Language in Your Brain and in Your Heart
and why it always lives in both
Dear language-speaking humans,
I had a full-blown panic attack mild freakout moment last week.
My kids were spending a few days with their father who is visiting from abroad, at their grandparents’ place in Jerusalem, and I had a rare long weekend to myself.
I don’t get nearly enough me time, so these weekends alone are precious.
I went for a long walk with Shiloh.
I treated myself to a fancy homemade dinner.
I even convinced my overactive brain to relax and watch a movie.
I didn’t manage to talk it out of watching that movie in Finnish with Finnish subtitles. (Noidista Pahin "The Worst Witch," a Netflix children’s series.)1
I didn’t read the news because I don’t ever read the news. But just before going to bed, I saw a WhatsApp message from the municipality reminding everyone of the emergency procedures and encouraging people to stay calm and not to panic-buy.
I felt an irresistible urge to go and panic-buy a tab of Häagen-Dazs even before I knew what was going on.
I checked the latest headlines:
"Israel is Heading into a War the Likes of Which it has Never Seen"
“High alert as GPS disruptions spread to central Israel”
"The Response from Iran Can Come as Early as Friday " (i.e. the next day)
It's amazing ridiculous how quickly our brains and bodies can go from a state of pure bliss into a state of total panic.
A moment ago I was enjoying my alone time, but now all I wanted was to have my warm and cuddly children back home with me and safely in their room which doubles as our safe room.
I know that from the outside it must look like Israel is this huge empire wanting nothing more than to dominate the Middle East, but from inside here, it feels like we’re this tiny bug of a country that can be squashed any moment. Some of it probably has to do with generational memory but most of it is due to pure geography: we’re about the size of New Jersey.
Maya didn't want to go to Jerusalem because she was afraid there'd be a rocket alert siren like the last time they were there (in December.) Their grandparents’ apartment like most apartments in Jerusalem, doesn’t have a safe room. People go out onto their stairwells during a rocket attack.
I’d promised her that this time there wouldn’t be a siren because we hadn’t had them in the center of the country for a long time.
And now that I read the news, I freaked out so badly because what if Iran dropped an atomic bomb at us in the middle of the night and so it would turn out that I’d lied to my 8-year-old??
Before that, I had a tab open on my computer with a website that teaches Palestinian Arabic (Madrasa if you’re curious) and was fully intending to start learning it the next morning. Guess what I did (right after taking an anti-anxiety pill)? I closed that tab.
Why oh my freaking god?
THAT'S NOT EVEN WHAT THEY SPEAK IN IRAN YOU DUMB IDIOT BRAIN!!
I have no negative associations with Persian whatsoever.
But it made me think (when I regained my ability to think a few hours later) about how our relationship with language and language learning is never rational.
You would think that learning a language is like learning math, learning how to play bridge, or learning any other skill. But it’s not.
Learning a language is always an emotional endeavor rather than just a purely cognitive one.
Hell, even speaking your native language is more than just activating the brain areas associated with language or engaging the motor skills required to produce speech.
Using language is about taking up space and asserting yourself. And it's about belonging. Even if you just say quietly "excuse me" to someone, you've taken up space. You've drawn their attention to yourself. And what if the person whose attention you've drawn to yourself doesn't like you?
You could say who cares it doesn't matter, but on an evolutionary level, it does matter because your brain interprets it as "I don't belong" and without belonging to a social group, a long long time ago, and still now, humans would die.
It’s the hardest, of course, if you have some connection to the language.
A long time ago, I taught Oji-Cree, a native Canadian language, to adults at the university and then at a local native community center in Toronto. Some of my students were white Canadians but most of them were native Canadians who only heard Oji-Cree as children but didn’t know it, or who were "passive bilinguals" — i.e. could understand but not speak it.
You would think that if a person understands the language it wouldn't take them long to learn how to speak it. Certainly, it would be easier for them than for someone starting from scratch, no?
Not at all.
The white Canadian students learned much faster than native students.
Because the native students had to go through a lot of emotional debris in addition to learning the grammar. Maybe there was a lot of shame around not knowing their language especially when there were these white kids next to them who were acing it. Their language that they were supposed to know but didn’t.
Some lessons felt more like group therapy sessions than language classes.
People would say things like "My grandmother used to sing to me this lullaby but now I only remember the first few words....” or “I feel embarrassed speaking my language with my family because I worry they’d laugh at me…”
Some people had been through residential schools where they were punished for speaking their language and still carried that feeling that it was shameful or wrong to speak it.
People came to classes inconsistently and some showed up only once in a while. They wanted to learn it but it was a complicated “want.”
I like to set goals and make progress. I had to take a step back and make peace with the fact that even if I teach them the same stuff over and over again, even if they get some minimal exposure to their language and that’s all, that would have to count as progress. Because there was a lot more there to plow through than just grammar.
We are rarely aware of it but even if we don’t have any prior relationship with the language, it can be complicated.
Maybe you were told at school that you sucked at languages.
Maybe you were told to keep your mouth shut in general and to be seen but not heard and suddenly in this new language you’re expected to open your mouth and say things out loud. Or maybe you were told that you have to be perfect, so it's hard for you to start speaking a new language because you’re afraid to make a mistake.
What I’m saying is that speaking and learning a language is never purely rational and cognitive.
I know in my head that I want to learn Arabic, and I know I will learn it, but I also know it will take me longer to learn it because I’m not starting with a blank sheet here. Last Thursday my stomach churned at the thought of it in a way that I can't even describe.
The next morning, I left the house and saw other humans going about their business. Nobody was panic-buying (not more anyway than they normally do before Shabbat.)
I talked to the most pessimistic friend of mine and she said: “Whatever happens, the worst has already happened. There won’t be another October 7th.” Meaning, that even if we all die before learning eight more languages, it won’t be as bad as October 7th.
And that cheered me up.
I understood about 18.3 percent. It’s a much higher level than Peppa Pig 🙄
You are so right. Learning languages is very emotional. In Hungary during communism, everybody had to learn Russian, yet few could/ wanted to speak it. In Israel I grew up learning Arabic. Same story. None of us graduated from school speaking it. For the longest time I had no interest in learning German because of the negative association. Until, I discovered German literature and cinema. And, I also developed a love for Russian having seen the most incredible theatre group from St. Petersburg perform a Chekhov play. By contrast, Italian is my “happiness pill” and I have picked it up fast. I also loved learning French and Spanish. I’d love to learn Portuguese. And German. The key to learning any language I think is a positive attitude. And willingness to make mistakes :) On another note, sadly, I think things have gotten significantly worse since October 7 and are continuing to worsen. Not for the Israelis maybe, who, as you describe here, can go about their lives shopping for food, but a few km down south people are starving, if not dying from the continuous attack by Israel. I know my Israeli friends don’t see any of this on the news, but in Canada I have to make a special effort to turn away from the horrors that are difficult to stomach, not just as an Israeli, but as a human being and mother :( If only we’ve learned to speak each other’s languages, and actually listen to each other… wishful thinking? I pray for peace every waking minute.
What a heartfelt piece. I agree that language is more than just a tool to communicate, it also alters our way of thinking and binds us to people or cultures with of those languages. This is one of the reasons why I am adamant to pass on Cantonese to my children in Germany; it's really an emotional thing besides knowing that it is beneficial to be exposed to various language trees from young. But my Cantonese is at elementary level at best, and it does give me some sort of inferiority feeling too, I might end up in "group theraphy" if I ever join a formal Cantonese class! :)
And I understand this part about trying to fight our subconscious bias. It is not easy, but awareness is the first and most important step. You're doing well!