ON THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE | Kirkus Reviews

Author and photographer Van Sise offers a rich profile of the many languages that are found in the United States.

The author offers brief essays on a range of tongues, including Mohawk, creole dialects such as Alaskan Russian and Afro-Seminole, and Judaeo-Spanish from New York City. That language, for example, was brought to the United States by “Spanish Jews expelled from Iberia [who] fled…to North Africa, Greece, Italy, Turkey, and the Balkans, bringing the medieval Spanish language with them and absorbing, depending on destination, elements of Arabic, Berber, Greek, Italian, Turkish, and Slavic languages.” Numerous others have similarly complex origins, and many are in danger of extinction as their number of native speakers dwindles. Cahuilla, for instance, is an Uto-Aztecan language that’s indigenous to the Palm Springs, California, area and currently has just a few “first-language” speakers—that is, people who were taught Cahuilla first, before English or other languages. Deg Xinag, an Athabaskan language found in only a few villages in Alaska, has only two remaining native speakers. Most of the examples here have Indigenous origins; the Mohawk language is currently experiencing a resurgence, and the Kickapoo Nation was able to shield their traditions by fleeing their traditional homeland around the Great Lakes to Mexico. Other languages are thriving; Plains Sign Language, for example, was featured during the 2023 Super Bowl broadcast. Accompanying many of the short essays are Van Sise’s beautiful photographs showcasing people who speak the languages, such as U.S. Army Maj. Warren Queton, one of 20 Kiowa speakers; he’s shown on a U.S. Army base in uniform, wearing his grandfather’s headdress and taking joy in showing what’s most important to him. In another image, Ojibwe-speaking Alaskan Stella Hunter, wearing a ribbon skirt, observes the northern lights. Overall, the book does a great job of contextualizing the common tragedy of language loss, and it offers an informative sampling of those that still exist.

A rich survey of just a few of the U.S.’s methods of communication.