A warm September morning, my first day of school. I stood completely in silence. I could not remember a word of English.
Growing up, I was fluently bilingual; English outside. Tamil at home. Taught to divide my tongue in two, I soon realised that those two languages meant two identities, two worlds to exist in. To me and many other mutlilinguals, language is inextricable with self – a verbal tie to our switching identities.
Despite the prevalence of bilingualism in the home, across borders – every two weeks – a language dies. The problem was never learning a new language. It’s the shame in embracing a mother tongue that socially demotes them, that leaves them buried in ancestral homes.
As gloomy headlines and injustice take the spotlight, the need for identity and diversity is more crucial than ever before. From ICE disproportionately targeting non-English speaking populations to China’s attempt to remove Tibetan from their own curriculum. Governments are pushing uniformity – masked as ‘unity’.
For centuries language has been wielded as yet another tool for division – a hindrance for conquering the ever persistent ‘us vs them’ problem.
Language has always been a weapon of division, with the language you speak carrying as much strength as your passport. Linguistic imperialism is a system in which certain languages are given preference, coined by Linguist Richard Philipson. He asserts that it is a type of linguicism, whereby dominant languages are imposed onto the speakers of a non-dominant one.
Over the years, the imposition of language has progressed from being obvious and violent to subtle and almost unseen.
Today, there are nearly two billion English speakers – a product of the once dominant British Empire, a world built by colonisation and cemented by power. Colonial powers, most successfully, have used language to divide and conquer; often using it as a barrier to prevent communication between tribes who spoke different dialects. Progressively, the dominant language was instilled in schooling – assimilating fluency with education. In a post-colonial world these values became pillars. With countries often following similar curriculums today, English has become synonymous with status.
In modern times, English has a vast monopoly on media – with an estimated 60% of the most visited websites being primarily in the language. A lack of understanding leads to a lack of knowledge in world affairs, ingraining a Western view to be accepted as an international one.
Language is more than just communication, it carries emotion and memory and intuition. Those phrases you cannot translate carry centuries of careful experimentation. To counter the erosion of time and politics, to keep a language breathing, it only takes one voice. One word.
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