Mother's Day and the Mother Tounge

My graduation ceremony for my Chinese major was on Mother's Day.  The best graduation speech I ever heard was my classmate talking about why so many languages use the phrase "mother" when describing a native language.   In Chinese,母語 mu2 yu3 literally translates to mother language.  I wish I had a copy of that speech, but my paraphrasing is only a shadow compared to the original.

He talked about how our relationship to language is as intimate as our relationships to our mother.  If we think about it, the way we communicate and are able to exist in the world is through our mothers, and that our mother tongues frame the way we see the world.  And of course he gave a shout out to his own mother as well.

Although I first learned TeoChew (a Chinese dialect) and English at the same time, TeoChew has a much more visceral and intuitive oomph.   For me, I never empathized with English poetry until I hit college, but Chinese poetry was thoroughly enjoyable was I around 10.  It was because I wanted to learn more about my mother tongue that propelled me to major in Chinese.

If you are bilingual, or event if you only know one language, think about how your native language feels compared to a secondary language.  I like to describe this feeling as eating your grandma/mom's best dish versus eating a well prepared dish from a culture you are unfamiliar with.   A good dish from a high end restaurant taste's good, but mom's good cooking hits you at a deeper level.  Your cultural history, your biological mechanisms that evolved to process that particular food, and your mother's understanding of your personal preferences nourish your soul with that one dish.  That's the feeling you get from speaking in your mother tongue.

So as you are talking to your mom, eating with your mom, or even thinking about your mom, remember that you think and speak with your mother tongue.

Happy Mother's Day!






**Personal note: I'm enjoying cheesecake with mom.**