Growing up in Norway, I have always been told that people in my country have equal opportunities in life, and that our freedom comes with living in a welfare state. Looking at our immigration policies however, it becomes clear that Norway does not provide equal opportunities for all, beyond our own borders. Instead, regulation of immigration separates Norwegians as people from the rest of the world, making us as habitants the “lucky ones”.
With nations come language, and with language come invisible borders. The level of fluency in one’s language can sometimes create the illusion that certain groups do not belong, simply because they are different from the rest in the way they speak.
In this project I will be researching potential solutions to issues related to language barriers and lack of fluency. I will not attempt to speak from an immigrant’s perspective or to develop a solution to any specific immigration issue. Rather I will explore constructed language as a platform and tool for welcomeness, as I attempt to develop a communication solution for an envisioned society where linguistic hegemony is cast aside in favour of inclusivity.
In the film By the Throat, we meet a man who explains how when crossing the Jordan river, guards ask crossers to pronounce a specific word, for then to use their pronunciation of the letter “S” to determine wether or not the crossers are Hebrew (and thus allowed to cross the river) (Amir Borenstein and Effi Weiss, 2021). Within the blink of an eye, the guard is able to separate people based on cultural backgrounds – ranking one out of two groups as superior.
In our language lies details about our state of origin, economic situation, and in essence who we are – at least on paper. Our language is a reflection of our identity, and if a border guard is able to judge us based on fluency, surely the every day person can do the same. On the other side, fluency becomes a benefit for the fluent party at the negotiating table, where non-fluent speakers are less able to express themselves compared to the fluent ones (Garvía, 2015). The non-fluent speaker is in other words handicapped by his or her mother tongue, and by extension his or her social and national background.
I would like to argue that if our aspiration is to transition into a truly equal society, we will need to find a way of discarding this benefit of fluency in language.
If separate languages have the ability to act as invisible borders in our societies, surely a shared language should have the ability to bring down those same invisible borders.
As mentioned, language reflects our identities. This can be a handicap in the fight for equality. However, I do not see the discardment of our identities as a viable solution. Rather than arguing for leaving ourselves behind as we strive to see eye to eye, I would like to explore solutions where we as people can “meet halfway” (Paul Wilson, 2019), welcoming each other in an equal space of communication.
In order for this communication space to be equal however, we might need to cast aside our social and national backgrounds momentarily. In this space we should meet as people, rather than as citizens, workers and economic numbers.
In her article “We Can’t Feel Our Language”: Making Places in the City, Natalie Baloy looks at native language revitalisation and how aboriginal language education could become part of the urban domain. A fascinating aspect of Baloy’s article is how Aboriginal language seems to be so connected to nature. Xálek’, a Squamish hereditary chief, told Baloy:
“I realized that it [the language] is the shape of our land. When the winds hit our mountains and they come over, they drop into the valleys, they kind of move around through the forest. That’s kind of the structure of the language – it has a lot of sharp inflections like that. [...] We adapt to our environment. Our language mimics that.” (Natalie J. K. Baloy, 2011)
Further, Baloy discusses her conversation with Jerilynn Webster, executive director of the Knowledgeable Aboriginal Youth Association. Webster explains that the languages are connected to one’s environment, and that if you’re not in that environment you can’t feel the language (Natalie J. K. Baloy, 2011).
The idea of feeling a language becomes interesting in relation to equal communication because it opens up the possibility of communicating on a non-verbal level – a spiritual and perhaps more intuition based type of communication. If we can begin to communicate using solely sensory methods, we might start to break down the invisible borders that arise due to level of fluency.
Up until now I have been discussing language as something that follows one’s mother tongue, rather than something that can be learnt. There is no denying however, that if a person with the right resources goes out to learn a new language, that person will probably manage to reach a fairly high level of fluency. Here, the word resources becomes important because it highlights a vital issue with all languages – the fact that they can, and have to, be learnt. It is at the moment that a language can be learnt that fluency becomes a benefit, and this benefit will always be given to those with the right resources (and as extension, to those with the “right” **social and economical background).
If we could develop a language then, which is to be felt rather than read, through initial interpretation that does not follow cultural symbolic customs – would we be able to present a solution to the issue of fluency? Perhaps if we were to remove the notion of fluency from language, we would be able to meet at an equal level of communication.