Essay Week 4: Storytelling as Time Capsule for Language

I never met my dad's father, but from what I hear, my late grandfather had a gift for oration that captivated his audiences. He knew how to weave words whether it came to congratulatory speeches or eulogies. Even thought I never met Jack, I find myself wanting to live up to that Morgan talent.

My journalist father seems to share his dad's ability to craft a tale. Through his blog, Dad has given life to stories that don't make it to the front page. He's written on my grandmother's feverish obsession with pecans. He's touted our cat's impressive 1-9 record when it comes to the litter box. He's marked the poignant occasion in which his mom sold his childhood home a couple of weeks ago.

I bring this up because storytelling hones the craft of speaking, and in the process, stories become heritable units of language. Just as we inherit our genes from our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., stories are passed down from generation to generation and contain within them themes, diction, syntax and pronunciation.

Italian storytelling for the ages. Wikipedia Commons.

This pattern of inheritance, however, is not limited to stories within families. Dante and Boccaccio come to mind. When Italy became a nation, a standard language was born-- a language that only two percent of the population spoke at the time. It was based on Tuscan Italian--that is, the Italian of Dante and Boccaccio. What strikes me most as a student of Italian is my ability to make sense of the stories without much difficulty. The idea that I'm able to connect with a form of a language that was spoken seven hundred years ago both astounds and humbles me. In my opinion, it speaks to the ability of stories and literature to anchor languages in a world that's drawn toward colloquialisms and slang such as YOLO and "getting turnt up."