Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of America's Languages

by Elizabeth Little

Though we're known as a nation of English speakers, the linguistic map of the United States is hardly monochromatic. While much ado has been made about the role that Spanish may play in our national future, it would be a gross misrepresentation to label America a bilingual country. On the contrary, our languages are as varied as our origins. There is Basque in Nevada, Arabic in Detroit, Gullah in South Carolina. We speak European, Asian, and American Indian languages; we speak creoles, jargons, and pidgins. As a resident of Queens-among the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse places on the planet-Elizabeth Little first began to wonder how this host of tongues had shaped the American experience. It was only a matter of time before she decided to take her questions on the road.

In Trip of the Tongue, Little explores our nation's many cultures and languages in search of what they say about who we are individually, socially, and politically. This book is both a celebration of American multiculturalism and a reflection on what we value, what we fight for, and what we allow ourselves to forget. Elizabeth Little is a witty and endearing tour guide for this memorable and original trip.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Travel, Linguistics, History, American, Biography Memoir

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2012

About the author

Elizabeth Little is the bestselling author of Dear Daughter, Pretty as a Picture, and two works of nonfiction. Her crime fiction has been nominated for the Barry, Macavity, and CWA John Creasey Debut dagger awards, and she received the Strand Critics Award for Best First Novel. Her latest novel, Pretty as a Picture, was a Barnes and Noble monthly pick and a Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, McSweeney’s, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. Her next novel will be published by Bantam in 2025. 

Elizabeth lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be totally fair, I decided to plow through after nearly abandoning this book just before the halfway point because there were enough interesting discoveries about places in America I didn't know to keep me curious. And I did laugh out loud a few times. But good god, if I have to describe this book in one word, it would be self-indulgent. Paragraphs of "I did this" and "then I did that" and "I thought this until I had this revelation about that", ending with nearly a chapter-full of thoughts around her part in white privilege. Little spent more time discussing her personal revelations, some of which were somewhat obvious, than describing the places in her travels, which I imagine were likely beautiful (but would have appreciate some verbal coloring from the author). The humor was mostly tired and the writing dry. And for someone who frequently cited her multi-cultural/lingual experience living in Queens, NY and her understanding of Spanish, she should have been familiar with code-switching well before Laredo. I should have noted the places and languages she traveled and studied them myself.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm nearly halfway through the book, but I'm struggling. So far the research seems like it was taken mostly from historical texts and little from actually visiting the different locations...which could be ok, but that's not why I picked up the book. I was so disappointed with the research on Crow and Navajo that I skipped the chapter on Washington state-area languages altogether. She barely referenced any real interaction she made with people of the different nations, gave mostly history, and only a couple examples of the language structure and a basic outline of current usage. I found her "confession" about glossing over the linguistic heritage of Louisiana rather smug and still the chapter focused more on history than the present and potential future. Even if I don't always understand it, I'm not afraid of a more in depth discussion of linguistics, but it's not happening here. In addition, though I have a casual interest in linguistics, I am continually surprised by her relative lack of awareness of many idiosyncrasies and the self-satisfied attitude in which she acknowledges this for someone with formal training and a self-proclaimed worldliness (once she started to "discover" the diversity of Queens, NY, of course).

I'm hanging on primarily because I want to read a discussion of Gullah (currently reading) and Haitian Creole--both of which I possibly won't mind as much since I've read less about those than the languages presented in earlier chapters--but I may have to put it down after that.

I wanted to like this more. I enjoyed Little's book, Biting the Wax Tadpole--I feel it did a better job combining pop culture references and more specific aspects of language structure. The title led me to believe Trip of the Tongue would be more of a travelogue and current assessment of languages in the U.S., and certainly more approachable, but Little seems rather uninterested in getting into the nitty gritty of really knowing the areas she visited. I think I wanted more of an Anthony Bourdain-style treatment of linguistic discovery, but Little seems reluctant to get out of her hotel room.

*****

I did learn a bit from it, but, like I mentioned, it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably could have benefitted from more editing. Not sure who the target audience is, as readable passages are mixed up in with very heavy details about language groups. This would be okay, if once they were discussed they were referred to later, but they aren't. You are left with some pretty specific details, and sort of stranded with them. The book also tends to talk too much about the trip, and not enough about the languages.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love travel narratives. I’m not happy if I haven’t read a good travel narrative at least once a month.

I am also fascinated with languages. I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for fifteen years now, I spent six months learning French before a trip to Paris, and I plan to learn Italian next summer.

