english

I’ve been struggling with a cold all week, so my plan to go to Amsterdam today did not push through. Instead, I found myself watching a friend defend her PhD on the livestream. I was a bit disappointed not to be there in person, but life is life and even the best laid plans don’t always work as we want them to.

Later on, I find myself reflecting on the use of language and also how I appreciated how most of the language used felt accessible to me who is not at all an academic.

It had me thinking about a conversation I had with another friend on the purpose of academic writing and who it’s for and why it’s done. If research and the results of research are only exchanged inside the university or the academy or among peers, if the language is not accessible to people who don’t have doctorates or access to that kind of language, what is the use of the research? Maybe we can argue that it has a trickle down effect into policy, but how long before that happens? In particular when we talk about social sciences which have to do with community and with the masses, isn’t it better to use language that will invite inclusion rather than exclusion?

I think about language because, of course, as a writer it’s part of my daily life. Like for instance, the visceral response I have to Spanish. Which I love the sound of it, and yet it also reminds me that we have this long history under Spanish occupation and that’s why the sound of Spanish can have this kind of mesmerising effect and also at the same time serves as reminder of a history that is painful. I wonder how it would be to learn Spanish simply because it’s a beautiful language and not feel as if I am helplessly caught in this net where I know in parts but don’t know because the way I know it is in the expressions that linger like remnants in Filipino consciousness.

Language remains a matter that I wrestle with because of the complexity of our history and it is related not just to colonialism but also to displacement, to the experience of being othered, to that experience of being seen as “little brother” or “model migrant”.

Whether I am writing in English or Dutch, I wrestle with how this language that I use carries so many layers.

So, maybe this is on a tangent, but I admit to side-eying advocates for using AI if you are not a native speaker of a language.

Of course, I agree, a properly constructed sentence helps us communicate better, but if I utilise an AI to take away that wrestling with language, then the story of that struggle is absent from my text. It’s absented because I allow an artificial intelligence to erase it for me. My question then becomes this: what are we afraid of that we cannot write as we speak? And who are we writing for if we opt to allow AI to write for us?

For me, writing isn’t just about producing a cohesive text. Often, it’s not. Writing is about struggling with things and maybe the conclusion isn’t neat or maybe I have to go back and think about it again, or maybe I have to argue with myself again. Maybe there is no resolution or conclusion and that’s okay. If the ends aren’t neatly tied up and the package isn’t neatly wrapped, does it mean it’s of lesser worth?

I suppose what I mean to say is that our use of language reflects the imperfections of our lives.

Writing this, I have to think of the impulse of consumerism and materialism to erase everything that isn’t perfect. Erasing wrinkles. Erasing lines. Erasing imperfections that we may have been born with. All these in the hope of creating perfection. Often, we end up with shallow and grotesque expressions that reflect the soullessness in that pursuit of perfection.

It’s the same with writing or with art. Without the wrestling, without the struggle, without the imperfection, we empty our work of what makes it meaningful.

I’d rather keep my imperfections and keep my soul.

I’ve been writing in Dutch and this has me thinking about language again and how it relates to taking up space in the world (or making space) and how gatekeeping in language and use of language relates to the question around permissions. Why do we need borders when the world belongs to all of us? Why do we need permissions to cross from one place to another? And why do we as societies feel this need to create perimeters and conditions keeping people from traveling or moving into spaces we have labeled as “ours”?

I have a complex relationship with language. Perhaps this explains my fascination with it. I am also something of a geek and language and the conversations around language have also fascinated me.

Small as the Dutch publishing landscape may be (compared to the US or the UK), it’s still predominantly comprised of white native Dutch speakers. I made a decision to at least attempt to write and publish in Dutch because I believe it’s important to make space not just for my work, but for the work of those who like me were not born or raised in The Netherlands, but have come here from non-western countries.

In 2021, when Martijn Lindeboom and Vamba Sharif asked me to participate in De Komeet, a specfic anthology from diverse writers in NL released by a De Geus, I said an immediate yes. When the anthology was published, some people I know who read my story said that they were at first a bit hesitant because of the use of nb pronouns, but were quite surprised to find it wasn’t preachy as they feared (yay). It was also favourably reviewed in De Telegraaf which is a major Dutch newspaper (so Yay again). The comment I do get from people I know (who’ve read it) is how the reader can tell that I’m not a native Dutch speaker because of my use of language. Here’s where I admit that I did have an editor and first readers who tried to tell me to rewrite some sentences but the rhythm and the off-center use of language made me happy, so I kept them.

I can’t pass for a native Dutch speaker and to be honest, I don’t even want to. It’s the same as I don’t pass as a UK or US raised English speaker, and I don’t want to. The way I use language reflects how I have acquired the language, it reflects the rhythms by which I have learned to speak it or write it. It may seem like a minor thing, but there is a deliberate reasoning behind this. I understand the importance of the rules of language–grammar and such. But as one reader said to me: the use of language in an alien setting by alien characters, reminded me that my characters are aliens and the emotion came across because of the way “the language was used in a way I am not used to”. (That kind of made me go: yep. That was the intention.) (Of course, I have no doubt there were readers who were just irritated and went “another outsider who wants to write in Dutch”. Lol.)

There are different ways of using language and by opening ourselves to these differences, we expand our borders and our perimeters.

Mind you, I’m not advocating for using wrong grammar. I am advocating for knowing and having a grasp of language and at the same time remaining faithful to the rhythm that echoes in your inner ear. (I did adapt a lot of suggested edits because I am aware that while I may be proficient in Dutch, I tend to be more English in my grammar use. But there were definitely one or two sentences where I just said to the editors–this just feels right to me. It conveys an emotion that I want to convey.) So, I am perfectly okay when faced with the criticism that the language use isn’t perfectly Dutch or Dutch as it’s meant to be. It is not meant to perfect, it’s not meant to conform. (Sorry not sorry for being a rebel.)

When we engage in writing in LIMBO, I like to encourage participants to write in the language they are most comfortable in. Perhaps a majority will opt to write in English, but I have discovered that when someone chooses to write in the language closest to them, while we may not understand the words, we are often able to hear the movement of the writer’s heart in the movement of the language they use.

It’s this kind of rhythm and this kind of movement that we want to capture when we decide to write in an acquired language. Maybe it’s not perfect. Maybe the grammer is not 100%. But all these things are cosmetic. They can be fixed in edits, they can be discussed.

We are a multicultural society and when traveling through the city, I hear a rich tapestry of sounds and voices–different languages, different accents, different ways of using language. Dutch interspersed with Middle Eastern languages, Filipino mingled with Dutch and interestingly too–Dutchies who bend Dutch words to make them sound somewhat like English. Language, like society, like culture, doesn’t remain static. It’s never standing still and every year new words are added to our ever-changing vocabulary–not all these words are rooted in the Dutch language.

Yep. I can keep going about language. But I’ll stop here as I have a bunch of things on my to-do list. I am interested in comparing notes though. How do you write in an acquired language and how does the language you’re most skilled at using influence the way you write in another language? And if you’re writing in an acquired language, what made you decide to write in it?

Blessings and peace to you who read this and Agyamanac Unay for dropping by.