Day 14 - Does Language Shape Identity?

While scrolling through my LinkedIn feed this week, a comment caught my eye:

"Your language is your identity."

"Is it fuck," I thought. That means I didn't agree with it - in Irish speak. 

Not long afterwards, I saw a Facebook post by an English speaker whose identity as a teacher was shaped on the presumption that being a ‘native’ speaker of English means there should be a premium on his teaching services in Spain. This is a false identity that was nurtured during, in my view, the "Age of Imperialism."

I’d been steeping the ingredients for a podcast episode on language and identity for a month or two, so these occurrences with respect to identity sparked a deeper contemplation on the relationship between them.

Unforeseen Encounters

Not too afterwards, two unexpected incidents occurred which further fueled my cogitation.

Firstly, I found myself added to a LinkedIn group chat promoting an article I'd supposedly commented on. Secondly, a client informed me they would not be able to attend the Zoom call I had scheduled for that morning, which I had no recollection of having done. I'd just scheduled a meeting for a client, so I presumed there must have been a tech glitch with Zoom. But I was awfully embarrassed. I would never blindly schedule a call with a client. That type of behaviour didn't align with my identity as a coach.

Then, that evening, I clicked back into LinkedIn and saw that a message had been sent earlier that day - under my name - to the group I’d been added to. When I read it, after questioning for a second if I’d sent it, what confirmed for me that I hadn’t was its tone. It didn’t match my communication identity. In fact, I could tell it had been written by AI.

The idea of identity started swirling in my consciousness.

The Language of Identity

When I plan my content, I research, contemplate and - as the title of my podcast notes - cogitate. As I was mopping my floors, the ideas started flowing. Embodying what I teach my clients, I let my brain rest, so all the connections between what I'd read and my experience started mapping.

True Identity

The meaning of 'identity' changes depending on its form and particle - and the person who defines it. If I write the whole list, this post will be too long. You can listen to me talk through it here after reading if you'd like. Here are a select few:

• Identity + Object: theft; shift; politics; selection; crisis.
• Object + Identity: shape; social; brand; true; mistaken; core.
• Identify + As: female; male; heterosexual; incapable; a goth; rocker.
• Be + Identified + As: incapable; unstable; vulnerable; strong; capable; aware.

Identity Markers

Identity is a tag. A label. A mark like a brand burnt on an animal’s hide – except animals don’t have a choice when being branded. They’re put in a pen and imprinted with an iron, marked as property. People aren’t property. Yet we cling to labels like dew clings to the threads on a spider’s web. We attach.

Personal Branding

When I was 14 or 15, my best friend at the time and I decided it would be a fun idea to tag our friendship forever. We did so with a lighter, heating the metal part at the top before branding each other for life. It looks like an upside-down smiley on my arm to this day. I’m pretty sure she ended up with a 3rd degree burn. A mark of youthful naivety. I bumped into her not long after posting this article on LinkedIn. When I can put the images together, I'll add them to this post.

Snoop Fishy Fish

She and I became friends because we identified with each other. On the first week of secondary school, our class was doing introductions. When it got to me, I shared the story about how my siblings and I had convinced our parents to let us name our house "Cypress Hill" (for us it was after the band – for our parents, because there was a row of cyprus trees outside and we lived at the top of a slight hill.)

As I shared this story, she blurted out that her brother’s fish was named “Snoop Fishy Fish.” Connection 1. We found out very soon that my aunt was her sister’s best friend. Small world or threads of identity woven through generations?

Language as a Weapon, Tool and Marker of Identity

Language and identity have been deeply interwoven throughout history. From the use of language to delineate social hierarchies to the suppression of indigenous languages, the influence of language on identity is undeniable. Growing up in Ireland, I witnessed firsthand the repercussions of language suppression, a legacy that continues to shape our perceptions and experiences.

Language was used to separate lords and ladies from the peasantry. French was the language of the courts in England for hundreds of years before English. Interestingly, Old English was the language of the peasants, contrary to its positioning in Ireland.

English was used as a weapon and a tool in Ireland. You could only access education if you spoke English. You were punished for speaking Irish. You’d often hear an older Irish person say of Irish, “it was battered out of me” when talking about Irish – and it quite literally was.

The "Bata Scóir"

Children had to wear a stick around their necks called a ‘bata scóir’ or a ‘tally stick.’ Every time they spoke Irish, a notch was marked into the stick. At the end of the day, the notches would be counted and they’d get punished.

As sadness would have it, when Irish was being revived and taught in schools again, the same thing happened. Students would get a lick of the strap or their knuckles wrapped with a ruler if they made a mistake with the language. This practice went on right up to when I was at school. We had a headmaster who used to clatter us with a pointer – a thick wooden stick about the length of an arm – if we misbehaved in class. The practice did nothing to help us have Irish.

That’s how we talk about language in Ireland – we have Irish, "tá Gaeilge orm." (níl a lán Gaeilge orm anymore – I don’t have a lot of Irish anymore), but I'm slowly working on reviving it. My identification with it has never weakened.

