Multilingualism, writing in different languages | Elizabeth Grech
Speaking and writing in different languages is quite a privilege, opening up communication doors onto other realms, allowing us to achieve a deeper understanding of different cultures and to navigate between one and the other. Nevertheless juggling between languages can be quite challenging, requiring the keeping of a balance that is hard to manage. When we speak more than one maternal language, are we comfortable writing on all subjects possible in both languages in a similar way? Or do balances shift depending on situations, people we speak to, issues we debate? My main maternal language is Maltese, then English (English is also an official language in Malta). I have been living in France for almost 20 years so French has become my everyday language. I write poetry in Maltese and translate it into French but I would find it impossible to write an article, translate a novel or give a lecture in Maltese. Yet, when I am emotional or very tired, my tongue automatically switches to Maltese. At times I feel frustrated as I have the impression I master different languages but my knowledge of each one of them is then limited. I sometimes start writing an email and when rereading I realise that sentences are written combining different languages. I feel that these languages I write, speak, read and think, feed each other inside me as they intermingle. This definitely impacts the way I write, the words I choose when writing in each and every one of them.
Juana Adcock (Mexico/UK), you are both a poet and translator working both in English and Spanish. You are among those poets who combine and experiment with multilingualism in your poetic works using your writings but also those of others in different languages. I was recently intrigued by the title of a blog post on Lithub.com asking, “Are we different people in different languages”? What do you think?
I think about this often, and I don’t have a definitive answer. What is becoming clearer to me is that languages are relational, reflecting a unique set of relations between things in the world even at the most basic linguistic level. For example, when I look at my own hand, in English I say simply “my hand”, whereas in Spanish I would most likely say “la mano” (the hand): “me quemé la mano” means “I burnt my hand” but literally “I burnt (myself) the hand”. How absurd it would be to describe our own body like that in English, as if it didn’t belong to us! I wouldn’t say I’m ultimately a different person in English or in Spanish (or any other language), but rather, that each language teaches me different ways of being in the world – a different relationship to time, space, movement, objects, my own body, the people around me – which inevitably translates into slightly different ways of expressing myself, and yes: ways of being, of organising my days. Even my voice changes: in Spanish I find it easier to speak from my chest, whereas in English I more often find myself in a slightly higher pitch, more in my head; perhaps in a quieter or weaker tone. But how much of that is cultural?
