As globalization continues, cultural diversity is increasingly threatened and some languages are disappearing completely. Whenever these languages disappear, their concepts, traditions, cultures, ways of thinking, and philosophies also die out.
To preserve the richness of humanity and live in a respectful world, it is important to work to preserve the existence of linguistic diversity. And, in particular, by maintaining the mother tongue, which is the basis of our first interactions in society and our inherent gifts. This is the power of the mother tongue. For the luckiest among us, it is in our first language that we learn to read, count, and write! However, the fact remains that some do not have access to education in a language that they speak or understand.
In order to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and underline the importance of multilingualism in our societies, International Mother Tongue Day has been observed every year since February 2000.
It is an opportunity for us at EFBA to celebrate our mission of offering a bilingual French-speaking and multicultural education, which opens the minds of children to the world, and for our founder to express herself on the power of the mother tongue, which she is so passionate about!
What is your native language?
It’s a little complicated. I was born in Argentina into a bi-cultural family; I have an Argentinian father and an Italian mother. We spoke Spanish at home. My mother is of Venetian origin and her family spoke the Venetian dialect. She was both proud of it, Venetian culture is dazzling … and embarrassed of not speaking standard Italian; Florentine, because that is an anomaly for someone educated, and my mother is very cultured. She really learned Florentine as an adult. What I inherited was Spanish from the first day, as well as a regret for not speaking neither correct Venetian, which was not transmitted to me for lack of belief in the value of it as a language, nor Florentine, for the lack of regular exposure. My mother always said that a dialect is a language without literature, but for me, it is above all a language without an army, without political power.
Why do you think it is important to keep and promote the learning of mother tongues?
It is first and foremost a matter of the right to exist, to be respected and recognized. To paraphrase Napoleon, every state creates its policy out of its geography. If I am the repository of authority on a territory and if I define your language as a dialect, I am instilling in you the concept that the thoughts developed in this sub-language are not thinkable, not worth sharing, not interesting. If I define a language as only worthy of the name because it has a written literature, I ignore the entirety of oral, centuries-old traditions from myriad cultures. If I say that your language has no importance because nobody understands it, I am denying your identity. The mother tongue is of course, the language in which our mothers sang us lullabies and communicated their love to us, showcasing the power of the mother language. Beyond the primal language, as the speaker of a language with high prestige, French, I stand in solidarity with the right of other people to speak their minority languages, to preserve them, to transmit them, and to give them a prominent place in the public sphere, not just in the family. For French, it’s easier. Our language is loved and admired in California and around the world. All languages deserve that same consideration: as long as a human group speaks and loves a language, that language should be protected and taught.
And how is it important from the child’s point of view?
The mother tongue is the foundation of language, the more solid it is, the easier it will be to learn other languages.
What are the advantages of being bilingual or multilingual?
The Tower of Babel is a curse in the Old Testament. It is a representation of cultural diversity as a burden. If we all spoke the same language, it would be so much more practical and everyone would understand each other better. We would live in peace. Truly ? What would this “über-language” be, which could calm human passions by its intrinsic virtues and describe life, thoughts, dreams and landscapes from Antarctica to New York, from the Melanesian village to the steppes of Manchuria, and which would have words for all of these realities? The idea of a single language is a mirage, an over-practical fantasy.
Linguistic pluralism is a social fact. Languages maintain “power relations” or “trade relations” with one another. Some are spoken by a group and are also used to speak to foreigners, this is the concept of a working language or “lingua franca”. Others are only spoken by a single group, these are the vernaculars. Working and vernacular languages maintain neighborly relationships, sometimes good, sometimes less good, but multilingualism is both a necessity and a benefit.
The main advantage of multilingualism is of course to increase your possibilities for interaction. Speaking other languages gives you access to other ways of seeing and thinking, which in turn makes you reflect on your preconceived ideas, your unconscious.
For example, in Spanish, we say “pareja” to say “couple”, but when we think about it, the picture is not the same. In the word “pareja”, there is already equality, while in the word “couple”, we find the Latin etymology “copula” of the “chain” or of the “link”.
For those born of mixed marriages or from immigrant backgrounds, being bilingual is a question of identity survival and psychological well-being. To not lose your roots, to not lose more than what you have already lost by leaving your country of origin, to be able to keep your emotional ties, to have access to places through literature, songs and other works of the spirit, is life-saving, redemptive. We can summon absence through words, fill the void with the community of those who speak the same language as us.
We don’t really have a choice if we want our inner being to feel balanced and happy. Forgetting our mother tongue or father tongue would be a loss of soul. Sometimes the conditions of survival impose secrecy or oblivion, so it is pain and loss that are transmitted instead. But one day, someone in the family will fix what happened and will relearn the language. The lost language will be saved once again, depicting the power of the mother tongue.
Multilingualism comes to us immigrants almost by default. Once you are no longer in survival mode and no longer have to sacrifice your language on the altar of integration to pass the “worthy immigrant” test, you start wanting to learn other languages. We already know that the world can be seen and storied in several ways and that they can all be true concomitantly. We are naturally curious about the linguistic and cultural diversity of the world.
For those who were born monolingual, direct access to the other, who is different but with whom one shares the human condition, creates fascination.
Monolingual or polyglot, of course, we are all very happy that translators exist! But direct access will always be more rewarding.
What advice would you give to parents whose language is not the language of the country in which they are located?
Never stop speaking your language to your children. They will thank you one day. And when you are no longer here, they will still speak the language they received as a gift!
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