The beauty and bittersweetness of our mother tongues
Two students reflect on how language is a patchwork of emotions, our inner selves, and life’s deepest answers
The Medium asked two writers to reflect on their native languages. UTM is a culturally proud campus, just as Canada is a culturally proud nation built on the labour and love of the immigrants that continue to shape its fabric. Yet, behind the pride and beauty of our cultural identities lies the difficulties of calling a foreign culture and language “home.”
There is no one way to grieve the linguistic and cultural compromises we make when we immigrate. Not only are we challenged to adapt to a new land, but we must also build a new self. We bring some things with us from our motherland. We leave others behind. Some things, however, make it halfway. In between the letting go and the holding on that many immigrants experience, there’s grief, irony, and the bittersweetness of rediscovery.
The stories of these two writers show the enduring sacredness of mother tongues and the unique challenges that immigrant students face in holding on, letting go, or straddling the sometimes painful in-betweens of the cultural self.
Debbie: What language does my soul speak?
Cantonese, my mother tongue, influenced the first half of my life in Hong Kong, where I grew up. To this day, I still communicate with my family in this language, which I can read, write, and speak fluently. But as I became older and moved to Canada, I found myself drawn to a different language. English became my way of expression, and I feel more comfortable expressing my thoughts and emotions.
But how strange is it to pour my soul into words that are not my own? Is language merely a tool for communication, or does it serve a more profound purpose? As a teenager, I struggled with my mental health, and writing became an emotional outlet for me. I’d write letters to myself whenever words felt stuck in my throat. Weirdly though, instead of the language I had spoken for more than 15 years, I wrote these letters in English.
During a therapy session, my therapist asked if I felt more comfortable expressing myself in English. I couldn’t answer. It felt almost like a taboo to find comfort in a language outside my culture. In Cantonese culture, emotions are rarely spoken aloud. Even love is shown through small acts rather than directly saying, “I love you.”
Cantonese has always felt like a direct, almost abrasive language to me. I’ve even been told that it sounds like I’m arguing whenever I speak it. But on a different level, language is just energy, vibrating at its own frequency.
As a trilingual person who grew up learning English and Mandarin alongside Cantonese, I’ve noticed how my personality shifts with each language. In Cantonese, I am direct and intimidating; in English, I am vibrant and outgoing; in Mandarin, I am soft-spoken and introverted.
I’ve always wondered if human connection can exist beyond language. English has become my emotional language, the one I turn to when I need to make sense of my own thoughts. But this choice has also created a strange feeling of detachment within myself.
Are love and understanding defined by language? I used to think they weren’t. But whenever I tried to express something deeply personal in Cantonese, the words came out meaningless and flat; they just didn’t capture my voice. Even with friends from the same cultural and linguistic background, I rely on English when I can’t find the right word in Cantonese. It feels more genuine. But then I wonder if language is how we translate our souls. I still speak Cantonese with my family, but it’s like there’s a part of me they can’t fully know when I speak in my mother tongue. Am I holding back a part of myself from those who only speak Cantonese? Can I ever truly be understood by them?
Maybe, after all, the real question isn’t whether language defines connection but whether it defines me as a person. English feels like the most authentic expression of my soul, a language that lets me express my thoughts and feelings without restraint. Yet, there’s an ache in knowing that my native tongue feels foreign to me.
Perhaps language isn’t just a tool for communication; it’s a mirror reflecting the parts of myself I choose to embrace or hide. But maybe the truest language of the soul isn’t defined by words at all. It’s found in the rare and beautiful connection where someone reads between the lines, hears the unspoken thoughts lingering behind my words, and understands me without needing everything explained. Maybe that’s what I’m truly searching for: those who speak my soul’s language, even if words cannot.
Madhav: Balancing my linguistic dualities
My mother tongue is Malayalam, the main language of the South Indian state Kerala. As far as Indian languages go, Malayalam is not as popular as Hindi, but popular enough to be one of the 24 national languages that make up India’s linguistic mosaic.
Both my parents speak Malayalam and were adamant that I do the same. So, I grew up watching Malayalam movies, listening to Malayalam songs, and speaking to my parents in Malayalam.
I may have a better understanding of English’s technicalities, but Malayalam is the language I cry in. It’s the language I am more confident and casual in; the language where I am just a bit closer to who I want to be.
However, there’s one thing that makes me hesitate to claim it as my native language: I cannot read or write in Malayalam (unless you consider kindergartner level reading and writing as qualifiers). My attempts at writing have been catastrophic, with my family laughing at my pathetic attempts to spell out even basic words.
At first, this divide didn’t bother me as much. I could speak to other Malayalees, and there was a plethora of English literature that I could consume. But as I grow older and feel closest to my Malayalee self, I regret not learning more. If simply speaking Malayalam brings me closer to my truest self, then I can’t help but grieve the versions of myself that I am not capable of embodying by not be able to read or write my language. Would I know or experience myself differently had I learned to write in my mother tongue?
Recently, I was reading Nalukettu by M.T. Vasudevan, a highly acclaimed Malayalam author who has written prolifically about the social and spiritual struggles of modern life in India among other topics. I wanted to get closer to Malayalam literature, through which I hoped to understand myself better. While it was a work of translation, I couldn’t get through the first few pages without breaking a smile.
Even though it was in English, I could still understand the Malayalam references. I could read a certain idiom and realize what Malayalam idiom they were referring to. While reading Vasudevan’s work, I started translating the English back into Malayalam in my head, trying to decipher what Vesudevan actually wrote.
As I kept on turning the pages, I realized something about myself. I have expressed my Malayam thoughts by writing in English.
It might not come across in writing, but I am a rather shy person, often coming across as taciturn or nervous. The only place I could really express my voice was with writing.
When I write, I have time to express the thoughts inside me – the Malayalee inside me – in English. I’m able to blend Malayam and English together to challenge and explore myself without feeling regret, balancing both the languages that have shaped my world.
This article is testament to that.
Features Editor (Volume 51); Associate Features Editor (Volume 50) — Madhav is a third year student completing a double major in mathematics and computer science, and a minor in professional writing. Everyone in UTM has a unique story that makes them special and deserves to be told. As the Features Editor, Madhav wants to narrate these types of stories with creative and descriptive writing. In his off-time, Madhav loves watching anime, reading manga or fantasy novels and listening to music.