This book, then, is a perfect book for me, a travel narrative of a woman who seeks out languages spoken around the United States. Author Elizabeth Little heads off to the American West to seek out Native American languages, goes to Louisiana to look for French and Creole, goes to North Dakota to experience the language spoken by her family - Norwegian, and ventures into the American Southwest to see how Spanish is spoken.

Very good travel narrative. I must admit that Little lost me every time she started speaking linguistics (the etymology of words was especially mind-boggling), but the truth is that the book is more travel narrative than a linguistics narrative. Thank goodness!

[Tessyohnka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed the author's passion for language and her dismay at the occurrence of language loss.
I loved all the bits and pieces of words and phrases borrowed from other languages and enjoyed the description of the author's own language as it related to the scenery on her travels across the country -- the louder and more profane her reaction. the more impressive the scenery.
I was particularly moved by the notion that the word 'barbarian" with all its negative connotation evolved from the Greek word for "people who talk funny." The author makes the point that language is a powerful means of discrimination.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked a lot about this book. It was quite interesting reading about various languages in use today in the US. However, the author uses a lot of obscenities when there seems to be no real need of it for any literary purpose, and she also seems very reluctant to actually talk to many people when she visits an area---I think she is shy, and I can relate to that, but it affects the book. Much of her traveling is going to festivals or museums---not really the best way to find out authentic things about language in the streets, I don't think. But I did learn a lot about interesting languages like Basque and Gullah.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good enough book. Why oh why would you denigrate potentially 50% of your readership by making snide comments about conservatives? So off-putting and so unnecessary to the story she wanted to tell.

Not enough about the languages.

2021: Did not get better reading it a second time. Wish I'd remembered I'd already read it. Too much "I" and not enough about the languages. And talk about a hater. She rarely finds anything interesting or that she isn't scared of. And can you slam cops any more than assuming all of the Border Patrol cops were profiling? And they made you scared enough to avoid El Paso? Grow up! Changed my 3 stars from 3 years ago to 2 stars.

[Monique Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, easy-to-read study of a small sample of languages spoken in the US. Made me want to do additional research!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Might have been more interesting if I hadn't read so much on language. As it was, the chapters felt a bit surface.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

For as long as people have lived in North America, the land has been home to a wide variety of languages. Even now, as English is the dominant language in the United States, pockets of other languages exist. Most U.S. speakers of other languages also speak, or are learning, English, but the tapestry of languages is an integral part of the cultural history of our country.

Part travelogue, part history, part linguistic study, “Trip of the Tongue” takes a look at a few of the languages that have a presence in modern-day America: who speaks them, how they got here (if they weren’t already here) and whether they’re holding their own. Author Elizabeth Little is a self-described language buff; her previous book, “Biting the Wax Tadpole,” was a look at languages all over the world (the title comes from a mangled transcription of “Coca-Cola” into Chinese). But for this book, she stays home, traveling around the country to reservations, museums, ethnic festivals and immigrant neighborhoods, learning about languages.

New York City, immigrant central, is today home to people speaking a hundred different languages. But before the waves of immigrants arrived, this land was populated by hundreds of Native American tribes – who spoke hundreds of languages – before European colonization. And that’s where Little gets started.

The shameful history of the U.S. government with regard to Native American languages is largely responsible for wiping many of them out. Indian children were sent to English schools and were punished for speaking their native languages, so that curtailed transmission of the languages. However, Little points out, even with efforts to revive some of the Native American languages, English is still the “prestige language” and is what people want to speak, so that’s what they speak.

She visits three regions with languages in various states of health: Montana, where Crow is spoken; Arizona, where Navajo is spoken; and Washington state, where she looks into several dying languages. Crow is endangered; Navajo has seen a concerted effort to revive it through instruction in schools; Lushootseed, Quileute and Makah are dying.

After discussing indigenous languages, Little moves on to creoles. A creole is a stable, living language that develops out of a mix of several languages spoken by people in close proximity who need to communicate (pidgins come first; creoles have native speakers and full grammars and vocabularies). Louisiana Creole is a blend of English, French and African languages. Gullah, spoken on the islands off South Carolina and Georgia, is a blend of English and African languages. Haitian Creole, spoken in Haiti and by a large immigrant community in south Florida, is a blend of French and African languages.

Immigrants, of course, also bring their own languages to this country. Little visits Elko, Nev., the home of a community of Basque speakers; North Dakota, one of several states with a sizable population of Norwegian descent; New Mexico, which has more than one variety of Spanish; and Miami, with its large Cuban population.

