English has, arguably, become the most studied second language in most countries. Speaking from experience and from research, most countries actually put an emphasis on learning English for better future prospects, such as making English a requirement to know for job applications. Despite that and the fact that other languages may have more speakers, English over time has become the universal language for most foreigners. Now why is that? Most English speakers, like you and I, know to a degree that it’s not the most beautiful for romantic, or even well-structured language. Even those who are fluent or even study the language can still have complaints about the format. So what is the reason? Well, the answer to that is fairly simple, the British Empire. Chances are, at some point in history, the British had control over most parts or at least influence in all parts of the world, consequently becoming the main reason why English is so widespread. When most trading or colonizing was done around the globe, including business and administrative dealings, it was mainly done is English, which took over French which was then the wide spoken language. English became tied with ‘proper’ education and became rather elitist. So now we know the roots as to why English became the language monster it is today, let’s talk about learning experience, it’s influence, and lastly, it’s limitations, among other topics. 

Native speakers would argue that English is a relatively easy language to learn, despite their many complaints about it constantly not making any sense, while it is true to a sense, I would argue that it’s less easy and just more simple. There are difficulties in English and that has more to do with the specifics than anything else. You see, learning the nuances and the absolute unit of vocabulary in the English language is the tough part of it, though parts of that can be bypassed as well. You see, English, according to the Oxford dictionary may singlehanded be the language that has the most words compared to any other world language. And the reason for such a giant volume of words is because English, over the course of the British rule, became an amalgamation of foreign words with mainly Germanic and Romance language roots, as well as some Latin influence. The British ‘borrowed’ a few words from the countries they colonized and over time, they mutated and became incorporated into the English lexicon. So English is no stranger to foreign text, making the structure of the language extremely accommodating to new words. Not to mention, the rate at which English absorbs vocabulary and warps its meaning is astounding compared to older world languages, like French or Chinese. Take the word ‘cute’ for example, it originally meant sharp or shrewd, and yet it is now primarily used as a descriptor for small, dainty, and child-like things and/or features. 

Continuing, the reason as to why English can be so confounding for new and learning students is due to the fact that because of all the reasons above, it’s become a melting pot for languages. When first developed during the 5th century, it drew inspiration from Germanic and Romance languages, and unfortunately that meant a double dose of vocabulary. It created a two part description system in one language, and as the British empire expanded English only collected more and more phrases and words from the nations they conquered. Take these words for example; great (Latin), magnificent (Latin to Old French), and amazing (Proto Germanic). While native English speakers can understand their each and specific meanings, those who are unfamiliar with the most common situations these phrases are used in might believe they’re interchangeable. And to add to the difficulty, or to make it easier, there is no correct way to speak English, unless you’re a traditionalist or as I like to say, racist. Because English is so open to change, often times the original meaning of certain words or phrases can shift over time, changing with common usage and the rise and fall of trend words. It being the most mixed language in the world while it does add difficulty for those going the straight forward method of learning English, it also makes it a bit easier for those who struggle with it. English at the end of the day is still English, whether it is accented or ‘broken’ or Black english. And that gives new learners a bit of a safety net when first learning. 

Now let’s talk untranslatable words, and why English lacks them, and how it relates to culture more than just mere words. The metaphorical melting pot that is the English language is equivalent to mixing every color of the rainbow together, the result is one color made up of many different ones. Untranslatable words are inherently based on the culture and history of a language as it was passed on down from generation to generation relatively unchanged. There are very few English words that can boast that reputation, over time with the constant absorbing and warping of different parts of different languages, English all at once became every culture and no culture at the same time. English has become its change, it’s what defines it and makes it a universal language. However, the price you pay for that is the lack of culture. Let’s take a fairly traditional language for example, like Japanese which the earliest dated text was actually written completely in Chinese but is classified as a language isolate. An example of an untranslatable word or phrase would be, ‘mono no aware’, literal translation being ‘the pathos of things,’ is a Japanese term for the sudden awareness of ephemerality and impermanence and the wistfulness that comes with that. It originally comes from the Heian period, then popularized in the 18th century by Motoori Norinaga in his literary criticism of The Tale of Genji, it became central to his philosophy of literature and eventually became a Japanese cultural tradition. The phrase is made up in part of the individual meaning of the words in the phrase and the emotion it is related to; the ‘ahh-ness of things, life, and love’. English does not and cannot have the historical ties to certain words because it is not a language isolate, its an amalgamation therefore any cultural ties regarding a word isn’t passed on and never came a shared experience. Untranslatable words isn’t so much that they’re untranslatable, it’s that you cannot translate or put into words the depth of experience, feeling, and hundreds of years of history and culture. 

