From the Old World

"A company of ninety ??, eighty-one of them from Sweden. Denmark and Norway, and nine from England, arrived at this port on Saturday, on ?on. The Scandinavian partion of this comoany had their rez-dezuous at convert, in Denmark, where seventy eight adults and children, from the different conferences or districts of the country over which the Normans are ?? in small communities, each presided over by an elder."

In my Varieties of English class, we discussed language shifts. A language shift is when someone chooses to abandon their native language for English. Today, that sounds like a crime—but immigrants in earlier decades found it necessary in order to immerse themselves and their children in mainstream American culture. Dr. Baker mentioned that the opposite is becoming quite trendy: immigrants prefer to retain their culture (think of all the cute little Spanish-speaking children in grocery stores), and it is very popular to learn the language of your ancestors. A girl in our class lamented her grandfather’s choice to not teach his children Italian. Think if it: how amazing would it be to be fluent in Italian? I see this trend in my own sphere—Crystal took Italian classes because she wanted to speak—or at least have some understanding of—her ancestral language.

(Interesting side note: in the 1800s, Old Briggy was a staunch “English-Only” guy—although immigrants were pouring in from Scandinavia, there were no Danish or Norwegian wards—Brigham expected everybody to learn English and speak only English all the time. I suppose it promoted unity and developed the Saints into a single people, which was a very, very good thing for a non-worldwide Church. But wouldn’t it be funny to see Brigham Young reprimanding a poor old school marm for scolding her son in Danish?)

And then it hit me. Why don’t I jump on this bandwagon? Sure, I’m already fluent in one of my ancestral languages (and so are you, if you can understand this). But what about Swedish! Great-grandpa Larson’s father was a Swedish immigrant. That line is in fact the only non-British line in my pedigree. But if I could read Swedish…think of how effective I could be in family history research! Think of what I could teach my children! And, of course, think of how cool I would look! Dang, I have been wasting my time with Spanish. I know that everyone speaks it, and that it is useful, and I like it…but I am awful at it, and getting kind of sick of relearning everything. And it is not a part of me. Spanish makes me feel like a stupid white girl.

But Swedish…Swedish is what makes me a stupid white girl! Ever since I received my stateside English-speaking mission call, I have had this amazing desire to learn a foreign language. I never really had this desire before—I was always happy with English and partial Spanish. But now I am not. And as my time at BYU is ticking, I’d better get started…

So I went to my MAP and fit in three Swedish classes. That’s because I have three semesters left until graduation. I have one major and two minors (English and Western American Studies) and an affinity for religion classes and an honors thesis to write, so adding a four-credit class each semester makes things a bit tricky. I had to push one major class into spring term, and each of my three semesters will have 18 credits…but haven’t I done that before? Like every semester? (but I need to work…and maybe get married…) And first-year language classes really aren’t that difficult, right?

Right.

I feel good about it now, but we’ll see how I feel in nineteen months and thirteen days.