“Trip of the Tongue” is full of interesting factoids about language: a German-language newspaper in Pennsylvania was the first newspaper to announce the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. “Porgy and Bess” has its roots in Gullah. And Quileute has had a recent spark of interest because of the “Twilight” series (the character Jacob is a Quileute and at one point in the movie says something to Bella in Quileute). And notably, that immigrant families nearly always follow a pattern: new arrivals learn some English, their children are bilingual, and their grandchildren speak English almost exclusively.

Little’s writing is casual, snarky at times — she’s positively catty about Santa Fe — but the book is funny and witty and very informative. And it’s a celebration of the richness that so many different cultures bring to the greater American culture, a richness reflected in the variety of languages.

“When a community loses its language, it loses incalculable cultural artifacts,” Little writes. “It would be as if someone had walked into Charleston’s historic homes and set them all on fire. No more armoires, no more grass mats, no more wallpaper. No more names, no more stories, no more songs. An entire people would lose the chance to know their history.”

[Graham Mulligan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trip of the Tongue, Cross-country Travels In Search of America’s Languages; Elizabeth Little; Bloomsbury, 2012

Reviewed by Graham Mulligan

Little is an obvious fan of language study. This book traces her search for languages (in the US) that are disappearing or at least are in danger, in the face of the predominance of English. It isn’t an academic study and it isn’t as broad-based as the title might suggest, however it is an interesting book for linguaphiles. She travels alone, in her vehicle to locations that have already piqued her linguaphile interest and tells some personal stories along the way.

The chapter titles reveal the menu:

Montana: Crow;
Arizona: Navajo;
Washington: Lushootseed, Quileute and Makah;
Louisiana: French and Louisiana Creole;
South Carolina: Gullah;
Nevada: Basque;
North Dakota: Norwegian;
Florida: Haitian Creole;
New Mexico: Spanish;
Los Angeles: English

The language stories and anecdotal information are entertaining and reveal the author’s personality (she is shy) but also her growing discomfort with the larger issue of privileged languages versus non-privileged languages, which underlies the disappearing usage of some languages. In an excerpt from Alcée Fortier’s 1894 transcription of the Creole tale “Chien avec Tigue”, Little gives us the original Creole, the English translation and, in a footnote, what might be the modern Standard French. This is rich pickings and she does a nice job digging into the words and some of the issues beneath the words. This is where she is most interesting, discussing, for example, the stigma that attaches to some languages like Creole. ‘Prestige’ languages, like English (and Standard French), will overwhelm less prestigious languages it appears.

Little’s growing unease with the tension between prestige and non-prestige languages is further explored in the influence of African language patterns and words on American language and culture. The historical record of prejudice and inequality is the context and background to a significant aspect of the American language story and it comes out in successive chapters where the language has European roots as well, such as Basque, Norwegian or Spanish.

When she examines the state of languages in the context of Miami, a city where English is not the majority language, she asks if a non-prestige language can hold its own in America. She explores two groups, Haitians who speak Haitian Creole, and Cubans, who speak Spanish. Its telling that Haitians in Miami are learning Spanish in addition to English but Spanish-speaking Cubans aren’t learning Haitian Creole. Here, the issue is not so much the prestige of English as it is the relative power and prestige of the wealthier Cubans versus the Haitians.

Spanish is the second largest language group in the US after English, which has never been legally designated as the Official Language at the national level. There is a perception among some Americans that the Spanish language is growing to the detriment of English. Although the absolute numbers of Spanish speakers is growing, mostly due to immigration (for example from Mexico and Central America) it is not true that English is suffering, according to Little. Nevertheless, many states are passing Official English legislation, “a cheap but effective shot” by local politicians. Bilingualism, apparently, is feared not only for its cost but for its effects on academic learning, and dual track schools have been banned in California.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trip of the Tongue is part travelogue, part sociolinguistic analysis, part social commentary. It’s a good book, but it also gave me a lot to think about, so it took me a while to read and digest it.

The writer, Elizabeth Little, undertakes a journey to study America’s minority languages, those that have been or are still commonly spoken today in various niche cultures around the U.S. The book is broken into chapters by language, and Little writes about her travels as well as the languages that she experiences in each place she visits. There are chapters about Native American languages, Creole languages, and languages which various immigrant groups brought over with them. What she learns about them in terms of their history and culture is invariably interesting, and it’s obvious that Little is a “language nerd”–she loves talking about the linguistic particularities of each.

I thought the social implications of her book were the most interesting of all–how each of these language communities adapted (or didn’t) to being part of a larger American culture, and how they were treated by the government and other Americans. Little makes some really good arguments for the importance of multilingual and multiculturalism, and by the end of the book she has come to some understandings which she didn’t have at the beginning. To me, that was the most powerful part of her story, that she changed as a result of her experiences.