Nevertheless English is a great translation language, although untranslatable words are exactly that, English is the language that can get the closest when compared to other languages. With so many description words and even more synonyms, English can narrow down the exact meaning pretty closely. While no texts in its original language should be translated to English, if one wanted to then English would prove to be the closest and more accurate way of translating. Let’s go back to Japan once again, take the japanese phrase ‘komorebi’ for example, a direct and literal translation would be ‘sunlight shining through the trees’ but a more accurate translation would be ‘sunlight as it filters through the trees’. To English speakers, the usage of the word ‘filter’ is a unique one, as in this instance it captures the specific porous state of the sunlight as compared to the direct kanji translation just meaning ‘shine through’. It helps capture part of the essence of what komorebi is meant to feel. The liberty taken in the translation serves to better convey what exactly someone could feel hearing this word, and what image it is suppose to conjure up. Anyone can picture light shining through trees, but throw in the word filter, and it adds another level to your mental image. And that’s all because English had multiple words that have words made for quite specific descriptions and contexts. Certain words allude to different varying emotions and states of being which makes English, arguably, the ideal language to be translated into. It’s really the little things that bring to life the complexity of translation. It also helps that it’s a universal language, which means that the knowledge of the original text can be spread across multiple countries instead of being limited to just one or two languages. 

It can be very easy to forget or even know why English is the universal language it is today, it’s not something that people are taught or even seek to find out. You can sit and argue why English shouldn’t be the global language and you’d probably have some good facts to back it up, however, it’d be hard to change that now. Having grown up learning and dealing with English, I won’t blame some people for hating it or wishing it isn’t their primary language, but it’s hard to deny in this day and age that it has its beneficials. And it may now have the cultural important or long standing history that other world languages do but maybe history is being made now, and far into the future, the universal language will be something else and English will have its history being dated as today. 

I read something really, how do I put this, interesting, in class today. Okay, so quick sidebar, I wouldn’t really say that it was tugging-at-the-heartstrings relatable in the sense that I don’t want to fold too quickly into the emotional side of this piece just because I happen to also be Asian-American, you know? But that aside, what I read today was Mother Tongue, originally it was released as a talk in 1989 and then, published by the Threepenny Review in 1990. It’s a personal essay by Amy Tan. Who is she, you might ask, well, she’s a Chinese American author (loving the range of representation we’re reading by the way, I would say ten out of ten for that by itself), and allow me to flex a bit for her. She went to more than one college, and got a BA in English and Linguistics, and an MA in Linguistics. Not to mention, she dropped out of pre-med against the will of her asian mother, which deserves it’s own honorable mention because that is terrifying. Oh, also, crazy fun fact, okay maybe not so fun once I actually say it, but when she was studying at Berkeley, her roommate was murdered and she had to identify the body. The incident and obviously, the trauma from it, left her mute for a while, and on the death day every year for the next ten years, she wouldn’t be able to speak on that day. Insane fact, right? Another not so fun fact, to make her more relatable for us, she also suffers from depression and struggles with suicidal ideation. Which as you may know, felt that heavy in my time. Okay, but let me actually talk about the actual essay.

