Communication, culture, and agency

[lyna_rochdi]

“Antiman” might be one of my favorite readings from this class so far and has definitely prompted me to call my grandma tomorrow. Focusing on language, Rajiv helped me reflect on one’s loss of identity without a language.

Language is one of the most integral parts of culture because it is integral to communication. The word communication has Latin roots and is derived from “communicate” which means “to share” or “to make common”. Therefore without a way of communicating, one can assume there is hardly no community. This is what Rajiv describe in family scenes, when “the house was filled with laughter in English” juxtaposed with his Aji’s solitude, alone and forgotten in her language and culture.

I think a large part of Melancholia, especially from second generations is a yearning for expression that is unknown to you.
Rajiv’s parents don’t seem to understand this because they have tried to run away from the culture.
Therefore Rajiv wanting to study Hindi feels useless, and almost insulting to their work. The family’s internalized racism is most present as they believe “white culture” to be superior and Rajiv’s want to visit India as “backward”.

Going beyond personal lives, the loss of language is having tragic repercussions on our society as most languages are becoming extinct. It poses the question of how beneficial globalization truly is. By merging so many cultures, aren’t we destroying many as well? Linguists have a tremendous amount of work to accomplish in order to save languages because they hold history.
By participating in the talent show and singing Aji’s song, Ravij’s keeps this tradition alive. But many aren’t as lucky. It’s important to not let culture slowly erode because then one must work twice as hard to find it again.

Colonizers also stripped subjects of their language as a tool for dominance. This still impacts generations today. For example, I watched a documentary recently in which a girl from Guinea attended a college debated and complained about how they were all speaking French, the language of their colonizer. She admitted to an internal rage because she herself could not communicate in her own dialect because her education in it was not as advanced as it was in French. Simply put, she was stripped of her words, and in a way, her agency. Because of this she felt less connected to her ancestors. Just like Rajiv, I fear one of my greatest aspirations has been “to plant out languages back in my mouth”.