A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: March 10, 2017 8:17 PM | Last Updated: March 10, 2017
Tomson Highway
A transcript of Tomson Highway's Henry Kreisel Lectures for the Canadian Literature Centre, A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance is a rollicking read through the renowned playwright, author and performer's life through the lens of the languages that have shaped him. Highway, a born storyteller, argues for a multiplicity of language: "Speaking one language, I submit, is like living in a house with one window only..." A must read for Highway fans, A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance is also a powerful personal account of the power of language to broaden our world.
From the book
So there we were, Joe and Pelagie Highway's brood, the privileged children of three Native languages each as distinct one from the other as English is from Arabic and Korean or French is from Mandarin or Swahili — for Cree, like Ojibway and Blackfoot, is an Algonquian language; Dene, like Slavey and Dogrib, Athapaskan; and Inuktituk resides in a linguistic family all on its own, like Hungarian in Europe, let us say. Between these three Native languages, that is to say, there is not a stitch of similarity, not a syllable in common. And English was to come much later, as was French. In fact, the first European language that I was to learn, as it turns out, was neither. It was Latin, whereby hangs a tale of monstrous extravagance...
From A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance by Tomson Highway ©2015. Published by The University of Alberta Press.