Mother Tongue, at its very core, is about the this one specific and ignorant idea that I feel like only really exists in America; where if someone doesn’t speak English ‘fluently’ they are considered less intelligent or if I can be blunt, they’re considered dumb. And I’m using quotes for ‘fluent’ because the frame of reference for ‘fluent English’ is based on white standards, and to quote the second essay I’ll be talking about later on, written by June Jordan, “White standards control our official and popular judgments of verbal proficiency and correct, or incorrect, language skills, including speech.” And she was right then, and now, and chances are, she will be far into the future. Amy Tan tackles this ideology in a very personal way in her essay, having it centered around her mother and how Amy Tan herself felt through the years handling this, from childhood to now adulthood. Her piece gives off this feeling of a child going through emotions that feel too big for herself at the time, from handling grown conversations for her mother to then coming to a gradual understanding of the situation. 

It’s this almost very first generation way of thinking right? The embarrassment and shame you feel when growing up, being alienated because you’re already not like everyone else, then on top of that, having to feel the struggle of filling in the spaces that your parents can’t fill, and that distance from them because you aren’t like your parents or their parents either. Having shoes too big to fill would be a closer description, but now imagine you had to fill those shoes with your hands. Not the best metaphor but I think the confusion and frustration comes across. Amy Tan gives this example where her mom had her call up the stockbroker in New York, pretending to be her mother, to ask for a check that her mom hadn’t been sent. And she just paints this really realistic picture of what it’s like, down to the awkwardness of a child pretending to be older than they actually are, to then the shame that creeps up on your neck when her mom eventually goes to said stockbroker, and starts yelling at them in her ‘impeccable broken English.’ It gives me second-hand embarrassment reading it, because I remember being in that exact position when I was younger, and that lingering emotion comes back full-force. One thing I will note, is that because this is being written from an adult’s point of view now, I think it translates better to us, aka her audience. Let me explain. 

The main thing that sticks out to me, is this moment where Amy Tan says that she winces when she refers to her mother’s English as ‘broken’ or ‘fractured’. Showing growth aside, let’s unpack the years of having to unlearn something that society tries so hard to engrain in you; that ‘unperfected English’ is not enough. That ‘limited’ English is exactly that, and that the people speaking it, are a reflection of that ‘English’. Amy Tan does this lovely thing, of making this essay about growth and realization so easily digestible to anyone reading it. While no one has these exact memories, they can overlay their own experiences over hers, and find common ground, especially those with immigrant parents. Same sentence, different font is how I would put it. Those reading this essay feel seen, I know I felt like that when I was reading it. The transition of shame to acceptance to realizing it was never one individual’s burden to bear is something I know I one hundred precent felt. The Asian American experience is a unique cog in the machine. I won’t get too much into it but, as someone who is Asian American, I can say the selling point of her essay is it’s realistic, and raw, and up-lifting portrayal of growing up with a parent who’s English was never good enough in society’s eyes. It’s clear from obviously my emotional response and the general theme of her essay that her intended audience would be Asian-Americans.

Amy Tan in her essays constantly disproving the American idea of fluency. With every story she provides, it’s planned, plotted to make you sympathize, and most importantly, challenges that idea. In addition to that, her mother’s character is expanded with each example. The first example of the political gangster in Shanghai fleshes out her mother as her own person, her story about that situation broadens the reader’s idea about her character. Showing that her life is not limited to just the US, Amy Tan is saying to us that her mom has her own experiences and stories to tell that isn’t based around her English, that this goes far beyond even the essay she’s writing. The second example, with the stockbroker, showcases her mother’s interests in areas that most people would consider for ‘intelligent people’, such as reading Forbes, listening to Wall Street, etc. All sorts of things that Amy Tan said herself that she can’t begin to understand. And finally, the last example for Amy Tan I’ll talk about because this is getting pretty long, is the ‘far less humorous’ one. Where her mother had gone to a hospital for an appointment, to talk about a benign brain tumor that showed up on a CAT scan she received a month ago, and the hospital lost her CAT scan. Long story short, her mother argued with the doctor, who in the end called her daughter who spoke perfect English, and oh isn’t it a surprise, they suddenly had answers. You can see in the examples how Amy Tan scales down with each one, the first is in reference to the world, then you go a little smaller, to the general fact of life her mother lived, then you go even smaller, and it’s the personal experience her mother goes through. I think it’s neat, how Amy Tan closes in on her examples for her mainly Asian-American audience, effectively drawing us in, because if I’m being honest, I didn’t really begin to understand her examples until the second one. The first was hard for me to get but that just goes to show to broad Amy Tan’s writing can go, and how intimate it can be. 

