moving tones, they continue to be my most followed band to this day.
In my studying of Icelandic, I found it both beautiful in how it sounded and how it looked on paper. I began to branch out some of my poetry into this language, which really helped me get a feeling for it’s structure better. When I think of it, my real interest in language stems from my constant desire to describe emotion and thought. I do a lot of writing, both poetry and prose, mostly as a tool to help me organize my thoughts, and I find using other languages helps me find new words or new ways of saying things that I can apply from one language to another. A lot of my writing plays with the structure of sentences and using words in places they are commonly not used, this in part comes from my experience with the organization of other languages.
I usually don’t show my writing to many people, but I do have a very close friend, Rachel, who reads them and gives me another perspective to look at my writing through. When I saw this class’s description I thought of my writing, how I seek for words that may not even exist, and how I enjoy looking through languages to see how people say things to each other. I am also deeply interested in communication, as some put it, I have an ability through my writing to “convey emotions that don’t have a description;” I want to be more exposed to the construction and internal workings of language and communication so that I can communicate better the things I wish to say and write.
