Trip of the Tongue

January 16, 2012
As much a travelogue as a linguistic field log, Little (Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic) regales readers with her two-year odyssey crisscrossing the United States exploring the relationship between language and the American experience. A self-professed linguaphile, Little examines language communities, such as the Gullah speakers of South Carolina, and their relationship to English, a tongue she admits she considered boring. Some of her most interesting, and sobering, stops are in reservation towns, where she discovers the steady decline of Native languages among the Crow and Navajo. Little also touches down in New Orleans and the surrounding towns to investigate the nature of Creole and the origins of “picayune.” And she stops in Elko, Nev., home to a surprisingly vibrant Basque community. In the end, Little highlights the sad irony that America, whose history of immigration has given it a rich linguistic diversity, is also a place of “language loss,” which she attributes to discrimination rather than, in at least some cases, a genuine desire to assimilate. Still, this is fascinating for the linguistically inclined and for those interested in how our history is reflected in the words we speak.

February 1, 2012
A multiethnic cross-country trip with a smart and saucy pedant at the wheel. In this lively follow-up to her debut, Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic (2007), Little tours a variety of cultures to see how well their native languages are holding up against the predominance of English. She starts by visiting a variety of Indian tribes--the Crow in Montana, the Navajo in Arizona, the Makah in Seattle--where a theme quickly takes hold: Languages don't always die a natural death. Sometimes they're victims of attempted murder, as people who assimilated into 19th- and early-20th-century American life (often against their will) found their language banished. Little also hunts the byways of New Orleans to sort out the roots of the mixed-race and mixed language known as Creole. In Charleston, S.C., she samples the salty English and African gumbo known as Gullah. She learns the unlearnable Basque language in Nevada and finds differences between Spanish spoken in New Mexico and elsewhere. Throughout, Little effectively employs humor, which takes the edge off her occasional root-and-branch disseminations on etymology. She ranks scenes of natural beauty by the number of times it makes her use the F-word; the view from a Seattle highway turns her "into a character from Glengarry Glen Ross"; a bite of lutefisk in North Dakota "seemed like something was decomposing in my mouth." In a description you'll never hear from Al Roker, the author describes the weather in Laredo, Texas, as "hotter than Satan's sweaty ball sack." An entertaining and enlightening book from a brainy, foul-mouthed and very funny tour guide.

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March 1, 2012
Self-confessed language lover Little sets out to explore America's linguistic heritage in this fascinating account of two years' worth of road trips across 46 states. It's neither a travelogue nor a complete review of America's language communities; instead, Little's travels introduce and support the history of a select group of languages, from Native American tongues through Creole and pidgin up to the many dialects spoken by the current influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Some fans of the book will be fellow language fiends, happy to learn about the use of clitics in Lushootseed. However, the specifics of languages are a relatively small portion of the text, and the author's footnotes and explanations make the volume accessible for a more general audience. Little's obvious enthusiasmshe also wrote Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic (2007)drives the prose and keeps the information fresh and relevant. Arguing that language heritage is about more than the use of definite articles, Little delivers a revealing lesson in history, culture, prejudice, and privilege.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)