Experiencing Multilingualism
“Just as language can be intense in its expression, it can also be soft and gentle. As humans, we ride the language(s) we are using. We have our own ship, sailing on the language we use, and like all boatmen, the more water we experience, the less afraid of different waters we become.”
English was not my first language. Though I had been born in the United States, my formative years were spent with my grandparents in India, where my mother tongue flew into me from my mother’s mother, pure and unadulterated through various streams of styles and tones. In Telugu, I was given the enthusiastic greetings of my neighbors, the doting sweetness of my grandparents’ friends, and the tones of genuine love and affection from my grandparents themselves. Upon returning to the United States to my parents, I would soon acquire another language: English. Fortunately for my curious self, I had quickly fallen for fantasy and fiction novels in my school’s library, letting English flow into my life-stream. As I rode it, the enthusiastic current propelled me forward in creating my friendships and experiencing the world. This love for English was further propelled as I found it difficult to make friends, with written characters and scenarios being my companions. It is this quality that I will explore throughout this essay, seeing how one’s perception of language as an adult can be influenced by experiencing multilingualism as a child.
Lahiri describes a feeling of being “linguistically orphaned” (Lahiri 10), due to not being able to speak her mother tongue. She describes the sensation of incompleteness when revealing that she did not have a mother tongue passed down to her, to flow into her life. Through this, we can determine that her sentiments of being linguistically orphaned are derived from a lack of experience with multilingualism at a young age. Although accomplished in English as an author, when she attempts to master Italian and make herself a part of the language, she expresses her efforts as grafting herself onto the language. I strongly believe this is influenced by her perception of being linguistically orphaned, as the phrase implies an orb, a bubble, or a boundary that cuts her off from language. Within that world of perception, whether to become one with a new language, or to have the language become one with you, those boundaries are torn down, in order to come close enough to “graft” one to the other. Grafting implies two foreign elements being joined together. Lahiri sees herself as a foreign element to other languages, searching for the justification, reason, and right to learn Italian and inevitably take part in its linguistic practices and culture.
Tan, however, does not share the same feelings as Lahiri. Though Tan’s essay was reflective of a singular language, English, the variance of structure and expression she had exposure to made it akin to experiencing multiple languages. Tan’s mother’s English substituted itself as a mother tongue in this scenario, resulting in Tan growing up with multiple languages, experiencing multilingualism as a child. This would eventually shape her perception of languages to not be foreign. While both went on a journey of peace, Lahiri tried to justify why she could learn Italian, finding acceptance in reasoning she brought a new perspective to the language. Tan’s journey of acceptance of her mother’s “broken English” (Tan 7) was not of joining foreign elements, but instead of eliminating the barrier in her mind that categorized her mother’s English as imperfect and fractured. She comes to understand that all languages can exist and can be used regardless of societal judgements. She does not view her mother’s broken English as foreign or unnatural at the end of her journey, influenced by her experience of multilingualism as a child. Just as Lahiri spoke of how the lack of multilingualism affected her perception, Tan remarks how her experience of communication with the broken English she was taught affected her IQ tests, SAT, and other placement criteria (Tan 7). These two experiences display the wide range of impact exposure to multilingualism has to a child.
Language is akin to water. Similarly to the various forms of water, language can stagnate, flow gently, with anger, and even intertwine with other flowing waters to produce other streams or rivers. However, in order to understand that the intermixing and overlapping of water is normal, one must witness water in multiple ways. They must observe two streams becoming one, waves crashing into each other, rapids and languid streams altogether. Just as language can be intense in its expression, it can also be soft and gentle. As humans, we ride the language(s) we are using. We have our own ship, sailing on the language we use, and like all boatmen, the more water we experience, the less afraid of different waters we become. Language is similar. Like myself and Tan, experiencing the various waters of language denies the fear of their differences. However, Lahiri’s singular experience of language led her to feel unable to traverse other waters, though it is natural as a boatman to do so.
Vasishta Vummiti is a Fall 2024 finalist for the Rutgers Writing Centers’ First-Year Writing Spotlights. This initiative invites instructors to nominate students for outstanding work on a piece of reflective writing in their first-year College Writing course. To read more of the nominated essays, click here!