Shaken Identity

The year I publish, we saw the "Brian Dowling: Ivan Yeats" shake. I'm going to write this next part exactly how I spoke it because I feel your reading eyes deserve to hear my tone of voice. 

Ring ring. Ring ring. Click. My sister answers the phone.

"The two of them were up on the telly shaking hands in the worst example of Irish pride you could ever witness – they were proud they could speak little or no Irish. Father Ted would hold up a big sign for that one and say, “down with that sort of thing.”

But it was a good thing to happen! I say.

BLASHPHEMY!! 

ye shout. 

I argue not.

One of the best ways to spur the Irish on to do anything is to tell us we can’t, as you see in the clip above. We have a wonderful capacity as a wee island to show detractors just what we can do – most especially when they believe we can’t.

My Irish Identity

I’m what you might call an Irish thoroughbred. My surname dates back to 14th Century Mayo – the west of Ireland. I spent a lot of time in Roscommon as a child, out on the bogs, sitting with the wee old lady who lived up the road from my Gran-aunt and uncle in Ballinrobe listening to stories, breathing in the rich, damp scent of turf.

My Grandfather was a gaelgeoir, an Irish speaker, but regretfully never spoke Irish to us growing up. At school, I loved Irish, but it was battered out of me – mentally and physically. My first Irish teacher at secondary was what we'd call a 'nut job' – she’d holy card you if you got things wrong and make a holy show of you in front of the class.

I moved to pass Irish to get away from her. There, I flourished. But I was a bit of a "mad yoke" when I was a teenager. You were lucky to get me to study during the school year never mind go to a Gaeltacht to study in the summer. Over the years, I’ve dipped in and out of reviving my language, but I let life get in the way.

Nowadays, I love exploring how the Irish language has influenced our English – Hiberno English. I keep circling away from it and back again, but just like the country, she keeps calling me home.

At my core is Irish – Irishness – the fire of the female warrior, the heart of the healer, the grit of the gurrier.

Aspects of Irish certainly shape how I speak. The poetic prose of generations flows through my veins and was nurtured in me all my life by my mother through stories and speech and drama training, and by my father through song. I am tied to the land of Ireland, even if I no longer live there.

Did the language shape my identity – or did the loss of it? That’s an expedition of understanding I’m still on.

How Language Shapes our Thinking

Language is one of the most important aspects of being human, according to researchers. It's one of the markers, they say, which differentiates us from animals. To language we attach meaning. They call it...

Linguistic relativity...

put simply, it refers to how language shapes thoughts and perceptions. Colour perception is often looked at. The red of the fox in Ireland is not the same as the red Red Riding Hood's cloak, for example. Two words distinguish the colours – rua and dearg.

Do /we/ identify red in the same way?

How we identify with agency and ownership is different across languages. See there how I used ‘we?’ It’s more typical in English to take on the characteristic of something or identify the agent.

English vs Spanish:

"I am 40-years-old." versus "Tengo 40 años." (I have 40 years).

"I broke my bag." versus "La bolsa se rompío." (the bag it broke).

Part of Your World

Language shapes how we experience the world. But at what point does it become part of our identity? And does acquiring new languages as we get older reshape that identity somehow?

4 Languages, 4 Worlds:

When I speak Spanish, I can be more emphatic in how I express my opinion.

When I was learning Polish, my deference increased. Polish uses very polite forms towards strangers.

While living in China, I took on the behaviours of speakers I was surrounded by and allowed my voice to adapt as best I could to those I was listening to.

In Australia, I had to slow down and shape my vowels differently.

But how I behave in these languages is a much about the culture of communication as it is about language – possibly more. Spaniards are what we call in the Culture Active model, "multi-active" – emotional, dialogue-oriented, talkative.

The Poles and French are less so, though more so than the slightly more "linear active" Irish (who are somewhat inclined to think momentarily before responding, and focus on facts over feelings). When we know more languages and see how different languages are structured to explain certain concepts, feelings or approaches, the shape of our world changes. But does our identity change?

The Dynamics of Core Identity

The core of something is its central part – its heart.

Earth’s core. An apple core. Core identity.

At what point is our core identity shaped, and does it change as we experience the world?

Questioning Occurrences

When I saw the comment written in my name, my identity felt compromised. When I felt embarrassed about the unsolicited meeting request, my identity felt compromised.

“That’s not something I would do or say. That’s not how I behave. That’s not how I communicate.”

As I said before, I knew the comment had been written by AI. I use AI to reformulate my podcast scripts into summaries for my LinkedIn articles (except this week, funnily enough) then change the articles into my tone of voice. I know what "AI speak" sounds like. It’s linear, lacks emotion, and doesn’t synthesise information well across sources - even if articles seem like they’ve been written by people. Language, communication and the meaning of identity are being reshaped every day.

