Trip of the Tongue

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!