Ohh How You Roll Your Tongue.
I’ve learnt to roll my tongue in many ways as a child.
Taught to produce different sounds to express the same feeling. One in my mother tongue, Hindi, that I use to share the joys of living with my grandmothers and aunts. The other in a tongue that’s neither mine nor of any of my ancestors. This one.
I have faint memories from the age of 6. Sitting in a chair and feeling uneasy, trying to mug up words in sounds that felt invasive, alien, unnatural. Strange air passing through my throat, forming a short melody, coming out as words.
As I grew up, I understood that top job opportunities both in and outside my country are less accessible within the confines of my native language. That the global adoption of English as a corporate language is an imperial legacy.
When I decided to study abroad and live in a new country, I was forced to cram, once again, new foreign sounds, and decorated strings of words. This time in French, the language of my newly adopted home, France.
So now when I am angry instead of saying “shitttt” I say “putainnn” and on happy occasions instead of shouting “Hell Yes” I end up screaming “Ahh Ouiiiiii”.
However, it is not just my newly enriched vocabulary but rather the entry into the world of Francophone that has been so enlightening for me.
As an anglophone, citizen of the largest British ex-colony, I assumed that the rest of the world was like me. People spoke their native languages and English as a default second tongue. Except for those freakish polyglots who for some unfathomable reason find pleasure in learning multiple languages and choose to speak a myriad of unfamiliar tongues.
And then I met Francophones, coming from exotic places I’ve never visited. The beautiful North African countries like colourful Morocco, characteristic Algeria, and flavourful Tunisia. Sometimes even from charming islands of South America and the Caribbean, like Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana. I had the naivety to assume that these beautiful exotic people coming from vast lands willingly pursued learning the language of a tiny European country. Presuming it was a personal choice.
It did not take me long to see how interconnected our lives have been, linked with the similarity of rolling our tongues as young kids in multiple languages, forcing out words that felt alien, trying to remember spellings that felt invasive. Learning about a culture we did not belong in. I understood that most of these beautiful places in far away regions were once French occupied territories (and some still are).
I realise now that most people hailing from ex-colonies and now developing nations, have felt the pressure of adopting multiple tongues, not by choice. But for opportunity.
Money leaves a scent, is it a coincidence that most widely spoken corporate languages have imperial roots?
“Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without.” ― Merovingian, The Matrix
**P.S. All the artwork in this article is created by my 19 yr old cousin Radhika Pal who is self learning design.