Value-based Identity

Integrity is one of my highest values. It’s part of my identity. That doesn’t change no matter what language or culture I live in. My core doesn’t change.

If you’d seen me in 2021, you wouldn’t have recognised me. My core identity was being suppressed and my body erupted. I’d gone through enough physical change in my lifetime up to then to know I wasn’t going to let suppression overcome me again.

Does that core identity come from generations of suppression in Ireland? How deep does the idea of identity go?

My identity can change if I allow it to. It can become incongruent when I stop heeding my instincts and allow others to shape how I think, feel and behave. However, when I am being challenged to change in ways that don’t align with my core identity, I will eventually walk away.

That’s not to say I’m not open to reshaping my thinking or behaviours. I have done so many times having lived in such a diversity of cultures. That’s how I know my core identity doesn’t change across languages.

No matter what language I am using to show up in the world, my language doesn’t change – my language is unique to me – it’s made up of everything that is me. It is not the characteristics or labels or things that others identify me as with or by – it’s what I am behind all of them.

It's my love of nature.

It’s the glee I get standing on the top of a mountain of mud and splashing in a puddle in the rain.

It’s the emotion that wells up inside me when I see a someone stand taller because they realise they’ve got an ability that they hadn’t acknowledged before.

It’s the smile on a stranger’s face as they pass me on the street just after I’ve remembered something that made me grin.

Though my pitch and my tone and my mannerisms may adapt to the language I speak, my identity – the core – the heart of what I am does not.

Challenging Linguistic Norms

Bilingual professionals all over the world are trained to think they have to change their identity to fit into English-speaking workplaces. They are trained to think they are not good enough if they can’t sound like the imperialised view of what a native English speaker sounds like. They are trained to think that they’re not good enough if they can’t structure sentences perfectly or if they suddenly forget a word.

They’re not trained to realise that they forget words in their own language and make grammatical mistakes. They’re not trained to realise they have an accent in their own language that isn’t the same as the accent used in another part of their country. They’re not trained to accept any of these things as normality.

English speakers all over the world are trained to expect bilingual professionals to speak perfect English. They’re trained to think it’s to judge them based on their accent or their accuracy. They’re trained to think they’re not good enough if they can’t structure sentences perfectly of if the suddenly forget a word.

They’re not trained to realise that they forget words when speaking English and make grammatical mistakes – oftentimes more than their bilingual counterparts. They’re not trained to realise they have an accent that isn’t the same as the accent used by other English speakers. They’re not trained to accept any of these things as normality.

Detach From the Web

Language and identification are intertwined. People are categorised by capacity. We attach ourselves to these categories. It’s a natural thing for the brain to do. It’s what helps us filter for information quickly. It facilitates fast thinking.

What we need to do is slow thinking down so we don’t become as attached, so that we can weave new webs of thinking in our brains – form new patterns of thought from old ones. Like spiders.

Spiders don’t get attached. When a spider web breaks, the spider eats the silk and recycles it to weave a new thread. If we slow our thinking down, we can stop regurgitating the same strings of thought and create new patterns. To do this, we have to start challenging thinking. We have to be allowed to challenge attitudes. We have to challenge ourselves.

Are You Up To the Challenge?

Regularly, I hit back at media outlets that are perpetuating linguistic divides and English-speaker arrogance. I’m careful about how I write my comments so I don’t get too much flack (or hate) and so that people can receive them in a way that makes them think. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure I've pissed off the "powerful" media sites in Ireland enough that they don't want to feature me. 

But in the words of Ricky Gervais, "I don't care."

Terminology around language and identity need to be challenged. Even the term ‘mother tongue,' defined as a language learned from birth, also called a person's "first language," is questionable.

When I was teaching a speech & drama class a few years back, I had a bilingual student aged about 11 or 12. She spoke English and Latvian. I asked her what her first language was and she looked at me puzzled.

"I don’t know. I speak English and Latvian. I learned both together."

Would you tell her she was wrong and that she had to choose one? 

International Mother Language Day

February 21st was decreed to be International Mother Language Day by the UNESCO General Assembly in 1999. The people of Bangladesh, like so many other nations, fought hard and long to keep their national language alive. On February 21st at a rally against the loss of Bangla, police opened fire and took the lives of 5 men protesting to protect their language. It is the bravery of those who died in Bangladesh, fighting to keep their language alive, and the further actions taken by Bangladeshis, that resulted in the global celebration of international languages.

Death of a Language

The proportion of endangered world languages is higher than all of the world’s endangered animal populations put together. When a language dies, with it comes the loss of the perspectives, perceptions and experiences embedded in it. 

Noam Chomsky said, 

It is important for us to embrace our languages, however they may or may not have shaped our identities. Find a way to open a conversation with someone else about theirs. Get curious. When you start exploring other languages with the curiosity of a child, you will be amazed at the patterns you can find. 

At the core of everything is a heart – when we open our hearts to others, we often discover that the seeds which shape the centre are pretty much the same. Just like apples, it’s often only the texture and flavour that are different.