Status Updates From Kisisi (Our Language): The ...

reading for LIN 325: Language and Culture

This book is really interesting, both from a linguistic and historical perspective. I love the mother's awareness of the colonial relationships at the ranch and how she highlights its importance in the existence of Colin and Sadiki's language.

I'm not convinced that "pupu" is a sign of creativity though, because that hinges on assuming Colin somehow didn't know how the same thing is used in the same context in English, which I don't believe. Perry should have honed in on him making the connection between Sadiki's onomatopoeia and the English word.

Chapter 3 - Perry tells stories and analyzes some data showing how the boys use language creatively. Colin is aware that he is "allowed" to make up words for "potty talk" because he's aware his mother studies this. In a way, then, she might have been correct in thinking her made-up language influenced Colin in making a language with Sadiki - she unwittingly let him know it was possible and that it was good.

Chapter 2 discusses previous work in language acquisition and the development of new languages. Feral children studies have typically been short-lived, with researchers giving up on their subjects after not being satisfied with their speed of progress. Before Colin and Sadiki, nobody had documented children creating a pidgin rather than learning it from their parents.

I was surprised to learn that linguists until very recently believed that children only mimic language; that they just repeat what adults say to them with no creativity or understanding of social rules. This is why the author at first doesn't believe the boys have created a language even though the people living there immediately recognize the language for what it is and think it's a miracle.

Chapter 1 establishes the background for how the author, her husband, and their child ended up in Kenya and also how the two boys meet. It's an "everything happened to fall into place for this rare thing to occur" situation, a set of circumstances impossible to replicate. She then describes how the language first began to develop, how it related the boys' other languages, etc. . . .

We can see why this is: this isn't just an ethnography to the author, but a personal story, that, in telling us about it, is helping the author to cope with the deaths of her son and husband who were central to the "ethnography."

I'm reading this for a linguistics class, so there will be ample notes. Reading the prologue, the author starts by comparing her compulsion to tell this story to the Ancient Mariner of Samuel Coleridge's poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Although I haven't read the poem, the extended allusion lends some depth to the prologue, so that it does feel like a story unwinding rather than a dry ethnography.