bilinguism

There are moments, fleeting as they are revealing, when I feel, almost viscerally, the limitations of language. I see it in the way someone responds to my words, or rather, to the shadow of them they have chosen to see. They smile, nod, and say “I get it,” but something in their eyes betrays a misalignment. I walk away from the exchange more... See more

In the U.S., they’re “not American enough” because they speak Spanish. Back in their home countries, their Spanish doesn’t match the monolingual norm. They live between two versions of themselves, just as I do.

Language is one of the strongest markers of belonging. Our accent and vocabulary reveal our place of origin—and often our class, education, and community ties. When we alter them, people notice. Those who have experienced it understand. Those who haven’t may see it as “changing who you are.”

Last Christmas in Mexico, my sister-in-law was quick to notice how I adapted when speaking with locals: “you talk like them,” she said. She wasn’t wrong. Part of me does it deliberately: I want to be understood, but I also want to show that I see them, that I know their words.

As Lindquist and Khan (2019) note, language and emotion shape each other reciprocally: how we speak influences how we feel, and how we feel influences the way we use language

Let’s further consider the plausibility that the relationship between language <> thought <> culture is not linear or uni-directional, but instead a virtuous cycle.

To replicate a mother-tongue is to emotionalize it. A language must be lived in as a vessel of emotion, memory, and identity.