I register
that people have different reactions to my talking English. My husband speaks
English back to me unless he needs to really express himself, and then he goes over
to Norwegian. But we have mostly communicated through the years using a blend of Norwegian and English that I call Norglish. I find that most of my Norwegian colleagues, with one exception,
will speak to or answer me in Norwegian. Among my friends, it varies. Norwegian
friends will speak Norwegian with me; non-Norwegian friends will speak English
with me, even though we normally communicate in Norwegian. I find that using
English is freeing for me; there are parts of me that have been released. It is
as though I am allowed to be myself again. I don’t mean that I have not been
myself these past twenty years; just that English puts me in touch with the core part of myself, and as I get older,
that core part of myself wants to make itself better known. It’s not just about
being or feeling American; it’s mostly about reclaiming me and my identity as a
woman in 2012, living abroad, an expat, working in science, with one foot in
Europe and one in America. I’m guessing that it is the core part of me that is
trying to come to terms with all of these experiences—how to piece them all
together--and I’m guessing that it is the core part of me that will be having
much more to say as the years move on. I’m happy about that.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Language and identity
After
living in Oslo and speaking Norwegian daily for over twenty years, I have finally
begun to speak English again. I try to do so as often as possible. Not that I
haven’t spoken English at times or when I struggled to find the Norwegian
words; I just didn’t use my mother tongue very much during these years. Now I
do. Why is this important to me now after so many years? One of the reasons was
that I felt I was losing my identity as an American, because English is my
mother tongue and when I speak Norwegian, I no longer feel American. I don’t feel Norwegian either when I speak Norwegian;
perhaps I just felt neutral, and for
many years, that was quite alright. Feeling American, identifying myself as
American—I was not conscious of these feelings when I first moved here. In
fact, it was fine to think and speak in Norwegian, even desirable, because
unless you learn the language of the country you live in, you can never fully
participate in its social or work life. I am fluent in Norwegian; I even write
poetry in Norwegian. In fact, I like to do that, because I feel like I am
another persona when I write in Norwegian, and as a writer, that’s both exhilarating
and adventurous. I’ve even written a poem about that aspect—about ‘hiding’
behind the safety of a language that is not your own. But the older I get and the longer I live here, the more I want to use my mother tongue; perhaps so I don’t forget it, but also
because I feel that I can state my thoughts and opinions more clearly in English
than I can in Norwegian. I felt the opposite to be true a decade ago. What
changed? I am not sure. Perhaps the experience of sometimes being ignored or not taken seriously in work and
social circles, despite my fluency in Norwegian, changed my mind about how to
approach specific experiences. Perhaps I thought, if I cannot make myself clear
or ‘known’ in Norwegian, there is no point in using this language as my main
language to communicate in this country. I can just as well use English, and at present, I feel it is necessary to do so, to communicate who I am at this point in time. The use of English guarantees that
people will listen to you and try to understand you.
The Spinners--It's a Shame
I saw the movie The Holiday again recently, and one of the main characters had this song as his cell phone ringtone. I grew up with this mu...