From Passion to Profession: A language story about Lindsay Williams

From Passion to Profession

A language story about Lindsay Williams

Text: Mathis Gilsbach

Filming in Guatemala © Lindsay Williams

The little booklet about Dobuan Grammar © Lindsay Williams Dobuan is a language spoken by about 100.000 people on an island off the coast of Papua New-Guinea. It is a small language, rather unknown outside, perhaps, of linguistic circles. Yet, in a small library in the middle of England, language enthusiast Lindsay Williams was quite surprised to stumble upon a little, typewritten booklet with a faded pink cover. The title was ‘Dobuan Grammar.’ This finding sparked an idea.

“I’m going to Papua New Guinea to find this language from this small town library!”

Lindsay Williams is a multilingual, a polyglot, a YouTuber, a language teacher and educator from the United Kingdom. Although she would probably contest the first two ascriptions of polyglot and multilingual. She speaks over thirteen languages or as she puts it: “I usually say that I studied thirteen languages.” meaning to highlight that she is by no means completely fluent in all of them.

Speaking on Skype, a lot of my interview with Williams revolves around words, the meaning of words, what they mean for our identity and how we describe ourselves and others. She says that she struggles with the term polyglot. Many others describe her as a polyglot, but for her feeling that title is too big to claim it herself. The term multilingual does not suit her either. Generally it describes people that have grown up in multiple languages. She has been raised in English only. This whole search for words strikes her as quite funny.

“You know, what I enjoy most of all are words and language and then I get really hung up on finding a word to describe myself. It's quite silly, really.”

Her YouTube channel – Lindsay does Languages – gives surprisingly little information about her as a person, instead it is all about her passions, language and language learning. She has a long running series called ‘Nine reasons to learn a language’. It presents different languages such as French, Hawaiian or Welsh and why people should learn them. Other videos revolve around methods and materials for language learning. Finally, she has a series of videos and podcasts, called ‘Language Stories’, which explore lesser known languages around the globe.

‘Language Stories’, was inspired by the Dobuan language and the little, old booklet from the library. Initially the plan was to shoot a longer travel documentary about the way to Papua New Guinea, to find the speakers of Dobuan. It turned into so much more. Currently, Williams and her husband prepare to shoot the third season.

But where does her passion for languages come from? She tells me, she has a playlist titled ‘Probably why I learn languages’. It includes many 90’s songs such as the Spice Girls ‘Spice up your life’ where they shout the Spanish word ‘Arriba’ or Ricky Martin‘s ‘Living la vida loca’. Such “little nuggets” of other languages first stoked her curiosity.

She also recalls driving around Italy with her parents and saying to them – here she raises her voice as if to re-enact the scene - “you know, all the roads, all the names on the road signs, they all end in vowels.” She remarks: “What a thing to say for a ten year old.” She also recalls reading the different languages on packaging of toothpaste or shampoo.

“I would do that even now, in fact,” she says with a laugh.

From these early signs of her language affinity it was a gradual process from passion to profession. In school, Williams almost was put off of language learning because her French teacher did not encourage her to learn more and study beyond what was asked in class.

But she got really hooked on languages when she started Spanish a year later. In fact, she had only picked French to be able to choose Spanish in her next term. She says that without Spanish she would have probably not grown as passionate about languages as she did.

“It was really Spanish that saved me.”

During her studies of Italian, Chinese, German, French and Spanish at Open University she started working as a language tutor, initially for French and Spanish and later for English as well. That was the origin of her business ‘Lindsay does languages‘. Initially she took all kinds of jobs on location such as teaching English to workers of a garlic bread factory. Then she moved her business online. First by teaching via video calls, adding a blog and YouTube channel later on.

Along the way she picked up knowledge in a number of other languages such as Indonesian, Bulgarian and Guarani.

While Dobuan was the initial spark for creating ‘Language Stories’, Williams never made it all the way to Papua New Guinea. While travelling in the Americas she had the idea to expand it into a series about different languages instead of one long documentary.

The project is all about exploring stories around lesser known languages. Stories of culture and history. Stories of community and identity. Stories of language.

In Malaysia and Singapore for example, she spoke to members of the Kristang minority who work on preserving their heritage language. Kristang – also know as Malaccan Creole Portuguese – is a language descending from Portuguese with influences of Malay, Dutch, Chinese and other languages. With only about 2000 speakers left, it is considered to be severely endangered. But Williams video and podcast show that the drive to preserve and revive the language is alive and kicking. She hopes that her work can play a small part in supporting this effort. We touch on questions of identity multiple times during the interview. Not only does Williams wonder whether to see herself as multilingual, polyglot or something different. Cultural identity is another aspect. Engaging with the Kristang community made her realise how deeply language is interwoven with identity.

Asked about her own identity in relation to language, she pauses for a moment.

She says that she usually considers herself an English woman that likes languages but recently she has been wondering much more deeply about her identity. “I don’t think I have really thought about my own identity before Brexit.” After the vote she says, she felt a sudden need to redefine her identity in relation to her country of birth.

“Yes, I’m English, Yes, I’m British, Yes, half-Scottish. Yes, I’m European. But in which order?”

She is still working on this process of reflection. It was part of the reason she decided to explore the linguistic diversity of her own country. ‘Language Stories’ season three will focus on the UK. Partly, to answer Williams‘ own question: “What is my identity, what is this country that I thought I knew?“ Instead of far away Dobuan she will now focus on learning more about languages such as Welsh, Scottish Gaelic or Manx.

The whole time as she is talking about the making of ‘Language Stories’ she is visibly passionate, telling me about the people she met and the stories she found. She talks faster and jumps from one country to the next. From a Mayan language rapper she takes me to a centre for Vietnamese sign language to a guy in Laos that built a school in his backyard. With all her work, on YouTube, as a teacher and language educator she hopes to share her passion and to inspire people to learn more about the diversity of the world of languages.

“If I find this interesting then there is going to be someone else that is going to be intrigued.”

Filming in Vietnam © Lindsay Williams