Precious Little Dying Language

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Imagine that you’re the last living speaker of a dying language.

What do you miss talking about in your native tongue? What memories of childhood do those words evoke? Those are among the questions that are raised by a play called Precious Little.

I saw it here in San Diego at Diversionary Theater presented by Intermission Productions. And without giving too much away, the play is about, among other things, a linguist, an elderly speaker of a dying language from somewhere in Russia, and a gorilla.

And there’s a passage where the linguist is recording the elderly woman counting to 20 in her own language. The playwright Madeline George made up that language, but it still feels very much like a real one. And with her permission, I wanted to share this moment in the play.

Picture an elderly woman as she sits in front of a microphone, counting to 20, in the language of her childhood. Ux, cox, kume, nel, vij, sej, eme, kahesa, uhesa, kumne, uxto shat kumne, cucumbers with sweet skin. Kaksto shatkumne, a bowl of bitter pink berries. Kume shatkumne, blue birds on a white plate. Nelto shatkumne, my mother cutting the bread with her steel knife. Vishto shatkumne, lace curtains, white geraniums, black virgin in the corner.

The teacher hitting my knuckles when I said the wrong word. The boys in the reeds by the river with the frog. My father building a fire in the forest, cooking potatoes in the coals. In the winter, the police pounding on the door before dawn. My father thrown into the back of the truck. My mother on her knees by the stove, sobbing. My burned hand, the dead child lying in the box in the church. In the springtime, fishing on the footbridge with thread. Kahesto shatkumne, sweeping the yard with twigs. Uhesto shatkumne, tea eggs at Easter. Kakskumne, birch buds, tender chives, mushrooms at the bases of poplar trees, light snow through pine branches, cranberries coated in crystal sugar.

Wow, that’s very impressive. Completely sounds like a real language.

Doesn’t it? And it gets to the heart of the issue of why we should try to preserve languages that are disappearing and it’s happening every year. And it’s not just so much that those languages are attached permanently to culture, but it’s also that they’re attached to history. And sometimes the history of a moment is as important as the history of a nation, right? The history of one person and their encounters with their family or their encounters with daily life.

Yeah, and there’s something so beautiful about that passage about how words that are that fundamental to a person, they just bypass the cortex, go right to your limbic system. It’s such a sensuous, sensuous.

I particularly like the mushrooms at the foot of a poplar tree.

Right. I can see that. I can envision it as you read it and know what that moment is like to have that aha moment.

Yeah. I found them. Here they are. Great, great.

Well, I really wanted to share that with you. And the play again is?

Is Precious Little by Madeline George. Thank you very much, Martha. That’s wonderful. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.