Okay, now you know the general idea of Amy Tan and her whole essay. Now let’s analyze June Jordan and why I brought her up when I’m talking about Amy Tan, because while they wrote about different topics, like I said, same sentence, different font. The essay I’m going to be referencing by June Jordan is, ‘Nobody Mean More To Me Than You, and the Future Life of Willie Jordan,’ because it’s a piece that’s more relevant than ever in todays time. It was a bit difficult for me to read this piece, because while I can’t directly relate to it, it has elements that made me think back to Amy Tan’s ‘broken English’ rhetoric. June Jordan was a Jamaican American bisexual poet, activist, and teacher. Modern day Da Vinci if you ask me. But in this essay, she speaks specifically about how white standards pushed the idea of how black English isn’t considered ‘proper’ and how it served to perpetuate the idea that Black people were less educated and less intelligent just because they spoke an English that wasn’t ‘up to standard’. Similar to Amy Tan’s theme of how her mother was limited in life because of her ‘limited’ English. More than just that, June Jordan also writes in that essay about the life of a student of hers, named Willie Jordan, whose brother is brutally killed by white policemen and how her class rose up and mobilized what they were taught in an attempt to bring justice to his death. The setting of this essay really aids in the sudden tonal shift at the end, the tension that we didn’t know was building up finally overflowing. 

June Jordan does an extraordinary job at providing examples and giving them a life of their own, if you ask me. With every rule she writes down, she gives context and background as to why and not just ‘it is how it is’, like a lot of ‘standard’ English happens to work. For example, rule number 3; ‘if it don’t sound like something that come out somebody mouth then it don’t sound right. If it don’t sound right then it ain’t hardly right. Period.’ She then follows it up with how two weeks into composition of Black English, and the students ‘agonizingly’ trying to spell it out, they arrived at the conclusion that Black English is a predominantly meant to be spoken. It really nails into the readers that the rules are there for a reason and the Black English wasn’t born out of laziness in respects to the English language. In fact, in an article written on the NY times by James Baldwin, he details it perfectly, ‘people evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances…in order to not be submerged by a reality they cannot articulate.’ Black English is just that, a means of communication that evolved from the inherent need to find control in situations they had none over. Or in not as many words, ‘Black English is the creation of the black diaspora’. This article explains how Black English came to be and June Jordan expands on that, and lists out why it is the way it is. 

In the article, James brings up a really interesting example. Of how ‘jazz’ was originally a sexual term in the Black community before white people ‘purified’ it, in an age where they attempted to imitate and glorify Black experiences and culture. Yet despite wanting everything to do with Black culture, white people consistently reject it and minimize its history at the same time. In June Jordan’s essay, following the death of Reggie Jordan, Willie Jordan’s brother, they chose to write a message to the news, in Black English, and to no surprise, it was rejected. June Jordan writes, ‘Newsday rejected the piece…none of the TV news reporters picked up the story. Nobody raised $180,000 to prosecute the murder of Reggie Jordan. Reggie Jordan is really dead’. The finality of the situation hits the reader like a brick. Us as the audience is predominantly made up of those who can relate to the situation or at the very least empathize with it. Everyone in the audience knows someone who knows someone who has experienced something like this, if not gone through it themselves. Loss doesn’t discriminate and the pain of that is universal. Actions often have consequences but life is also unjust and unfair. The universe won’t be any more favorable to you just because you’re a good person, and that’s hard to swallow. But the finality of it all hits different, and even more now as you read this, you’re reminded of how common this unfairness really is.

