First Language - Tumblr Posts
I just finished reading the first one on this list, and holy. crap. As a Czech guy who's lived in Australia for like a decade straight now, it really resonated with me. Especially now. Recently I've ceased contact with my toxic family, the only remaining people that I would normally speak Czech with. And after a few months of only speaking English, I've found I simply miss talking in Czech.
It sounds weird to say that I miss a certain language; after all, it's not like it's been stolen from me like someone might steal a material object. I can still watch Czech movies, youtubers, whatever. I can mutter Czech profanities under my breath when someone pisses me off in public (I usually don't, but I could). But there's something about being able to communicate my thoughts and feelings to another living breathing human being in the first language I learned, that I can't replicate.
To me, language is like a lens I see the world through. I don't know if this is what it's like for others, but when I speak or think in another language it feels like a different separate part of myself. That first essay really nails it when it talks about how certain memories and emotions are so intertwined with language, and how they're supressed when that language is also supressed. So at the risk of sounding cliché, language really does shape my identity.
A bit irrelevant, but I've been trying to write a particular story set in Czechia, but with the English language. And I just can't get the vibes right. I have a sneaking suspicion writing in Czech would fix that problem.
But thank you for posting those essays, it was something I didn't know I needed.
Okay now I need to read the others on that list-
no one asked but here’s a few essays about people’s connections with their first languages that i like :)
The Strange Persistence of First Languages by Julie Sedivy
Mother Tongue by Yoojin Grace Wuertz
When My Baby Says Her First Word, Will it Be in Russian or English? by Alina Dizik
My First Language by Bernardo Atxaga
