Mother Tongue

In language studies, mother tongue is linked to culture—its literature, artifacts, wisdom, generational ties, its jokes and proverbs, the names of flowers. A mother tongue carries the archive of one’s own history—a sense of belonging at the heart of identity, one’s central core. Language is among the first bonds between mother and child, words forging intimacy and communication. Yet, what happens when a mother tongue is associated with war and trauma? When language conveys displacement or the reenactment of a too-painful past? This essay explores the impact of growing up with a mother who suppressed her mother tongue and a daughter’s search for the language of home that followed.