21, Life Hacks for a Little Alien

21

T HE NEXT WEEKEND, YOUR dad is driving you to the library. It feels like ages since you’ve been there, but it’s just been a week – no time at all really.

Your dad is trying to make small talk with you.

‘Lovely day today.’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder if it’ll be busy in town.’

‘Mm.’

When he merges onto the dual carriageway, your dad cuts to the chase. He says you’ve been such a good girl looking after yourself in the town centre library, would it be all right if you spent some more time there?

‘Maybe instead of just Saturday, it could be Saturday and Sunday, you know?’ he says.

‘Right.’

‘How does that sound?’ your dad asks, as he swerves to avoid some litter dropped onto the road.

‘Yeah, OK,’ you say.

The dual carriageway turns itself into a roundabout. ‘You don’t mind?’ your dad asks.

‘No.’

You pass a car with a dog in it. The dog is sticking its head out the window, its pink tongue and long ears flopping in the wind. You briefly consider winding down the window to find out how it feels to stick your head out like that, but know your dad wouldn’t like it.

‘At least until your mum feels more normal again.’

‘Right.’

‘You’re a good girl,’ your dad repeats, saying this phrase in the same way someone might say to a dog, perhaps even the dog you just passed. He pulls into the drop-off lay-by, gives you a kiss on the forehead, then says he will see you in a few hours.

You hesitate – your hand hovering over the door handle. You don’t know whether to tell him he forgot the jam sandwiches. You don’t feel hungry now, but you know you will later, so maybe you should. Then again, perhaps good girls are expected to fend for themselves on a Saturday. Perhaps good girls don’t care if they are hungry when mid-afternoon hits.

And so, you get out and go to the library. When you get there, you wave at Maggie and Tracy, who wave right back, then get settled in. At your table, you take a deep breath. Another day, another dollar, you think. Another day, another book. Another concept, another understanding, another word, another word, another word.

You begin devouring all the information all at once. When the author of your book writes the phrases ‘substitution cypher’ and ‘polyalphabetic cypher’, you look up the words ‘substitution’, ‘polyalphabetic’, and ‘cypher’ in the dictionary. Then you try to understand these words in their context and think about what they mean. When you come across these phrases again, mere paragraphs later, you try to remember what you just learnt. This is all very tricky.

It’s only eleven a.m. and already you are starting to make your noises. They are gentle and light versions of your noises. But they are noises all the same. You get a feeling this is going to be a bad day.

Maggie looks over at you with narrowed eyes, but it’s Homeless Paul who approaches.

‘You are going about this wrong,’ he says, munching on crisps. ‘You have to start at the start. At the beginning, not the middle, not the end.’ He sits himself down, looks around. You are currently sitting in the English as a Foreign Language section. ‘Not a bad place to start,’ he says.

Mere minutes later, you have a pile of books before you. How to Master Phrasal Verbs. The History of the English Language. Prepositions and What to Do with Them. Commas: What Are They? How to Teach English as A Foreign Language.

‘Look,’ Homeless Paul says, pointing at a page of An Introduction to Late-Onset Bilingualism . ‘Here is a quote for you. “If you want to know how other languages work, you have to know how your own works.” Isn’t that good? Isn’t that exactly what I was saying about starting at the start?’

He looks at you expectantly. You nod, impatient for him to leave so you can read alone for the rest of the afternoon, but also wondering if he might share some of his crisps.

‘Here,’ he says, passing you his crisps. ‘You can finish these, if you like.’

THE NEXT TIME YOU come to the library – the next day – you learn some interesting things. For instance, you learn that healthy languages are always in a process of change. Words shift, shape, and twist. Parents pronounce words differently from their children who pronounce words differently from their grandchildren. Quotidian words become rarefied words. Hip and happening terminology morphs into cringe terminology. And written language changes too. Spellings simplify or complexify or morph to more accurately mirror speech. A correct way to spell a word becomes an antiquated way to spell a word.

You learn that unrelenting change is a sign that languages are living. They don’t respire or reproduce but, still, they are living. They are alive in that they are changing every day in the mouths and the minds of everyone who speaks them. The only languages that don’t change are dead languages – stuck in the inertia of ancient books and lost to the sound waves of time.

And you learn that languages cannot be protected from change. There is no dictionary or panel or academy that can police a language’s parameters, at least not effectively.

