I love languages and linguistics, although I have no formal qualifications in the subject after GCSE level. I am bilingual English and Esperanto, with Northumbrian English being my true mother dialect.
I’m probably going to be studying languages and linguistics in some capacity until I die, as I find the subjects fascinating. Barring a few exceptions, I’m mostly interested in modern and historical European languages. I’m interested in the languages themselves as an object of study and one of my primary goals of learning a language to any degree is to be able to interact with its literature so I tend to focus on the reading, writing, and grammar aspects of a language rather than conversational skills.
This page contains a few bits on how languages form part of my life and how I like to approach the topics surrounding languages.
Table of Contents
Esperanto
I picked up Esperanto towards the tail end of 2020 when I was supposed to be writing my PhD thesis and now it is a fundamental part of who I am.
The exact circumstances of how I decided to learn it are a bit fuzzy to me now but I already knew about Esperanto and I’d encountered it a few times via popular media and treks through wikipedia. I remember reading the Becky Chambers novel Record of a Spaceborn Few and there was a few paragraphs discussing how there was a trend amongst the human colony ships to drop their native “Engsk” for the adopted lingua franca of The Federation. This reminded me of both Marain from Iain M. Banks’ The Culture series of novels, as well as Esperanto.
The next thing I remember is being on Wikipedia reading about Esperanto and seeing two things which lit a fire underneath me. The first was that Esperanto was not only famously straightforward and fun to learn, but would also lay the groundwork to make learning subsequent languages much easier. The second was that Esperantists had developed their own culture including their own body of literature.
I downloaded Duolingo and started on the Esperanto course almost immediately after reading those two things. I also frantically consumed other resources such as grammars, vocab lists, and videos designed for budding Esperantists. I’ve never looked back.
I’ve yet to formally test myself in Esperanto but I am happy to call myself fairly fluent, especially where reading and writing are concerned. This is not to say “perfect”; I am liable to make mistakes in any language until the day I die. However, using Esperanto is a daily occurrence for me in many ways. I read a fair chunk of Esperanto in the form of news articles, Wikipedia, and books. I speak Esperanto to my daughter and to my penpal-turned-irl-friend. My diary is in Esperanto, as are half of the notes I keep to myself on my computer and phone. Most importantly, I’ve consistently been able to understand other Esperantists and make myself understood by them.
I have recently joined the Esperanto Asocio de Britio (EAB). Membership holds no immediate benefit but it is very inexpensive, and I am hoping that the community there will make my daughter feel that Esperanto isn’t just this weird languge that her dad tried to teach her when she was little – that it is in fact, a living and vibrant language with real speakers across the world. If my daughter indeed picks up Esperanto to use to speak with me and consume media (we have some Esperanto children’s books for her), I will make a concerted effort to be a more sociable Esperantist so that she may benefit from the language community beyond me and hopefully she has the chance to feel part of something bigger.
I am not uncritical of Esperanto and its community. The language is fun, simple, and beautiful but it is designed which means that it has values embedded in its design which should be examined. The community, at least those I’ve encountered, tend to skew very Western Liberal which is to say supposedly-well-meaning but socially chauvinist especially with regards to topics such as Western Imperialism, Russia, and China. I roll my eyes when reading Libera Folio sometimes but eventually I may have to reach out and see if La Esperanto Komunista Kolektivo still operates, as there’s only so much liberalism I can stomach in a community.
What I’m learning now
I am trying to improve my Esperanto listening skills while learning some basic Norwegian Bokmål with the goal of being able to read and write basic sentences about my life.
My Esperanto listening needs work because I have mostly focused on reading and writing in the past. As noted I do have a local Esperanto friend with whom I write and — less often — meet and chat. My speaking seems to be ok since I babble in Esperanto to my daughter quite a bit but she’s not babbling back yet and I don’t listen to enough Esperanto to be able to fluently interpret other speakers.
I’m addressing this deficit by making a concerted effort to listen to more Esperanto media. The majority of this is made up of podcasts, although there are a few YouTube channels I make use of as well.
I’m also starting to pick up some Norwegian Bokmål. My motivations for this are purely personal, aesthetic, and a bit romantic: I love the look and feel of the language; I feel that it’s a cousin of English and gets me closer in some way to a shared past; it’s relatively straightforward for an English-speaker to learn compared to some other languages; and it’s conceivable that I will be able to visit Norway and use the language in its local setting.
