Elbow, Elmo, uncle

A year and a half old and just learning to talk, it's not always clear what Meja's trying to say. Is it elbow? Elmo? uncle? It's amusing for his doting parents and adoring grandparents, but serious work for him. He hears words that he wants to use but it's difficult to figure out exactly how to form the vowel and consonant sounds that make his words recognizable.

Part of my job is teaching the complex ballet of throat, tongue and face required to produce even simple intelligible expressions in English. Everything has to be coordinated and sequenced properly. Configurations have to transition from one to the other smoothly and without hitch.  Any habitual moves of the tongue or lips that aren't part of the process have to be suppressed. The final product has to be tested against the expected reaction of the audience--in Meja's case, mum, dad,  uncle.

Native speakers (usually) achieve this pretty early on and, apart from nervousness or shock, have no trouble producing long, graceful strings of words like the alternate blade tracks of a long distance skater. Not so learners. It's as if they jab the ice, tangle their blades, overbalance, stutter-step, and only go forward haltingly and with great effort.

I've been teaching now for years, and finally I think I'm beginning to express intricate thoughts clearly without having to limn them out mentally beforehand. I'm sometimes surprised at my success in arriving at what I actually meant by the end of the sentence. ("You were always a talker," I can hear my mother say.) It's almost as if I've done so much spouting (as well as writing and reading) that I can let go and let my meaning unspool without having to worry about exactly how.

Some days I'm tongue-tied, of course, and on others, my expressions are too long-winded, too awkward, off the mark. Still, these not necessarily perfect nor elegant but precise sentences do emerge at odd moments, and to my delight.

Language for Meja is a tool he is learning to wield. He's soon be able to use it effectively, depending for his fluency on muscle memory. I feel now I'm drawing on the reservoir of tacit knowledge that I've filled over a lifetime of language and stored in the matrices of my mind. Something, I know not what, is now, finally, practiced at making the sentences I want to have said and delivering them fluently to my clacking jaws for delivery.