74 Culture The Economist January 29th 2022
M
emory is unfaithful. As William
James, a pioneering psychologist of
the 19th and early 20th centuries, ob
served: “There is no such thing as mental
retention, the persistence of an idea
from month to month or year to year in
some mental pigeonhole from which it
can be drawn when wanted. What per
sists is a tendency to connection.”
Julie Sedivy quotes James in a poi
gnant context in her new book “Memory
Speaks”. She was whisked from Czecho
slovakia with her family at the age of two,
settling eventually in Montreal. In her
new home she became proficient in
French and English, and later became a
scholar in the psychology of language.
But she nearly lost her first language,
Czech, before returning to it in adult
hood. Her book is at once an eloquent
memoir, a wideranging commentary on
cultural diversity and an expert dis
tillation of the research on language
learning, loss and recovery.
Her story is sadly typical. Youngsters
use the child’s plastic brain to learn the
language of an adoptive country with
what often seems astonishing speed.
Before long it seems to promise accep
tance and opportunity, while their par
ents’ language becomes irrelevant or
embarrassing, something used only by
old people from a faraway place. The
parents’ questions in their home lan
guage are answered impatiently in the
new one, the children coming to regard
their elders as outoftouch simpletons
who struggle to complete basic tasks.
For their part, meanwhile, the parents
cannot lead the subtle, difficult con
versations that guide their offspring as
they grow. As the children’s heritage
language atrophies, the two generations
find it harder and harder to talk about
anything at all.Children often yearn desperately to fit
in. Often this can mean not only learning
the new language, but avoiding putting off
potential friends with the old. Children,
alas, can also be little bigots. At the age of
five, researchers have found, they already
express a preference for hypothetical
playmates of the same race as them. They
also prefer friends who speak only their
language over those who speak a second
one as well.
In theory, keeping a language robust
once uprooted from its native environ
ment is possible. But that requires the
continuance of a rich and varied input
throughout a child’s development—not
just from parents, but through activities,
experiences, books and media. These are
often not available in countries of arrival.
Parents are themselves pressed to speak in
the new language to their children, de
spite evidence that their ungrammatical
and halting efforts are not much help.
But a dimming language may not be as
profoundly lost as speakers fear when, as
adults, they visit elderly relatives or their
home countries and can barely produce asentence. Though the language may not
be as retrievable as it once was, with time
and exposure it can be relearned far
faster than if starting from scratch.
This depends, naturally, on the length
of time someone spent speaking their
first language as a child. Those who are
older when they emigrate may keep their
languages without great effort (though
none is entirely safe from attrition).
Those who leave at younger ages may
find their grasp of grammar weakening,
but will still have a large dormant vocab
ulary that can be reawakened, and are
likely to speak with a nearnative accent
when they do. Most remarkably, even
children adopted across international
borders in the first years of life, before
they can properly speak themselves,
show enhanced ability to learn sounds
that are native to their birthcountry
languages, after not hearing them for
most of their lives.
Many bilingual people report feeling
that they have different personalities in
their different languages; overwhelming
ly they say that their first language is the
one most imbued with emotion. It is
scarcely surprising that losing a mother
tongue leaves behind an ache like that of
a phantom limb.
The official pressure on newcomers
to abandon their old languages used to
be much worse. Today, some democ
racies with long histories of immigration
try to be more accommodating. Schools
may bolster pupils’ multilingualism by,
for example, getting them to write stories
or poems in their home languages and
explain them to the class. Such symbolic
support shows the children that they are
not considered divided souls or out
siders, but full members of their new
communities—and ones blessed with a
precious gift.Losing native languages is painful. But they can be recoveredJohnsonRemembrance of times past
among them “As with rosy steps the morn”,
“With darkness deep” and “Oh, that I on
wings could rise”.
On January 31st the Royal Opera House
will welcome “Theodora” back to the Co
vent Garden stage for the first time since
that illstarred debut. As Handel’s lesscel
ebrated musicdramas returned to favour
in the late 20th century, singers learned to
love the oratorio’s ardour and tenderness.
Its crowning triumph came in 1996, when
the maverick director Peter Sellars staged it
at the Glyndebourne Festival. Updating the
action to an American military base, hedrew performances of scorching intensity
from his cast. Live, or on dvd, the produc
tion and singers, including Dawn Upshaw
in the title role, shook spectators to their
core. Julia Bullock, who will take the same
part at Covent Garden, remembers that “it
really changed my life”.
Katie Mitchell, the director of the new
production, promises a feminist reading of
a work that has the bravery of unbowed
women at its heart. Handel’s settings, from
a libretto by Thomas Morell, lend a spell
binding loveliness to this tale of con
science and resistance. Harry Bicket, theconductor, describes it as “heartfelt, intro
spective, achingly beautiful music”, about
“people who are struggling with absolute
moral problems”. Yet though it salutes the
martyrs’ courage, “Theodora” also looks
forward to a time beyond divisions of faith.
“Liberty, and peace of mind/May sweetly
harmonise mankind,” sings a sympathetic
Roman soldier.
It has taken more than a quarter of a
millennium. But with its enduring emo
tions, set to music that stops time,Han
del’s grave and warm late masterpiecede
serves its Covent Garden applause.n