Talking Tongues

 

Canada is frequently branded as a multicultural country, but what exactly this multiculturalism means and how does it apply in practice, we rarely read or talk about. At least outside the Canadian realm. 

The Art of Leaving by Ayelet Tsabari was one of my favorite memoirs I´ve read in 2019 and therefore,  I refused to wait any longer for getting my hands on Tongues. On Longing and Belonging Through Language, co-edited with Eufemia Fantetti. The book. which was published in the second half of 2021, is a collection of 23 literary voices based in Canada sharing their experience with their mother tongue, as well as with languages - loaned, owned, forgotten etc.

Although the essays are not necessarily equal, there are interesting aspects pertaining to languages which are important for understanding the existential value of words, mother tongues and languages. As there are over 260 million people not living in their country of birth, the ways in which one can operate - or fail to - in a second language, need a throughout and detailed investigation. The personal accounts are very important for understanding the multiple impact of languages on everyday life and even mental health and health in general.

As Kamal al Solaylee testifies, he had to give up Arabic because this language was lacking ´the vocabulary and textual resources to help me accept who I am´. A new language was the safe place for building up an authentic life. As Logan Broeckaert observed, gender is ingrained into the language therefore, not innocent. For Karen McBride, returning to her original native culture and language was a return to herself: ´It has taken a long time to find the confidence to live in the body and the skin I´ve been given´. Those learning their mother tongue - as in the tongue spoken by their mother and ancestors - may have a different mental and life experience, as shared by author Jenny Heijun Wills whose newly learned Korean language was part of the connection she started to build with her family of birth, she was separated from through adoption. Another - yet different - Korean linguistic experience is shared by the translator Janet Hong. For Rebecca Fisseha, her experience as a writer brought her closer to her Ethiopian heritage and language.

Languages are experienced differently and are supposed to be loved differently. Melissa Bull explained how not only her voice and demenour change when switching from English to French. As a political refugee from El Salvador, Leonarda Carranza ended up figuring up that in fact, what she used to called ´mother tongue´, the Spanish language, was in fact a tool of domination that deterred her from her natural connection with her native culture. In same cases, as Teochew-Chinese-Persian author Sahar Golshan explained the efforts of recovering lost languages can turn into a ´lifelong obsession with the accumulation of missing vocabulary´. Therefore, there is a certain loss of self that comes with the loss of a language, as argues Téa Mutonji. 

We need language, and words, as much as we need air and water. In Kai Cheng Thom´s words - in the beautifully titled essay Language is the Fluid of Our Collective Bodies - ´I believe that language is the fluid within the collective body: like plasma, like blood, like spinal fluid, it carries nutrients and information from one unit to another´. Thus, the painful process of returning to languages stolen through various political processes, as explained by Rowan McCandless: ´I mourn the many languages that were taken from me, the possibility of not being viewed as an outsider or defined by the colour of my skin´. 

But language means more than simple grammar and vocabulary. Indeed, as Amanda le Duc explained our way to refer to people with various disabilities is a language in itself which labels and discriminates. ´We say that we don´t actually think that people who are less intelligent are worthless, but our language reinforces these ideas´. Tongues can also be without words, as it is the case of the sign language, whose linguistic power is explained in the contribution by Adam Pottle. Being a writer with a learning disability, as shared by Jagtar Karn Atwal, makes the writing and the language experience even more painful from the existential point of view: ´Reading makes me feel as if I´m drowning in a sea of moving words´.

Languages are love, and by learning one, it is not only possible to gain a new life, but they bring one close to the source of life, love. Sigal Samuel asks, thinking about her father: ´does my dad learn foreign languages to gain access to women he loves, or is falling in love an excuse for him to learn another language? Either way, I looked at it, the answer was yes´. ´They say the language you speak shapes your thoughts, and so it does´, outlines Ashley Hind.

Ayelet Tsabari experiences languages in very different ways. Obliterated for various nation-building reasons, the Arabic of her Yemen family resurges when she, like many other second or third generation of Israeli with roots in Muslim lands, assume this part of their identity. ´A language, I want to believe lies dormant in my body, genetically encoded into my cells, waiting to be awakened, activated´. As a writer, she is represented by English, and switching between Hebrew and English, may be worrisome: ´Writing in a second language (...) is like wearing someone else´s skin, an act akin to religious conversion´. ´Whenever my Hebrew flows, I worry my English is at risk´ - this is a thought many of us, writing in a second or third or fourth language are very worried about because coming back to the source of words can be so difficult, while leaving it, the easiest thing on Earth. 

The pandemic is a guest star of many contributions to the collection, as the months-long lockdown and the isolation, may have tempted some of the authors to return to their original, lost languages or just learn a new linguistic skill. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. 

The personal experiences doubled by the everyday writing challenges makes Talking Tongues an important collection for both writers and language lovers. In addition to revealing more or less problematic aspects of linguistic policies in Canada, it also contributes to the ever growing bibliography on languages and multilinguism in general.