Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self

Linguist Sedivy (Language in Mind) looks back at her family’s migration from Czechoslovakia to Canada and tries to make sense of the experiences that almost rendered her a “linguistic orphan” in this moving and deeply personal account. Her father’s sudden death and her feelings of uprootedness persuaded her to go back to her father’s village, Moravská Nová Ves, in a desperate attempt to revive her “tatter[ed]” mother tongue. What follows is a well-balanced mix of the personal experiences Sedivy had as an immigrant (she considers her linguistic assimilation “the betrayal of the family traded for acceptance by society”) and intriguing research (as with a study on children who could retrieve their forgotten languages under hypnosis). Sedivy also makes a case for saving endangered languages, warning against falling into the trap of “linguistic uniformity,” and citing studies that suggest, over the next few generations, half of the world’s languages are in danger of becoming extinct. While her turning over the same questions can get repetitive, the connection between language and memory is nonetheless beautifully rendered: “The words we speak become entangled with the life we’ve lived in that language.” The result is an astute, thoughtful volume. (Oct.)