When I was 14 years old I had a friend in the neighborhood with whom I spent a lot of time. I remember at one point in the summer we were intent on getting ourselves into the Guinness Book of World Records and decided to do that by earning the record for two people on a single swing because my dad had recently installed a swing for me in our garage. I don’t recall how many hours the current record was at the time of our attempt, but we were bound and determined to break that record. I believe we lasted less than 24 hours.
At some other point that same summer, we decided we were going to develop a secret language. I’m no longer sure what, specifically, inspired this idea, but I believe I’d read something in a book wherein the characters spoke to each other using a language only the two of them understood. I know I’d been similarly inspired for us to develop a secret whistling signal based on Huck Finn’s shenanigans (I envisioned us using this signal in the wee hours of the night to sneak out of our houses to head out on adventures). With the secret language, I saw us holding lengthy conversations about secret crushes and dreams for the future. Similar to our efforts to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, our language never fully evolved. And, as far as I can remember, it was far too complicated for either of us even to remember what any of the nonsensical words even meant, let alone for us to have any genuine conversation.
Perhaps that is why I find my 17 year old’s fluency in Rune both fascinating and a little bit envying.
Despite having to study ancient civilizations many times over the early years of both homeschooling and attending a public charter school so that by the time she reached 6th grade social studies, she likely could have taught the class herself, my 17 year old discovered little pockets of curiosity and fascination when it came to the Vikings and their Runic writing. Her curiosity led her to develop quite a fluency in writing in Rune, to the point she said she switched easily from English to Rune in her journals. Color me impressed given my Duolingo attempts at a foreign language and my own teenage failed attempts at developing a secret language.
Her interest in Rune resurfaced recently as she picked up J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit because there are Runes lining the top and bottom of the front and back covers. After staring at the cover, she couldn’t help but work on deciphering what it said. I love that she has such a curiosity about such things. And, even though they are often different in many ways, she and her sister share this sort of puzzling-things-out curiosity.
In fact, that shared puzzling curiosity was on full display when my oldest wrote a short sentence in Rune and asked me if I had any idea what it said. When I shrugged with obvious ignorance, she handed me a little coded cheat sheet translating Rune markings to English letters allowing me to determine (mostly) what she’d written: It’s actually very easy.
When my youngest came downstairs, she challenged her as well, first without the code and then with it. My youngest solved that sentence in a matter of seconds and had apparently learned the Rune markings well enough that she read the next sentence even more quickly. Of course, she admitted that seeing the Rune equivalent of Z two times in the first word clued her in that the word had to be our cat’s name, Zuzu, and the rest was easy: Zuzu is fat. Still, the speed and ease with which she solved her sister’s Rune puzzle was impressive. And, I loved that they share this kind of nerdiness, basking in obscure languages or coded messages to puzzle out.
My oldest asked me earlier today if I thought I would have gotten along with Tolkien and I have to say I’m fairly certain I would have adored hanging out with him and several of his fellow Inklings. For quite some time I have lamented not having my own group of Inklings and as I watched my oldest reading The Hobbit, as I watched my girls laughing about our cat described in Runes, and as I watched the way they chat about the books they’re reading and the stories they’re writing, it occurred to me that perhaps I have found my own version of my very own Inklings right here with these two incredibly intelligent and remarkable young ladies.