Deborah Rocheleau is an English major, Chinese minor, and all-around language fanatic. Her writing has been published by Tin House, 100 Word Story, Flights, and Thema, among others. She is currently writing her third contemporary young adult novel. Immigration by Deborah Rocheleau
Every word wants to make it to English It’s very accommodating, they’ve heard once you’re settled Piñata made it Feng shui even Burka For Tundra, though, things were harder coming from an obscure background raised on the snow of Norway among reindeer herders He longed to immigrate, even as the dream seemed a melted ocean away. Then came a political shift, someone pointing out the benefits of a diverse language how thought was limited by a starved vocabulary one word stifling the imagination While speakers of languages with six words for snow skated icy circles around their one-word counterparts The idea, though faulty, inspired measures to stockpile words snatched here and there from foreign languages. Thus Tundra arrived and established himself in the scientific jargon and thesauruses of one of the world’s most widely spoken language He has arrived, only to find himself alone, the sole immigrant from Sami, his mother tongue.
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