At the moment my goal with Norwegian is only to be able to understand simple tenses and grasp the regular conjugations and declensions. Norwegian represents a step up in complexity compared to Esperanto so there is more to reckon with and I also have less time to indulge in learning the language compared to when I learned Esperanto. My medium-term goals are reading a short story or novel and writing a short blog post in Norwegian.
How I approach language learning
My approach to language learning reflects my main goals of reading and writing prose and poetry. I focus less on the conversational skills than I do the grammar and vocabulary necessary to consume and produce the text that I want. Basically, I want to absorb new literature and to forge my thoughts into a new form via new words and structures.
Based on my experience learning Esperanto as well as the things I’m naturally drawn to when thinking about languages, I approach language learning in the following way:
- I start with Duolingo as it’s free, quick, and gives me a flavour of the language but I do not like it and do not trust the platform to teach me the language
- I then start reading about basic grammar and syntax rules to start constructing simple sentences and understand specific concepts in the language
- I continue with Duolingo mostly as a topical vocab builder and to practice translation but don’t use it for much more than that
- I continue to try and read and write things in the language to practice and get an understanding of foundational concepts, and slowly build the complexity from simple sentences to include more tenses, cases, and structures such as compound sentences
- I use scribbled notes, digital plaintext files, and digital flash cards to build and practice vocabulary
- I then try to read longer pieces in the language where I’m expected to understand and retain context and information such as stories, articles, and books
- Simultaneously, I try to produce longer text in the language which prompts me to try and think in the language to communicate things and construct narrative threads through a piece of work
- Any misunderstandings or difficulties prompt me into further reading to solve specific problems
- When I’m comfortable with the everyday written form of the language, I tentatively start seeking audio/video media to introduce myself to listening
While I am continuously drawn to these methods for learning languages, I’ve only successfully learned one language – Esperanto. This is famously straightforward to learn. Therefore I may need to develop or use new methods and tools for learning more complex languages as I go along. However it’s worth documenting in case someone finds it useful.
In the case of Esperanto, I took the plunge to meet with a living and breathing Esperantist in my local area who has since become a friend. I also have a daughter now who I speak Esperanto to and I hope she will adopt it as a second language. I don’t think I will attempt to replicate this feat with other languages, although may seek to travel to other countries to practice speaking and socialising.
Languages I’d like to learn
I want language learning to be a permanent fixture of my life regardless of formality and particular goals other than to have a good time. I love the process of learning new vocabulary which doesn’t have a direct translation into my native tongue, I love piecing together the puzzle of grammar and syntax, and I love seeing how thought can be reflected in and shaped through different languages.
I’d love to develop some familiarity with the following languages before I die:
- Mandarin
- Russian
- Spanish (Latin American or European – I don’t mind)
- Swahili
These languages appeal to me in and of themselves, but they’re also the lingua franca of their own spheres of influence. I think English’s dominance will begin to fade in the next twenty years, possibly displaced by Mandarin, so I’m looking forward to some potential practical benefits as well. Of course, there are Esperanto speakers across the globe and I’ve chatted online with people from Latin America and China in Esperanto without either party knowing the other’s native tongue – but I sadly don’t think “La fina venko” is approaching any time soon.
Other than the above I am also interested in some historical languages. I call these my “curiosity languages”, as I love to learn odd words or grammar points from them but I likely won’t seriously study these unless I’m granted a lot of free time relative to my income.
- Old English, especially the Northumbrian Dialect but I like it all
- Old Norse, specifically Old West Norse or whatever you call the dialect(s) that the Eddas and Sagas were written in
- Latin
There’s not much to say about these. I dip in and out of them based on my interest and energy, and have never committed to studying them in any serious way. Anglo Saxon and Latin appeal the most to me but I seem to read the most about Old Norse. This is likely due to Jackson Crawford’s YouTube channel being a phenomenal resource and motivating me to learn more. I own a few textbooks which act as introductions to Old English and Old Norse which suit me fine, and I have my eye out for a cheap used copy of Familia Romana on eBay which teaches Latin via itself.