Author Glenn Dixon

The Achuar people of the Amazon basin measure time based on the movement of stars across the river they depend on. The Aymara of Bolivia think of the future as behind them and the past spreading out in front. For the Maya it was, and is, all about creation and destruction. The language that we use instills more than simple grammatical rules, according to local author Glenn Dixon; it creates the very metaphorical foundations of our way of thinking.

Dixon struggles throughout his book, Pilgrim in the Palace of Words, to determine whether we all share common archetypes and connections or whether it’s the uniqueness of each civilization’s language, history and culture that ought to be celebrated.

“I am torn a little bit, it’s still an open question,” says Dixon, who will be talking about language and his travels at the Plaza Theatre. “I’m fascinated by the differences in languages. I know there’s an undercurrent of political incorrectness about that, but I don’t really think that’s true. I’ve said to other people, ‘I think that’s the wealth that we bring to it all.’”

Pilgrim in the Palace of Words is part travel journal and part sociolinguistic analysis, but the latter isn’t nearly as dry as it sounds. Mixed with well-crafted tales of adventure, beautiful descriptions of faraway lands and stories of myths , beliefs and history, Dixon’s examination of languages around the world is simply icing on the cake for word geeks.

With a master’s degree in linguistics, Dixon decided that the world of academia wasn’t for him. He turned down an offer to study his PhD at the University of British Columbia, and instead chose to see the world of words first-hand. He wanted to “get out there and be in the places where these languages are and see what they’re like.”

The results are an informed and engaging examination of how words shape us. While in the South Pacific, Dixon learned why the meaning for tree (auterra) in Tahiti is different than English conceptions. When we think of a tree, we think of bark, branches, trunks, leaves and needles. When a Polynesian thinks of a tree, the threat of falling coconuts comes to mind. Apparently, falling coconuts are one of the leading causes of death in the South Pacific and Dixon set up a tent directly below one of these killers. “For Polynesians,” Dixon writes, “auterra is mental shorthand for the way a tree’s bark is used for the skin of an ocean-going outrigger, for the way its palm fronds dance in the wind like waves, and for the way those fronds can be woven together for roofing. And yes, even for the fact that it might drop coconuts on the unwary.”

He doesn’t just stick to foreign tongues, however. While looking at the social hierarchies of some languages (the Balinese essentially have five different class languages depending on who is talking to whom), he broadened his insight into English linguistic divisions. The way we talk over pints at the pub is far different than when we are addressing a boss, a stranger or a parent. The way a poor, uneducated person speaks is going to be different than a Harvard grad.

With many languages around the world under threat of extinction, Dixon argues that we lose more than just a set of grammatical rules and denotations. It’s the connotations and the metaphors that shape our consciousness that will disappear. Even reviving a language doesn’t quite fix the problem. Young people who already think in another language won’t be infused with the same understanding. It’s a problem that is close to home for Calgarians, with a vanishing language on our doorstep. “It’s a really complex question, because the world is changing. So, I wouldn’t expect the Tsuu T’ina to be out driving their bison off cliffs anymore. They have Internet out there and they have hockey sweaters and that’s all great. So, it’s those connotations that start to get lost, even though the language is still there. But I don’t want to slow down progress.”