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A fascinating look at the power of language--and what we lose when it disappears.
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From the Back Cover:
What do we lose when a language disappears? Today, more languages than ever before are endangered. Choctaw, Creek, Comanche, and Ponca are just a few of the more than one hundred Native American languages quickly moving towards extinction.
The question of what is lost - after all, speakers themselves often wonder whether it's worth the trouble of keeping their dialect alive - sparked the interest of Elizabeth Seay, an editor and writer for The Wall Street Journal. In Searching for Lost City, she finds herself in her home state of Oklahoma, researching what is left of tribal languages and the customs that surround them. Seay meets Toby Hughes, who weaves spells; Charles Chibitty, the last Comanche code talker; Sadie Parnell, whose Cherokee language was literally taken from her; and Brian and Quese Frejo, brothers who use Native words in their hip-hop lyrics.
The "lost city" of Ross Mountain seems elusive, however. In this enclave in the Ozark Mountains, ninety percent of the inhabitants speak a version of Cherokee as their first language. The place becomes a metaphor for language itself, and it takes a fascinating turn of events for Seay to discover what, for her, is the "value" of language. Her deeply felt narrative opens a window onto the quirks and intricacies of speech, offering a glimpse into the last days of a vanishing culture and leaving readers with new ways to look at the world.
About the Author:
The question of what is lost - after all, speakers themselves often wonder whether it's worth the trouble of keeping their dialect alive - sparked the interest of Elizabeth Seay, an editor and writer for The Wall Street Journal. In Searching for Lost City, she finds herself in her home state of Oklahoma, researching what is left of tribal languages and the customs that surround them. Seay meets Toby Hughes, who weaves spells; Charles Chibitty, the last Comanche code talker; Sadie Parnell, whose Cherokee language was literally taken from her; and Brian and Quese Frejo, brothers who use Native words in their hip-hop lyrics.
The "lost city" of Ross Mountain seems elusive, however. In this enclave in the Ozark Mountains, ninety percent of the inhabitants speak a version of Cherokee as their first language. The place becomes a metaphor for language itself, and it takes a fascinating turn of events for Seay to discover what, for her, is the "value" of language. Her deeply felt narrative opens a window onto the quirks and intricacies of speech, offering a glimpse into the last days of a vanishing culture and leaving readers with new ways to look at the world.
Elizabeth Seay is a writer and editor for The Wall Street Journal, and her writing is featured in the anthology Floating Off the Page: The Best Stories from The Wall Street Journal’s “Middle Column.” She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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- PublisherLyons Pr
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 1592286445
- ISBN 13 9781592286447
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages250
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