ISU linguistics field trip conveys world of expressive ideas

Last Thursday, several CF students (myself included) competed to solve linguistics problems and learn about the Linguistics Department at Iowa State University. Accompanied by Spanish teacher Katie Llerena and French teacher Brittan Engels, we spent the school day at the Memorial Union learning all about language.

After being encouraged by the event administrators to split off and meet new people, we did just that—along with a few fellow CF students, we met some upperclassmen from Ames and worked with them. From making a Malayo-Polynesian compass rose to structuring Welsh sentences, there was no shortage of variety in the problems we solved. 

“There are a lot of different skills involved, so most people are able to feel pretty good about at least one thing, which I appreciate about the challenge,” senior Max Bryden said. “You might get one problem where you figure out a writing system, versus a problem that gives you specific conjugations of a verb that you’re supposed to extrapolate from or a problem that relies on your examination of pronunciation and phonetics. 

It was a hugely educational experience that opened my eyes to just how varied language can be. For example, it never even occurred to me that other languages would have an equivalent to Braille, but, of course, they do! We learned about tenji (literally “dot characters”), a Japanese writing system for the blind, and even tried our hands at translating it. We didn’t have to know anything about Braille or Japanese; we just had to be open to learning. 

It wasn’t just the students who learned at this event—even our teacher chaperones came away with new information. 

“My favorite problem was SHER-locked. It was a problem that was made up of drawings in the shape of stick people standing in different positions, like a code. I liked it because I had never completed a problem like that before, and I felt very accomplished when my table and I solved it,” Llerena said. 

I’ve never really considered myself interested in linguistics, but when the event came up in Spanish class, I thought I should give it a shot. It ended up being a really rewarding and interesting experience. Although no one from Cedar Falls was on the winning team, I had a great time learning about languages from all over the world and meeting new people. Although it was technically a competition, the event was more structured around the spirit of learning than just focusing on winning. 

“I think it was also an opportunity to spend a day away from school exploring a new topic with lots of other dedicated language students. While Cedar Falls High School  does have courses on specific languages, Linguistics isn’t something that’s really available at a high school level, so this was a really good opportunity to get introduced to a relatively niche major,” Bryden explained. 

The lack of linguistics studies at CF may not go on for much longer, though, as Bryden mentioned planning for a similarly-structured linguistics club here at the high school: 

“Mrs. Llerena and I are in the very early stages of potentially planning out a monthly linguistics club of some kind. We’d probably do similar kinds of linguistics puzzles as in the actual ISU challenge.”

When we returned to Cedar Falls at the end of the day, our minds were expanded and our tongues twisted.