Language

I’ve always been fascinated by language.

That interest started when I was a little kid and my baby brother was learning to talk. I could understand him when the grown-ups couldn’t, and that made me feel important. I now realize that was because he was using intonation patterns instead of words to communicate.

I was almost five years old when we moved from the East Coast to California and I found the dialectic differences interesting.

As a kid I hoped to learn every language in the world, but had no idea how many languages there are. Obviously that never happened.

I did study Latin and German in High School and French in college but have forgotten most of those. I also took lots of electives in Linguistics, although my major was English.

The only language besides English that I actually know much of is American Sign Language. I worked at California School for the Deaf for years, married a Sign Language Interpreter, and raised three Deaf foster kids.

Do you suppose my interest in languages is why I tend to talk too much? ;-)