Congratulations to Elliott Gyll, Park Scholar in the Class of 2024, for receiving the Boren Scholarship! The Boren Scholarship funds study abroad opportunities for students who are studying a wide range of critical languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese and Swahili.
Elliott is double majoring in English with a concentration in Linguistics and Neuroscience with a concentration in Neurolinguistics.
But his passion for linguistics started before he came to NC State.
“I have always enjoyed learning foreign languages, that is kind of my thing,” explained Elliott. “In the beginning, I was restricted to the typical languages you might learn in high school or at a university. But then I took it a step further and started learning Russian and then Arabic. I try to push myself outside of my comfort zone. There are many different ways to explore linguistics. I really like learning languages. When I’ve become proficient in a language, it almost feels like I’m a native speaker, which is a really great feeling.”
With the Boren Scholarship, Elliott is currently taking classes at MS-TCDC in Arusha, Tanzania. While in Arusha, he is staying with a local family and learning Swahili.
“For the last 3 months, I’ve been living in a small village between Moshi and Arusha, Tanzania, in an intensive Swahili-language training program and exploring the region,” said Elliott. “I’ve picked up all the slang by this point, and am told all the time how I sound like a local from the streets. As my studies are starting to come to a close here, I’m preparing my upcoming plans. In December, I’ll spend several weeks solo traveling in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, after which I’ll return to Tanzania and live in a city in the south called Mbeya. Looking forward to the rest of my time here, after putting in all the work to reach fluency in Swahili, I feel like an absolute Tanzanian and I’m loving it!”
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In addition to his love of learning languages, Elliott has enjoyed traveling the globe. He has been to over 55 countries and counting.
“Traveling is a real adventure,” said Elliott. “It gives you a different perspective about the world. People may get the wrong idea when they hear about all of the places I’ve lived and worked. But for me, traveling is being a part of the community, wherever I am. Interacting with the people around me helps me learn the language and become proficient. I try to stay with local families and work day jobs. Americans sometimes like to assume that we understand the world. But I’ve learned that there is so much that I don’t know.”
Elliott has received several Park Enrichment Grants that have helped him go on many formative international trips.
In 2022, Elliott spent two months in the South Pacific studying the Tahitian language and Tuamoto Island linguistics. He conducted research on the Pa’umoto dialect spoken in the Tuamotus and presented it at a linguistics conference. In 2022, he lived in Rwanda for a month working at a small language school and learned the Kinyarwanda language. He also backpacked across Indonesia on a motorcycle, visiting the islands of Bali, Java and Sumatra. He partnered with a local language school in West Sumatra where he lived as an in-house director, and instituted a teacher training program and redesigned their curriculum. There he became conversationally fluent in Indonesian language and Basa Minang, an Austronesian language spoken in parts of Indonesia. He also studied abroad at the University of Seoul in South Korea.
But one of his Park Enrichment Grant experiences stood out to him.
“One of my PEGs was a trip to Southeast Asia,” said Elliott. “I landed in Singapore and hitchhiked through Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It was a couple months long, but this trip changed me in so many ways. It was really a prelude to a lot of things that were to come for me. I learned so much about myself and my character. It was without a doubt one of the best and craziest experiences.”
Elliott’s travel advice to Park Scholars?
“Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive at all. There are a lot of great resources out there, like Workaway or Couchsurfing. I think people should be less scared about traveling to developing countries as well. If you use common sense, there are so many possibilities for adventures across the globe. Just don’t be afraid.”
