You're a linguist? How many languages do you speak?

That is probably the most asked - and most despised - question that linguists get. Being a linguist, in the academic sense, does not mean you speak many languages (the term for that is actually "polyglot"). You might, but it's not even necessary. In reality, many of us are only casually acquainted with half a dozen languages, but on a regular basis we could only really hold an extended conversation in one or two other languages besides English, if we're lucky. Oh, but to answer, I speak English natively, speak Spanish fluently but not natively, am acquainted with Koine Greek, Classical Latin, French, and Italian, would like to get to know Swahili better, have met Japanese once or twice, and am just beginning to get to know German.

Another question that I personally get a lot is, "So... linguistics. What is that?" It's always mildly depressing - first of all because I can never explain it well enough to make it sound real. It always ends up sounding made-up. And second of all because it reminds me that the vast majority of the American population has never even heard of Noam Chomsky, who is the closest thing to a rockstar that our discipline can boast. Makes me feel just a touch frivolous, is what it does. But such is life. Especially life in the 'ivory tower'.


As I like to say, linguistics is the study not of languages but of Language with a capital L. Though part of the humanities, it's often much more like math or science than like your college Spanish class. Other times, it's philosophical, and yet it's also very people-focused, like anthro or sociology. There are times when we need to draw on human physiology, and even times when physics comes very much into play. It's just about the most interdisciplinary field I can think of, which is why I think it's perfect for me. Linguistics answer questions like "How do the brain and body work together to produce language?" and "What do all human languages have in common?" and "What happens when two language groups come into contact with one another?" and "How do young children learn their native language?"

The third question I always get is, "What do you plan to do with that?" In other words, "Tell me why exactly you're spending five years of your life on this?" It's annoying to me, but I can see how it's a perfectly reasonable question. I suppose if I'm going to sell the prime years of my life in exchange for a paltry $19k a year and three letters after my name, people will natural expect I'll make millions, or at least change the world, as Dr. Carissa. I've had a number of people tell me they're so impressed with how "driven" or "ambitious" I am. But I don't feel driven or ambitious. I probably shouldn't say that in case I ever apply for a fellowship. Or a job. What I mean, though, is that I don't have really grand aspirations and I neither expect nor particularly hope to make a ton of money or change the world.

Instead I'd like to influence one small corner by doing whatever God wants me to do. Studying linguistics is, for now, what I believe God wants me to do. I'm honestly not sure what that is in the long term. It might be have four kids and stop working. It might be have no kids and work forever. Right now, I usually tell people that I'll probably end up teaching at the university level somewhere because that's what most people do. That's just a guess, though. The truth is that I am somewhat excited and largely terrified and mostly just curious about what's to come.


(Just two of at least four possible ways to interpret the syntactic ambiguity of the sentence, "Listen to friends with an ear toward the future.")