 | A WRITER'S WIT |  P. Phillips |
MY BOOK WORLD
Sedivy, Julie. Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love. New York: Farrar, 2024.
This book, I believe, was “briefly noted” in the New Yorker, and I found it just as fascinating as the review. Sedivy artfully threads together a memoir of her linguistic life, her scientific studies, and how linguistics speaks to cultures worldwide. Sedivy starts off by telling us of her childhood, where she first learns to speak Hungarian. As her family moves around, finally to the USA, she learns Italian, German, and English. She not only shares with us what she knows about spoken/written language but also that there exist over 300 sign languages in the world. She addresses how loss or reduction of hearing affects our linguistic abilities, and in the last chapter the deaths in her life. She and her brother’s best friend Oliver spend the brother’s last seven days on earth with him, sharing stories and jokes. What has this to do with linguistics? Sedivy tells us:
I have this moment into which my brother’s life is compressed, this moment of him and Oliver passing the world “love” back and forth between them, until there is nothing more to be said and Vac steers his small boat into the great silence” (275).
This book, I believe, was “briefly noted” in the New Yorker, and I found it just as fascinating as the review. Sedivy artfully threads together a memoir of her linguistic life, her scientific studies, and how linguistics speaks to cultures worldwide. Sedivy starts off by telling us of her childhood, where she first learns to speak Hungarian. As her family moves around, finally to the USA, she learns Italian, German, and English. She not only shares with us what she knows about spoken/written language but also that there exist over 300 sign languages in the world. She addresses how loss or reduction of hearing affects our linguistic abilities, and in the last chapter the deaths in her life. She and her brother’s best friend Oliver spend the brother’s last seven days on earth with him, sharing stories and jokes. What has this to do with linguistics? Sedivy tells us:
I have this moment into which my brother’s life is compressed, this moment of him and Oliver passing the world “love” back and forth between them, until there is nothing more to be said and Vac steers his small boat into the great silence” (275).
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