Roslyn's Reviews > The Genius of Language: Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongue

4.5 (edited, as several sentences of the review were somehow cut off)

I very much enjoyed this collection of essays by writers who are either bilingual/multilingual, or who once spoke a language other than English and are now writing in English. For almost all of them (I’d say all, but it’s a while since I read them so I can’t be sure), their childhood language evokes a sense of home and belonging - in some cases, ambivalent feelings about home – each language comprising a whole way of thinking and feeling that is different from those of English. I loved reading the different ways in which each language brings something unique to the human experience, one that can’t be replicated by any other. In some cases, writers felt that different languages expressed very different personal identities – or vice versa, that a particular sense of their selves could only be expressed in a particular language.

The essays inevitably involve interesting accounts of what it is like to grow up in a particular family with a particular language and in the specific culture that meant home for the writer. The essays were on Bangla, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Gikuyu, Greek, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Scots, Spanish and Yiddish. I wish I’d written this review up earlier as I can't recall many specific details, but I especially enjoyed the essay on Spanish, which was written as almost a kind of dance between English and Spanish. And as someone who grew up in a family that spoke both English and Yiddish, I found the Yiddish essay particularly interesting as well (despite the fact that some of the Yiddish examples aren’t completely accurate – and its author does admit his sketchy memory of the language). I would expect that in a group of writers some of whom no longer speak their first language much, there would be some errors in some of the examples of the languages discussed. What counts in this collection more than anything are the stories - stories about language that are personal, familial and communal.

Obviously there are some large cultural gaps in this list, with European-based languages predominating, and they do portray a very limited, personal view (which of course is also part of their attraction) but 15 essays still cover a lot of ground. I love reading about language and the connections between language and culture, and although I enjoyed some more than others, I found every single essay fascinating.