Notebook Assignment #2
Language as a Circulation of Cultural Identity
The language that we speak is a reflection of the nation from which we hail. It allows us to communicate with those who share our nationality, while also demonstrating to foreigners where it is that we come from. However, through a history of global intermingling, the significance of language has expanded beyond these more basic origins. Immigration, colonization, and forced servitude have all contributed to the blurring of lines between peoples, and the sharing of language through these mediums has altered their significance.
Prior to the era of New World exploration, indigenous peoples all throughout the Americas spoke the languages of their individual tribes. Thousands of different languages for thousands of tiny sovereign nations, built on thousands of years of history and culture, completely independent from that of the European nations. Then came Columbus and the Spaniards. Along with the guns, germs, and steel, these militant explorers also brought their language with them. Forcing generations of native peoples under Spanish colonial rule to learn the language of their captors was a show of power and dominance on behalf of the Spanish crown that effectively snuffed out the unique languages of hundreds of native tribes.
This replacement of a native language with that of the colonial powers was not unique to Spanish controlled Central and South America. The French imposed their language on modern day Canada, and the British did the same in what became the first American colonies. The Portuguese carved out a large portion of the South American continent that is now Brazil. And nearly every Western power claimed some part of the African continent when the time came.
In fact, even in Europe peoples considered “less civilized” were colonized and oppressed. The British made it illegal to speak the Gaelic language aloud when the Scottish people under their colonial control attempted to reclaim their lands. This oppression of their native language was the beginning of the end of traditional Highlander culture and all recognizable practices of the clans quickly followed.
Today, many native tribes work diligently to revitalize the old cultural practices of their peoples from before the times of colonization, and some tribes have been able to relearn and reclaim at least some of their native languages. But still many more tribes have lost that piece of themselves to history forever.
My mother’s family is Portuguese, but they come from the Azores, a chain of islands that have been under the control of Portugal for centuries. Only a handful of her family members still speak Portuguese, and most of them have such a thick accent, either from the islands or from the Massachusetts communities that they immigrated to, that their words are unrecognizable to mainland Portuguese citizens. My mother’s entire generation of the family learned to speak English first, and most of them are not fluent in Portuguese at all. No one in our family alive today speaks the indigenous language of the Sao Miguel native peoples.
My father’s family is Irish, and not unlike the Scottish Highlands, the regions from which they hail have been under British control for centuries. Every single one of them speaks English and English alone. Gaelic has been completely lost despite our Irish heritage because of the heavy-handed ruling tactics of the British monarchy.
I am Portuguese and Irish, but I am neither fluent in Portuguese nor Gaelic. I speak English because it is the dominant language of the country in which I was born and raised. I also speak some Spanish because it is the second most commonly spoken language in the region where I live. Neither are the languages of my heritage, but they define me all the same.