On the topic of setting and why it plays quite a large role in the way June Jordan appeals to one’s emotional side, much of the text is written in the safe space of a classroom, where a group of Black students are learning about their spoken language, that before this, was regarded as ‘not right’ or unworthy of spending time even unraveling the specifics, shown by the reactions of those around them, ‘you studying that shit? At school?’. But after being taught that it is something worth exploring, that Black English has purpose and reason and is just as valid and correct is Standard English, for it to all be thrown back at you by people who will never know the struggle, it’s harsh and final, coming to terms with this reality. And the way June Jordan wrote it, honestly takes my breath away. It’s a serious issue, being written in a manner that does its best to showcase the unbelievable nature of the situation. James Baldwin writes that the brutal truth of the matter is white people are unwilling to bend to Black experiences unless it serves the white purpose, which June Jordan nails with her expression and flow of her essay.

I didn’t mean to do such a dramatic tonal shift but it’s a serious issue to talk about. Especially since American was built on slavery and the Black experience differs from a lot of others. I’m in no way comparing the two, it’s not an argument of who had it worse. We’ll get no where with arguments like that, it only serves to drive us apart when the larger issue isn’t between the two communities. I brought the two authors together to talk about mainly because the topic is similar. They both deal with the language they were raised with in their respectively community, and they both talk about the stigma and prejudice they’ve faced because of it whether it be internalized or shown in discriminatory ways from outside forces. In what I’ve read of June Jordan and Amy Tan, they both have a clear cut goal. To bring awareness to the issue and in some ways, alleviate that outsider feeling that their audience may feel. Their examples draw in the readers and makes the individual experience something that can be felt by all. Especially regarding everything that is happening now with the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the Stop Asian Hate movement. 

As of March this year, after everything that happened with the Black Lives Matter movement and more recently, the string of violent attacks against Asian Americans, these essays are more needed than ever. It’s all too easy to read and relate to these issues from an outside past perspective, but now we are living it. And even for a little, if the anxiety can be eased by sharing experiences, then I believe the essays have served their purpose. While I won’t and can’t speak for the Black experience in regards to June Jordan, I will say that in light of recent events in the Asian American community, Amy Tan’s essay helped me put a lot of things into perspective. Although things have escalated, I know that my turmoil is not my own. To have others help shoulder the pain can be a crutch. On a bit of a lighter note, while it does make me a bit more depressed that not much has changed since these pieces were published, I at the very least can hold out hope that we are not alone. Change can and will come. There is enough of us fighting to put it into motion. 

In conclusion, I know this has gotten bit long, not a bit, a lot actually. We did get quite serious towards the end but it had to be done. Such is life and all of that. I just thought it was an interesting essay to build on and to address. Got a bit side tracked on other topics as well but what can you do? It’s important to reflect on writing that makes you think. My favorite quote that fits quite well to this giant train of thought of mine is, ‘things that are worth doing are worth taking the time to do’. Take time to really delve deep into the quotes and ideas that stick to your head. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get an essay out of it. But anyways, that was my delve into rhetorics in personal essays and whatnot. How was your class? 

‘What is love?’ Is the age old question. And honestly, there is no right answer, maybe it’s a question that doesn’t expect one but my answer would be simple. That love is language. Hundreds of languages, all stemming from somewhere, some similar, others vastly different, yet each on special and specific to someone. From one heart to another, one language to the next, it’s easy to have love be lost in translation. How do you get it to reach? Will it? Love like language must be learned. In the beginning, there will be difficulty getting the point across, the other party may not even understand. But with time and patience and diligence, words come easier, stringing to sentences, and they will know. But it’s not just about ‘I love you’, that can sit too heavily on your tongue, like taffy, sticking to your gums and teeth. Love can be said and shown in so many different ways, not so easily constrained to its three letter reputation. 

