Between two languages
How bilingualism shapes the way I experience emotions
In English, the word “love” extends across multiple contexts. We love our friends, our parents, our favourite song. Its association with everyday things slowly erodes the weight we would usually reserve for special circumstances. Then, when we need love to feel momentous again, we reach for metaphors tangled in stories and poems, or quote the latest romcom as if a scripted confession might restore the gravity the word once held.
My mother tongue, Urdu, is less casual with love. There is ‘‘pyaar,” an everyday term for gentle affection. There is “mohabbat,” a word used for a deep love that persists over time, based on mutual understanding and respect. And then there is the word “ishq,” which represents an all-consuming feeling of passion reserved for intense romantic love. They all plainly translate to “love” in English. The meaning technically remains the same, but the emotional intensity they carry barely survives translation.
Urdu is full of words that refuse to shrink into English equivalents. My parents often tell me to have “sabr,” a term loosely defined as patience. But the sabr my mother asks of me when she swats my hand away from the samosa she just prepared is not the same as the sabr my father invokes when life begins to overwhelm me. In the latter, patience becomes endurance wrapped in faith.
Growing up, Urdu was the language of reprimands and lullabies. It was taught by relatives who spoke in proverbs and the poetic cadence of prayers murmured under their breath. The language feels natural on my tongue; the emotions travel through generations before forming into speech. In Urdu, it’s difficult to hide one’s true emotion, even the smallest words can reveal more than they intend.
English came later. It was the language I learned to raise my hand in, taught from television and textbooks and red-inked corrections scratched on grammar tests. In English, emotions fold into manageable phrases. Saying “I’m okay” encompassed everything and nothing at the same time, providing closure to unwanted conversations even if the feelings remained unresolved. Even the phrase “I love you” felt too light, as if it had been used too many times, for too many things.
Studies on bilingualism note that emotions behave differently depending on the language we use to express them. Research suggests that bilingual speakers switch between their native language (L1) and a second language (L2) because one language will feel better suited for particular environments and emotional contexts. Emotional reactions can feel less intense in a second language than in the first, meaning the language learned later in life can create a small distance between ourselves and what we’re trying to convey.
Bilingualism also expands the way emotions are understood. Since bilingual speakers move between multiple languages and cultural systems, they tend to develop a better understanding of a broader range of emotions. However, researchers emphasize that this depends on the context and social environment that conversations take place in.
I notice these shifts most in my friendships. In friendships built primarily through English, my words frame stories in a deliberate way, supplementing key moments with explanation and context. These friends know me through paragraphs and prose. Whereas with friends that speak Urdu, explanation becomes unnecessary. A single word would collapse our group into a fit of giggles and a shift in tone will land a joke that would dissolve upon translation. In the same way, English conversations feel more like an analysis, in which problems are described, debated, and dismissed through discussion. While in Urdu, the same story can feel closer to a confession with the explanation more of an afterthought to the emotion.
Yet, living between languages has changed over time. English interrupts my Urdu more often, replacing nouns and technical words, before entire phrases arrive on my tongue quicker than they do in my mother tongue. Linguists describe this phenomenon as code-switching, the ability for bilingual speakers to shift between languages depending on circumstances. Sometimes the interruption feels necessary, allowing me to stress certain aspects of my speech. Other times, it feels a bit like betrayal, as though my native language hesitates to make itself known in front of certain audiences.
Switching languages mid-sentence became an adaptation to the world around me. Certain feelings arrive more naturally in Urdu while others belong to English. This could likely be because of the difference in each language’s structure. English, a head-initial language, places the emotional core, such as a verb, before the complement, like an object. This format reveals meaning quicker like when we say sentences like “I miss you.” On the other hand, Urdu, a head-final language, places the complement before the core. The structure builds toward the emotional center by placing the verb later in the sentence. This creates a subtle difference where in English emotions appear to be declared, while in Urdu, they accumulate.
I often wondered whether living with both languages meant one was reserved for the real version of my emotions. But, the longer I spend with both, the less I feel that divide. What felt like a loss in translation now offers an expanded vocabulary. Together, they do not compete for dominance, but rather present different ways of saying what I truly mean.
