Linguistic Autobiography

This was an assignment for my Linguistics 101 class that I found particularly enjoyable. Basically what we were suppose to do was map out our linguistic experience explaining the different languages we've been exposed to over the years. We were given a few areas that we had to address in the essay, but there are others I would like to add here so this will be a bit longer than the original.

Growing up here in New Mexico I was lucky enough to have more than my fair share of exposure to language. I experienced several different languages growing up including English, Spanish, and even bits of Polish. My experience with language further developed in high school when I first took my trip abroad, followed by a trip to Mexico, and most recently a around the world journey taking me from Europe to Asia. Language has always been fascinating to me, more so now as a Psychology major, the parts of the brain used, and even the function of language are all amazing to me, and hopefully someday I will learn another language fluently.

As far back as I can remember I was always somewhat exposed to Spanish, though not directly at home. I grew up here in Albuquerque, but my mom and I made weekend trips up to Las Vegas, New Mexico to visit my grandmother who could speak English well, spoke primarily Spanish. With that kind of exposure I did not so much learn Spanish, but more recognized the language itself. I was young enough that I started using words here and there that were Spanish, and indeed my whole family uses certain Spanish words for everyday items, including myself. As I grew older I realized that when asked if I knew Spanish I could not really say yes, but at the same time I could generally understand what my grandmother was saying to me and for the most part what my mother and grandmother were saying to each other. With this sort of naturally education I learned Spanish primarily as a spoken language, and yet not quite, I have always had difficulty speaking it, but understanding it comes much easier to me than either writing or speaking. The other part of growing up that I remember, though my memory is somewhat limited by how young I was, is my grandpa using some Polish phrases. This was not nearly as much as Spanish, seeing as he and my grandma spoke in Spanish, but it was enough that I recognize Polish over the other similar languages—like Russian or Czech. Now that I am older I learned that most of the phrases and words my grandfather used were curse words, but I suppose that’s better than using English curse words.

I have another very distinct memory of Spanish from my childhood, this one coming from a friend. When I was in second grade Cuban family moved in next door to me, amazingly they had a boy the same age as me. His name was Javier and we became fast friends. Him and his family fled Cuba, the year before landing in Florida, before moving to New Mexico, and to my knowledge his family was the first non-American family I had ever met. Earlier I said I could understand Spanish fairly well as a child, but I learned very quickly that the Spanish my family spoke was, though fundamentally the same, completely different from that of Cuban Spanish. Here my memory fails me, but I am told by family that for a large period of time I was using Cuban slang and developed a slight Cuban accent when speaking Spanish. I do not remember any of it now—the only thing I do remember is the absolutely amazing food Javier’s mother made for us—but I am sure if I heard Cuban Spanish again I would recognize it.

As far as my legitimate foreign language experience—meaning taught structurally in a classroom—I am sadly limited. I remember in fourth grade we were required to take Spanish at the magnet school I attended, but after moving to the North East Heights I did not take any language classes again until freshmen year of high school. As most students know, freshmen year is a joke, there are good students of course, but I was not one of them. I was still making the transition from being the “top dog” eighth grader to the bottom of the food chain freshmen and academics were not the top of my list. After that one year of Spanish 1 I did not take it again until I found out, a semester too late, that I needed another credit in language to attend UNM. So four years after my last language class, and frequently less visits with my grandma, I was in Spanish 101 at CNM. Now I plan on pursuing Spanish further here at UNM and hopefully do a semester abroad in Spain. The only immersion I have had in Spanish was a week in Mexico, though by the end of it I was using rediscovered phrases from my childhood again. The other language I would like to pursue in college is Italian, mainly because I have been to Italy twice.

When it comes to reading, writing, and, quite honestly, speaking I am most comfortable in English. That being said, after my limited experience with academic Spanish I am starting to grasp the sentence structure better, but still no match for even a first grade Spanish speaker. One of my goals language wise is to learn how to at least read Spanish fluently because I am an avid reader in English. From what I have heard, if you read a book in the language it was written in you will gain a whole lot more from it than a translation, so that would be amazing.

As far as my feelings for languages my thoughts are more conceptual than practical since I only speak English. I can say, though, that when it I have to speak Spanish I am always horribly embarrassed because despite my past Cuban accent, I now have a thoroughly white accent and completely fail at rolling my ‘r’s. One thing I am proud of, if one can truly be proud of such a thing, is my ability to recognize certain words in Italian and Spanish, though even this is very, very limited. Another, more silly thing I am proud of is that I know the word for ‘cat’ in 5 languages, certainly not going to get me far, but neat none-the-less. Language is truly an amazing thing, and hopefully someday I will learn multiple languages and have my kids learn foreign languages from a very young age.


On a side note I DESPISE Word, or maybe Blogger, one of the two. Pretty much if you write in the new word and cp over here the html fucks up. God damn it google fix this shit, or Microsoft stop making such shitty programs that are ONLY compatible with what you want them to be compatible with. Gah.