Flags are embattled emblems, tied to histories of dominance, conquest, and nationhood. If language is fluid and shaped by those who speak it, perhaps it is time to rethink how we visually represent it.
Browsing: language
When a language does not feel like your own, speaking it is a mortifying and wildly uncomfortable experience.
Our relationship is a constant learning curve, much like my Bangla — there is always something new we do not know, something we do not understand, something incomprehensible
Beautifully written and delivered, The Tamilization of Ahilan Ratnamohan is a unique and intimate piece of metatheatre that transcends traditional boundaries of theatre and reality.
Words are invented rather than born, and even if they seem to evolve organically, there is often someone behind them pulling the strings.
Muslims and Hindus are not friends in the Indian Subcontinent. It is not something I understood the depth of until…
Carrying where you’re from around with you wherever you go means that accents mean a lot to many people, even if they aren’t aware of it.
Time is an abstract and nebulous concept – it’s not something we can see, and its nature is difficult to physically determine. Because of this, much of the language we use to describe time relies on metaphor. While these metaphors are typically consistent within a language, they tend to differ cross-linguistically.
Every comma I added, split infinitive I repaired, hung preposition I cushioned in noun phrases was proof that I was articulate. Articulate was the last few marks on my English assignments, the judge’s feedback from the debates I won, the glowing words printed on my report card. To be articulate was to be intelligent. To be worth listening to.
It hits me in these moments that there are worlds – literary, familial, cultural – that are almost entirely inaccessible to me, in a language that was meant to be mine.