My dad never told me that he loved me, never saying ‘I love you’, but that isn’t to say that he didn’t. Growing up, I had always assumed that love was something to be said, to be written, to be told, and yet, being so caught up in wanting that version of love, I had lost track in all the ways I had been loved. What is expected isn’t always what comes most easily. So there were no ‘I love you’s or ‘I’m sorry’s in my household, no ‘good job’s or ‘well done’s, there was only that rough, unpolished way of love which to no one’s surprise, is all my dad knew. He was never told those things, how was he to know that it wasn’t what I expected? ‘Have you eaten yet?’ ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘Put on a jacket, it’s cold out’. My grandmother passed that onto him, I’m sure he didn’t understand at the time either, just like me, how to translate that into love. But it was always there, unconditioned and always forgiving, the type of answers to questions that never really matter. So I ask myself, how could oranges possibly matter? Yet born of scarred hands that smell of cigarette and metal, I’ve learned to love even that. There is love in understanding an orange. My dad never told me he loved me, but he always peeled my oranges.

Love, you come to learn, is quiet. For all its grandeur and tales of sacrifice, its the love that hardly pass as stories, that often mean the most. I remember my dad, sitting by the table on Lunar New Years, and wordlessly peeling an orange. Because for all I loved oranges, I hated peeling them. There’s something about the way the pith would dig into my nails and the way that bitter smell of the rind would linger there for hours. And my dad remembered the fact, despite me only being 8 when I told him, nose wrinkled by the sink, scrubbing at the tips of my nails. I can peel them myself now, but even then, he will peel my oranges for me, always taking it from my hands before I can even start. It’s a secret exchange, he peels my oranges and I will split half with him. How was I to know then, what kind of love was said? The clink of a water cup being filled, the halved and shared orange fruit, the umbrella tilted closer to me on a rainy day, what language is that? My dad voiced his love in action, something I was unaccustomed to. Small gestures and offers to make my life easier because it is all he knows how to love me. How was I supposed to understand that? ‘Let me peel this for you, because it is all I can do.’ On most days, as I reflect back, I still feel like a child, just learning to speak, and why fire burns.

The experience of love is a unique one, it can be said in so many different ways. How can simple words encompass all that we feel? What of the misunderstandings and room for doubt? I won’t say action in love is more important than spoken word. How one receives and portrays their love is up to the individual, some value oranges over ‘I love you’s and it’s up to the individual to understand the meaning. But that isn’t taught as much as those three words. The language of love is not limited to what we have to say, but expanding to the actions we do. Action often had no time for thought, which can mean it is all the more genuine than the words we try to filter to make palatable for our audience. We place ‘I love you’ on such a high pedestal yet the more we attempt to define love, the longer the narrative is, the story prolongs itself and we get lost in trying to put it in words. Action for me, is a more natural connector There is something to be said about the unspoken connection between two people, one helping the other finish a half-formed thought in their head without ever saying a word. Love that fits itself in the cracks of our daily lives is just so much more than love that interrupts and takes up space. It’s important to understand this kind of love, the kind that is most meaningful in as little words needed between two people just looking to share something. It will go the long way of showing your appreciation for someone, your thanks for their time and dedication, as well as both your emotional investments. 

The language our love speaks plays like a soundtrack in our daily lives, moving seamlessly from scene to scene, music, as it’s known to, transcends. When you love someone, there is no force in your actions, there just is. Like unspoken actions and its subtlety, blink and you’ll often miss it. To understand the scene, you must first be aware of it; why this shot? Why this movement? Why this song? And when you find the answers, then you will understand. There is too much time wasted on misunderstanding, those scenes taken out of context that will play behind your eyes every night you go to bed. And I know that all too well. Some nights, I close my eyes and I can hear the running water of the sink, and I can smell the citrus as it permeates through the kitchen, as it lingers on my fingertips, and I can feel love slipping past my fingers as I offhandedly give it away.