exploring DIALECT

hen William Gore ‘20 was five, his grandmother introduced him to the Greek alphabet. From that moment, his interest in studying other languages grew. Gore’s exploringvoracious curiosity led him to mastering several languages at once, creating his own languages DIALECT and traveling the world for free. “From a young age, he became hooked on sorting through the alphabets and their intricacies,” Jane Gore, Gore’s mom, said. “He wanted to know if there were other alphabets, and we’d show him other ones even if we didn’t know them, like the From the ABCs to whole grammatical

Cyrillic alphabet.” systems, William Gore plays–and As he grew older, Gore learned to pursue his love of language on his own. adventures–with language. “I started reading the dictionary, and there was a page that had [about] eight different alphabets listed on the page,” Gore by josie pickett said. “I thought that was the coolest thing, and I wrote the letters over and over again.” However, Gore’s hunger for language did not stop with alphabets. He took French in middle school and added Chinese to his class load in high school. “When I applied to Woodward, one of the things I really awards. He received the Star Student Achievement Recognition liked was that they had Chinese,” Gore said. “I decided to take award from the Georgia Chinese Language Educators, passed

French because my mom speaks French, and I could practice it the Hànyu Shuipíng Kaoshì (HSK) Chinese Proficiency Test and at home.” won the first place Superior Award for the Level II group at Besides studying French and Chinese in school–the two the southeast area Jiang-su Cup, a Chinese speech contest for languages Gore considers his strongest–he works independently high school students sponsored by Emory University. The latter and with friends to learn other languages in his free time. award led to a huge opportunity for Gore. “I have a collection of books,” Gore said. “Right now, I’m To prepare for the competition, Gore wrote a speech with focusing on Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Hindi.” the help of one of his Chinese teachers, Cheng Lao Shi, which He does not consider himself to be fully conversational he had to memorize and then present to a panel of judges from in any of these languages yet, but he hopes to become more China. competent in each of them. He won the Chinese two-division, and the top three people Regardless his level of proficiency, Gore’s mom appreciates from each division earned all-expenses-paid trips to China. his willingness to communicate using what he does know. “I was always amazed [by] how he wasn’t afraid to speak to someone in a different language, even if he knew only a little bit,” Jane Gore said. “I was always “I love Cambridge so much that it was self-conscious. I studied French, and I would never just walk up to anybody and start speaking French worth all the trouble.” unless I knew exactly what to say. But, he’s never been afraid. It was always amazing to see people when he William Goreattempts to speak to others in their language and [to see] how their faces light up.” Gore was first introduced to Chinese at a school he attended in Ohio, and he immediately enjoyed the language. “I just walked in and gave a speech, and all of a sudden, I was “When I was in first grade, my school switched from Spanish going to China,” Gore said. “I was really surprised because all to Chinese,” Gore said. “Chinese was completely different and the other kids were really good too.” new, and I thought it was really interesting. That’s what sparked Gore’s Chinese teacher said she was not surprised at his my love of languages.” victory. She has had a couple of students win the competition Gore’s high level of interest in the Chinese language matched in the past, and she knew what to expect from William and his his skill level as demonstrated by various accomplishments and talents. Additionally, he was allowed to skip Chinese 3 in order 4

to take Chinese 4 and be better prepared to take AP Chinese his senior year. Gore excelled in his AP Chinese class senior year and was grateful for the opportunity to take the highest level of Chinese instruction at Woodward. “Everyone says he has some talent in learning languages,” Cheng Lao Shi said. “Because he studied in China for one month in the very intensive program, he was allowed to skip Chinese 3 and is now doing very well in Chinese 4.” Gore lived like a college student the summer after his sophomore year during his stay in China at the Nanjing Forestry University campus. “I was staying in the international student dorms, and there was a lot of freedom,” Gore said. “It was nice because we each had our own rooms.” Although he spent more time in the classroom over the summer than he does during the school year, working with very few breaks, Gore’s experiences in China cemented his desire to study the language in the future. “I would really like to go to Cambridge University, but it’s a stretch because they only accept around 20 American students a year,” Gore said in an interview during his junior year. When Gore began applying to universities his senior year, the reality of those numbers began to sink in as he learned more and more about what was required of American applicants to Cambridge. “I wanted to apply to Cambridge,” Gore said. “It’s been this dream I’ve had for a few years now. The closer I got to it, it seemed less and less possible. I kept learning how convoluted the application process was, and how many hoops you had to jump through and how low the odds are for American students to get in. But then I was like, ‘I’m going to try and do it.’ I visited and decided that I wanted to at least try because I love England, and I love Cambridge so much that it was worth all the trouble.” The British school system functions very differently from the system here. Students there do not get grades from their teachers, and the college admissions process relies heavily on standardized tests they take called the GCSEs. Students who intend to go to university take multiple practice exams in preparation for the final exams that determine which school they attend. For Gore, applying to Cambridge was extra challenging because Cambridge did not really care about the grades he had worked hard to earn throughout high school. He never even notified Cambridge that he was Valedictorian. To supplement his lack of a GCSE exam, Cambridge’s admissions board looked at his grades, his AP exam scores from his junior year and even his predicted AP scores for his senior year which had to be acquired through interesting means. “Ms. Bounds did this because I had to find a teacher to be my recommender. [She] had to go around to all my teachers and figure out what my predicted scores were on my AP exams,” Gore said. “Then they wrote this long report, and I had to write this essay that was not like an American college essay because it was all about why I want to study Chinese because that’s the subject I applied for. You have to apply for a specific subject. You don’t get to go there and then choose. Your spot that you get in the university is for studying a certain subject.” Gore also had to travel to South Carolina to take a test that he found out about a week beforehand. His last-minute preparation worked out, and eventually, he found out he had secured an interview at Cambridge. Gore had two weeks to prepare for the interview and book a flight to England, but the interview itself posed its own set of challenges. “It’s not like an interview in the U.S. for college where they want to get to know you as a person,” Gore said. “They ask you really tough questions about your subject that don’t have an easy answer, and then they watch how you fail. The point is it’s good if you can answer them, but they keep going until you just can’t answer a question. They want to see how you react to that. My interviewer was like, ‘solve these linguistics puzzles,’ which I was not expecting, but I loved it because I love linguistics. I explained differences between English sentences that were barely different, explained the subtle shades of meaning that were different, and read Chinese out loud to prove that I actually had learned some before. Then I had to discuss current events. At the time, the big current event was the protests in Hong Kong. My interviewers asked me about what newspapers I was reading, and when I told them, they were like, ‘well,’ and then they waited for a while. ‘How do The Guardian and the South China Morning Post compare in the vocabulary they used to talk about the Hong Kong protests?’ I obviously hadn’t read The Guardian or the South China Morning Post closely enough to know what words they use differently to talk about this one issue, so I had to speak more generally and they seemed satisfied with that.” The admissions committee was, in fact, satisfied because in January of his senior year Gore received an offer to study Chinese at Cambridge’s Churchill College with a world-renowned Chinese professor. Gore visited the college he was admitted to within Cambridge over spring break and knew it was the place for him. “Every student I met was super friendly, and I learned some cool things that made me feel like I could picture myself there,” 5