If this sounds a bit heavy, it’s not. Little has a fun writing style, and the topics she writes about are handled with a light touch for the most part, although less so towards to the end of the book and she drives her points home. I really enjoyed the book, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in languages, American culture, and multiculturalism.

[Jaylia3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating book is a philologically inspired virtual road trip. Author and linguaphile Elizabeth Little traveled 25,000 miles through 46 states in a quest to investigate the history, resiliency and syntactic quirks of languages still spoken in the US. She’s out to have fun, whenever possible timing her visits to take advantage of opportunities to celebrate with the locals, but there’s also a serious side to language politics and the book ended up having more substance than she originally expected.

Among Little’s interests is discovering what it takes for a non-dominant language to survive, and the book begins, naturally enough, with chapters on the states of Montana, Arizona and Washington where Native American languages are still being spoken with varying degrees of fluency. Later chapters cover some of the languages brought over by immigrants and the communities that may or may not care about keeping those languages alive, leading Little to encounter and describe a Basque festival in Nevada, a Norwegian fair in North Dakota, a smelly plague of some grasshopper-like insect in Idaho, zealous fans of Twilight in Oregon, and a Haitian vodou botanica in Miami.

With a more sociological slant than in books written by language professionals Little explores how language choices relate to status, economic privilege, literacy and cultural identity. Her descriptions and the many tangents she goes off on are as witty and irresistible as Bill Bryson’s and, while not a linguist, her insights on language and creoles are just about as intriguing and paradigm-rearranging as John McWhorter’s.

[Teatime Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shortly after Elizabeth Little graduated from Harvard, she moved to Queens, and was utterly fascinated by all the languages she heard spoken in her city block. She decided to investigate matters further by travelling across America in her Subaru. Two years and 25, 000 miles later, Little shares her experiences of language in America. She stands on battlefields in the Midwest and listens to Native North Americans speak of the silencing effects of residential schools. She walks all over New Orleans, tours former plantations (whose huts remind her of the mushroom houses in SuperMario 3) and drinks in sketchy bars to figure out the differences between white Creole, black Creole, and Cajun. She plays blackjack with the Basques in Nevada and eats lutefisk with Norwegians in North Dakota. And all along the way, she provides compelling linguistic and historical evidence as she contemplates the likelihood of each language to survive.

Trip of the Tongue will appeal to readers of Bill Bryson, Elizabeth Gilbert and lovers of language everywhere. Especially if they also enjoy SuperMario 3.

Adapted from the review on my blog: www.theteatimereader.wordpress.com

[Roya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love to travel and I love history and language, so I thought I would love this book. While reading the book, I found myself wishing I could sit and chat and share a cup of coffee or a drink with the author. Elizabeth Little is an interesting, witty, and intelligent woman. In the epilogue, Ms. Little wrote:

"This is not the book I thought I was going to write"

She thought she was going to write what I expected to read (travel, history, language). She did write some of what I expected to read, but as Ms. Little also wrote in the Epilogue, the book is also "an examination of prejudice and privilege."

There are some fascinating insights with respect to language, culture, and cultural and personal identity...and survival. Unfortunately, I got the point early in the book and the tone of the writing turned into a bit too much of a soapbox. I could almost predict what was coming next. That kind of ruined it for me. I often found myself thinking, "Enough already! I GET the point"!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best nonfiction books I've read in a long time; it's about minority languages in America, the reasons they're dying out, the reasons some of them are surviving, and the nature of English as the dominant language in America and what that means and has meant in the past to other tongues. The reason I picked it up was that it has a whole chapter on the Gullah language of South Carolina, a subject of particular interest to me as a resident of the Charleston lowcountry. This chapter did not disappoint, and nor did the others, which cover tongues as diverse as Quileute, Crow, Spanish, Louisiana Creole, Basque, and Norwegian. Written in a very laid-back and accessible tone, the book is a fun and engaging read for anyone interested in linguistics, even if only casually so.

[Ironicat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read past the halfway mark, but have nevertheless gotten a pretty good idea of the book. Little's approach reminds me a bit of Jon Ronson; that is, writing about a genuinely interesting subject given a decent level of research but ultimately having an author self-insert that's way too frequent and cloying.

The style would work perhaps if she were a vlogger or celebrity with existening clout and a fanbase who genuinely wants a more personal style of writing, but in this book, it just feels self-indulgent and skimworthy. I'm at odds whether to recommend this book or not because it's not a *bad* book per se. But its tendency to sit on the "Eat, Pray, Love" side of the fence doesn't help it either.

[Kaylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book about one of my many interests: languages! Bonus points for being about little language "pockets" within the United States, some of which I didn't know about. (Basques in Boise? What?) The author references what seems like tons of good books, some of which I'll have to read in the future. I feel very passionate about fighting English-only legislature in the United States. I wish some of those folks who hem and haw about having to choose a language at an ATM, instead of automatically having English served to their lazy asses, would pick up this book and learn a thing or two about their country.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read for language nerds, but I also appreciated her frequent referrals to the ways prejudice, discrimination, xenophobia, and socio-economic injustices have affected and are still affecting language learning and language loss in the US. I sometimes wanted to delve deeper into those issues, but ultimately the level of discourse was appropriate, since this is a travelogue and not a dissertation. Lots of interesting stories & information; I'll be reading her first book soon. I want to give her plus a half-star just for her vigorous smackdown of the faulty logic and gross misrepresentations driving the English-only and anti-bilingual education laws.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to give this book three stars because I did like parts of the book but I only gave this book two stars because I felt it got bogged down in technical aspects of languages a little too much for me. I did learn something about a phrase I knew about from New Orleans ( which is only 60 miles east of where I grew up) When I moved to Baton Rouge for college (LSU), I started hearing the phrase "making groceries" which means going grocery shopping. According to this book, the phrase is sort of an extension of borrowing the meaning of the French word faire (make) as in faire dodo ( make the children go to bed).

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I found some of Elizabeth Little's observations about US regional languages interesting, I wasn't really sure what her focus was on the topic. I was confused by her combination of personal observations and very technical linguistic analysis of language and dialects. It is very difficult to make academic writing accessible to a popular audience, and this book didn't really succeed. I would recommend this book to a future linguist, because it has breadth of subject, but in the effort to be popular, it lacks depth.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to If Walls Could Talk, this is a non-fiction/informational book that could be quite bland. Unlike the other book, though, this is a fascinating read, mainly thanks to the writing style and humor of the author. I've always been fascinated with language, and this is a nice little walk through the author's experience with a few of the non-English languages in the U.S. It's not all encompassing by any means and the author often chooses the story or humor over going into technical detail, but that makes for a great educational read that made me laugh out loud regularly.

[Mysteryfan · Rating 2 out of 5]

An examination of minority languages in America, including immigrant, Native American, and African-influenced languages. Language is a reflection of the social, economic and political forces in a person's life. She had some interesting points on how the government discouraged languages other than English for everyone. The breezy, even offensive language in some sections undercut the conclusions in others. I'm still wondering if the book was just an excuse for roadtrips, as she spent a fair percentage of the book writing about drinking and gambling.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was prepared to give this book 3 stars since some of the first chapters didn't seem to be very in-depth looks at the different languages she's seeking- there just wasn't that much substance and I thought some important issues were left unexplored. However, the last 2 chapters, New Mexico and LA, were very good and helped tie together some different themes. Overall, it's a great idea for a book, but I think there is plenty more to say than was included here. Also, I felt the whole book needs better editing, but it's very readable.

[Tanya Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I expected, but I really enjoyed it. What I thought would be a profile of various languages found across the US quickly turned into a story of prejudice and dominance of one culture/language over all others. Not the most elegant of prose...though several of her phrases were caustically witty enough to make me laugh out loud and read them to my hubby. But I learned new things from reading this book, and that's always something I enjoy.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is more of a memoir than an academic exploration of the languages she came across. That is no problem with me because the book was interesting and she was funny at times. The section on Neah Bay made me want to drive up there and explore the area and visit the Makah Cultural and Research Museum. Her mentions of code-switching and the etymologies earn her another star in this review.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book. The author has an unusual style: she goes back and forth between pretty technical linguistic stuff to more bloggy commentary. But it works. I learned a lot of useless but interesting facts about language communities in the U.S.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sunject matter is too often treated in a pedantic manner, but Ms. Little goes at it with wit, style, and grace. While disagreeing with many of her conclusions (she seems to think that Evil White Men are the root cause of all disappearing languages), I enjoyed her presentation.

[Colleen]

I ususally love books on linguistics but this one was a little too academic even for me! She does a great job sharing the history of many languages and she has a very relatable, comic writing style. Overall, I would only recommend it to someone who has a strong grammar background.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't finish this. Between the cutesy anecdotes and the "languages are hard" vibe, I couldn't find anything to sink my teeth into. I really wanted something to dig deep into the issue of language in the US, and this just isn't it.