Reading time: 5 minutes
At time of writing, the year 2023 is ticking out its few remaining hours, and the threshold of New Year’s Eve is almost here. Being someone easily susceptible to bouts of acute nostalgia, I can’t help but reflect on the past 365 days during this liminal period – and this year, I have more reason than ever before. 2023, it’s turned out, has been perhaps the best year of my life so far, in which fortune permitted me to become “finally [my]self”, as one onlooker remarked. A storm of contingent circumstances conspired to grant me a year that was full of opportunities for academic and personal development, and a lot of fun too.
Currently, my online feeds feel full of other people’s reviews and res gestae for this year. As 2023 ends and soon after my doctoral era, for the first and perhaps only time, I feel a need to join them. So, I hope you’ll forgive this selfish piece, which, if nothing else, will serve as a personal souvenir of a generous year. I admit, I am nervous for 2024 and post-PhD life. While my future self marches on towards an imminent career abyss, he’ll no doubt be looking back on the gifts of 2023.
A beautiful moment in the PhD journey is the point of reaching academic critical mass. This is the stage, which can come sooner or later (but ideally before you finish), when the reading and writing pay off, and you begin to draw various threads together and produce original ideas exponentially. At last, you’ve arrived at the academic coal face, where there are gems yet to be thought up and intellectual directions yet to be pursued. Here, if you’ve done your homework properly, you graduate into an elite group of nerds who are the leading experts in a particular field. You’ve probably by now had coffee with the rest of the group too.
For me, that exciting stage began early this year, while I was writing up my review of the syntax of the final member of my planned language set, Old Irish. Previously, this language had terrified me, what with its mutations, preverbs, infixed pronouns and something called a deuterotonic verb. However, having already done battle with Sanskrit and Ancient Greek, and armed with a whole host of concepts and analytical approaches, the mirage of a fearsome foe disappeared. Old Irish instead welcomed me into a Celtic cosmos of language, history and far-reaching connections. I make no secret of it; I’ve gone on record saying that Old Irish helped me to feel like a scholar for the first time, no longer only a student. This is not to say that I’m right, but rather that I have something to say, and that is thrilling. That feeling drove me down the gauntlet of academic publishing; my first academic article, Deriving the Old Irish Clause, now very nearly exists, and with further articles in the publication pipeline. If reviewers be good, I’ll always have them to stand as small monuments to the fact that in academia Danny was here.
Writing went hand in hand with presenting, which I’ve learned that I enjoy, much to my surprise. Over the course of thirteen talks this year, most but not all to academic audiences, I’ve become very comfortable giving talks The feedback has been good; one talk won an award, and “accessible” was one particular comment I was keenly hoping for, though I’ll gladly take “entertaining” too. I do hope there will be chances in 2024 to give further talks to non-specialist, public groups; getting linguistic knowledge out there feels so worthwhile, like a vocation. Presentations are also a great way to develop one’s ideas; by narrowing down to the scope of my PhD project to a half-hour topic, neglected avenues receive proper attention, and consequently I am turning into ‘that Wackernagel’s law guy’.
Opportunities to present and to see old friends have allowed me to endulge a personal luxury: travel. In no previous year of my life have I visited so many new places. As well as walking and train-ing through the Bohemian and Scottish countries I’ve been privileged to call home, I’ve also got better acquainted with Budapest, Vienna and Paris, overeaten arancini in Sicily, lectured in Oxford, walked around Wales, and even left Europe. My Californian adventure was a sunny surreality, filled with Americans’ infectiously positive outlooks on life and new experiences for me. I took an Uber. I ate a fried cricket. I added seeing Yosemite to my bucket list and ticked it off within a single breathless moment. I had a coffee from Starbucks for the first time; it was okay. But I was there, and it was all thanks to two new and undeserved close friendships, one being with Old Irish.
Motivated by the vicissitudes of my original online home, Twitter, I was eager to push my public output into new realms. Thanks to one talented animator and one Old Norse specialist, these included forays into the unknown territory of YouTube. My collaboration with Learn With Will confirmed my belief that animation and a visual format have so many benefits for introducing linguistic ideas, and keeping the tone fun and friendly. I love the final product.
Moreover, I bit the bullet, and began a podcast project of my own. Four months later, A Language I Love Is… has a first season of superb episodes with great guests, and a sizeable listenership, and I’m asking myself why I didn’t start it sooner. While there are still skills to be learned and aspects to be modified, I can happily consider myself to be no longer a one-tweet pony. The feedback has been so positive and encouraging, especially to have it endorsed by my linguistic peers. Invites for a second series are about to go out; let’s see where the linguistic adventures will go next!
Italian and Sophia Smith Galer – A Language I Love Is…
Exciting plans are afoot for a further project in a whole new format; I sincerely hope in 2024 they’ll become more than plans. Watch this space…
To conclude, this has been a fairly professional look at the personal joys of 2023. Among all of these public experiences were of course private delights – treasured friendships, time with loved ones (human and feline), the joyful journey into unclehood, new friendships, old old friendships, hiking, dancing and music, and plenty of beer along the way. Kind-hearted people and interesting places have allowed me to be myself more than ever. So, now, I feel grateful and a little sad, and I pray that I can pay those people back next year, and in doing so become even more myself, come what may.
END.
Cover picture: the distant majesty of El Capitan and the Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, USA.
Danny L. Bate 