Gore said. “Only 16 people got offers for Chinese in the whole university, only two at Churchill. So, it’s me and this other kid who’s a French international student. I got to meet the teacher who’s the Churchill Chinese teacher. I’ll have one-on-one lessons with him once a week throughout all of university. He’s awesome and reminds me of my grandfather.” Although Gore still had to get a minimum of four five’s on his AP exams this year to secure his spot, and the whole process was shaken up by the coronavirus outbreak, Gore felt confident he would make it to Cambridge. Students in England were also affected. Their final term of school was canceled, and the all-important GCSE exams were canceled for the first time since 1888, including throughout two world wars. Gore planned to apply his ability to pick up new languages to a career in foreign service, potentially as a diplomat. He said he saw the unpredictability of the job as a bonus. “You don’t get to decide [where you go], so you get sent somewhere, which I think is cool because I like learning new languages,” Gore said. “I would like to be sent somewhere where I didn’t already know the language.” Besides working to comprehend various languages, Gore has taken up an additional hobby. “I started making up my own alphabets, and eventually that transitioned into me making full languages, not just alphabets,” Gore said. The process of creating new languages is comprehensive and involves an understanding of linquistic rules and steps that Gore has developed over time. First, he decides which sounds each language will include. Then, he adds in basic grammar, begins to create words and then starts stringing together simple sentences. “Gradually, I add more grammar and more vocabulary,” Gore said. “Hopefully, someday, I’ll stay with one long enough until it’s actually usable.” The Governor’s Honors Program offered Gore spots to study both Chinese and French following his junior year, but he turned down both offers, choosing instead to study Arabic in Morocco through a Department of National Security program that grants high schoolers the ability to travel to other countries in order to learn the language, live with a host family and experience the culture. During his time in the program, Gore lived in Rabat, Morocco’s capital, and experienced the language and culture fully, despite some bumps in the road. “I was there for seven weeks,” Gore said. “While I was there, I had Arabic class every morning, and every afternoon I explored Rabat. I stayed with a host family which was really interesting because there was a big language barrier. I was only able to communicate with my host parents because I knew French because everyone in Morocco speaks Moroccan Arabic, which is a completely different language [from the standard Arabic courses I was taking]. So, it was easier to communicate with my host family in French than Arabic most of the time, but by the end of the program, I’d learned enough Moroccan Arabic that I was able to talk to them in Arabic instead of French.” Gore left for Morocco only knowing the alphabet and some very basic language fundamentals. By the time he left, he was conversational in a wide array of subjects. He credited the program for his success. “I was able to talk about big, cultural issues, like racism, and economic things like unemployment rates, so I think–given the amount of time I had to learn–the program was amazing in that we were able to learn so much Arabic in a really short amount of time,” Gore said. Gore made friends with Morrocan students, and he has maintained them via Instagram messaging. During his stay, he found a few favorite activities that became his go-tos. “One of my favorite things to do was really close to my host family’s house,” Gore said. “We went to visit the Old City of Rabat, and there are all these street vendors. They told us not to eat most of the food because you could get food poisoning, but the things that we were allowed to eat were really good. There were vendors selling fresh sugarcane juice and all these old book shops that had books in Arabic and French and English all mixed together in piles on the side of the road. It was really fun to go to the medina and look at paintings and handicrafts for sale and look at books in three languages at the same time. We did traveling outside of Rabat as well to places like Tangier and Marrakech, but some of my best memories were in Rabat and exploring where we were.” Gore had high expectations for his future, and his mother believed that his ambition has played a part in Gore’s success so far. “He’s having these wonderful experiences all over the world because he’s willing to put himself out there without fear of making mistakes,” said Jane Gore.