And you learn that there are thousands of languages. You learn that you speak one of the most widely spoken languages but that this doesn’t mean it’s the best one. You learn all languages are interesting, even if some don’t ever exist in the written form, even if many won’t live for that much longer.

And naturally, while all the things you learn tickle you, it is the facts about living languages versus dead and dying languages that tickle you the most. Because, in your opinion, the language that appears in the Voynich Manuscript is a dead language. You think that this is the most obvious reason people can’t understand the text. Also, you’ve seen pictures of the Voynich Manuscript. You’ve seen the pictures in books but also online. It looked dead to you.

But the facts about spoken languages versus written languages also tickle you. If things were up to you, if you were the ruler of the world, languages would be unspoken. Instead of speaking, people would carefully consider the thoughts they want to express and then write them down. That way, there would be no misunderstandings based on unintended tonal shifts, unintended emphasis, unintended facial expressions.

‘Maggie, did you know that languages are not written down sometimes?’ you say, sitting at the information desk with Maggie.

‘Hm?’ Maggie is typing at the massive computer.

‘Yeah,’ you continue. ‘People just speak it. If they want to read or write they have to do so in another language.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘So, like, they don’t do books or anything. They just use their voices.’

‘Whoa.’

‘Maggie, do you think that there’s a language that’s not spoken, it’s just written?’

Maggie seems more interested in typing her things on the massive computer. ‘Um, I don’t know,’ she says eventually. ‘Maybe Latin.’

‘Latin,’ you repeat. You don’t want to tell her you’re not a hundred percent sure what Latin is. You are an autodidact. This means the gaps in your knowledge are significant.

‘I didn’t know, um, I didn’t know Latin wasn’t spoken,’ you say eventually, trying to speak generally so as not to be caught out.

‘Well,’ Maggie says, ‘it was spoken. Just not the way it’s taught in schools. You don’t know Latin?’

‘No.’

‘They don’t teach it to you in your school?’

‘No.’

‘Well, it’s not very useful, to be honest. What do they teach you?’

You think about this for a minute. ‘We do English.’

‘You already speak English, though.’

‘And maths.’

‘Pftt.’

Maggie stops typing, turns to face you properly. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘I don’t know why only-written-down languages would exist. I don’t know if anyone would want a language that’s just written down and not spoken. It wouldn’t be very useful. And as much as I like reading, I don’t want to read everyone’s crappy handwriting every day.’

Tracy, who is sitting at the other end of the information desk, chips in. ‘Yeah, and sometimes people wouldn’t have a pen and pad to hand.’

Maggie nods. ‘And some people just can’t learn to read or write. Not many people. But some.’

You think about it for a moment, then pipe up again. ‘What if there are people who don’t want to speak? What if there are people who just want to write? Shouldn’t they get their own language, like, just for them?’

Maggie shakes her head. ‘I don’t think there would be enough people. And besides, you wouldn’t need a new language for that scenario. You could just use the existing languages.’

‘You might want to be a nun, darling,’ Tracy says. ‘Take a vow of silence and hide away with some other ladies in a mountain somewhere.’

‘I never said I wanted that,’ you say, defensive now.

Homeless Paul appears from the back office. He is rubbing his belly but not eating anything. ‘Did you know that biro is an eponym?’ he asks you suddenly.

You shake your head. ‘No,’ you say. You find it mildly annoying when he bandies words you don’t know. On this occasion, however, your annoyance diminishes when he passes you a book. The book he passes you is called Words for Words – a book-length glossary of words that refer to other words. A quick skim reveals that it includes the word ‘eponym’, i the word ‘andronym’ ii , and the word ‘synonym’. iii

‘And did you know your dad’s here?’

‘No,’ you say again, looking up to see your dad, who is indeed coming down the corridor.

When your dad looks at you, he does not smile a smile of greeting. Instead, he raises his eyebrows and says, ‘Ready to go?’

‘OK,’ you say.

Homeless Paul gives your dad a look. ‘Just so you know,’ he says, eventually. ‘We don’t usually provide childcare services.’

‘I see,’ your dad says.

‘We usually encourage children to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.’

Your dad nods. ‘Of course. Sounds sensible.’

‘So will we be seeing your daughter again soon?’

Your dad shrugs. ‘Quite possibly,’ he says.

‘Will we be seeing her next weekend?’

‘It may be the case, yes. It may well be the case.’

‘Does that mean yes?’

‘Sure.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. I think that would be likely.’

21

Reading Settings