“I’m an Italian”, “I’m Irish”, “I’m part Lebanese, part French” – these are all phrases you can hear in just your regular conversation in America. Everyone identifies with a certain culture but when you ask “Do you speak Italian/Irish/Arabic/French?” the answer is quite often “no”.
I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time now but just didn’t know how to formulate it. That’s why writing this post will hopefully put my thoughts into some sort of order. Does language affect our identity?
The answer on the one hand is yes. When you are a part of a particular culture that speaks a particular language, your worldview and expression of it becomes a part of who you are. You use sentence structures that are a feature of your language and would sound awkward in another language. Maybe you use idioms and vocabulary that make total sense when spoken in your native language but sound pretty funny when translated, or make no sense at all. Sure, you can find equivalents of many idioms in other languages, but why is it that in Lithuanian it’s To make an elephant out of a fly and in English it’s to make a mountain out of a molehill? Or when expressing surprise/disgust Americans would say “geez” (not sure of the translation of this one) and Lithuanians would say “šakės” (literal translation: pitchfork). Go figure…
Furthermore, your language is your culture. The songs and stories told in your language since you were a child become a part of who you are and soothe you in times of uncertainty. The collective history and shared memories also happened in the language of the people you identify with. And since the language is a live thing, as the people of the culture evolve, so does their language.
On the other hand, the answer may as well be no. What if you don’t speak the language of the culture you identify with? Are you less of an Italian, Irish, Lebanese, French, Lithuanian? I used to think that before I moved to the States. I blushingly admit that I used to have a very clear opinion about those who call themselves Lithuanians yet do not speak the language. But I am also part Jewish and I do not speak Hebrew at all. Yet I do identify with the Jewish side of me.
I am a lot less judgmental now. Probably because with age comes wisdom;). As I mentioned earlier, language is a live thing and depending on when you moved to a different country it may or may not have continued to develop alongside your new country’s language. People who moved here from Europe a long time ago had many reasons to continue their life in English only. Yet they still held on to what they knew, what they had grown up with and brought from the other side of the ocean: hence the food and celebrations. Granted their children probably identified themselves as Americans but the pride of heritage was (and is) still there.
What are your thoughts on this? I’m curious to hear!