The Queen's English
Musings on language in the place of colonisation, and those who benefit from defining what SHOULD be spoken.
Language and its place in colonisation has been on my mind of late. I’m beginning an online Te Reo course as I seek to reclaim the language of my ancestors on my mother’s side. My father was Irish, so my paternal ancestors also had their own language, Gaeilge, and both Te Reo and Gaeilge are official languages in their home countries, alongside English. Perhaps Gaeilge will be my next language to study, if I live long enough, but Te Reo is the language of my whenua, my land.
As a writer, I am aware that my English skills have paid my way through the world for most of my working life, and I will never not be grateful for that. Yet I live in a world where the English language is far too often considered superior, in the way the English Empire once was, and here in Aotearoa we have politicians seeking to ban the use of even the word Aotearoa in Parliament.
Fun fact, the two worst offenders in our political arena both have Māori heritage but both are so fully colonised to take no pride in that heritage. I get it, my own mother was part of a generation taught being Māori was a source of shame, not pride, and our subsequent upbringing tried to ignore our culture or language. Which also meant ignoring the richness of both, and feeling unsure of our place in the world.
Last week, I spent time with a Pakeha (Te Reo for non-Maori) woman whose casual racism was offensive and obviously the product of someone who benefited directly and indirectly from colonisation. She commented, after pre-empting her comment with the telling “It sounds racist, but”, on new migrants to Europe speaking their own languages rather than the common language of their new country. How is that any different from what the English colonisers did in Aotearoa or in Eire? If it’s merely the centuries of usage that makes one example acceptable and the other not, why should Europe not have a different lingua franca in another few hundred years?
Having been the non-native language speaker in many countries, I know that shared language is only one part of communication, and have and know first-hand that not having fluency does not prevent communication or sharing of culture, or of forming friendships. I’m not talking the current lazy fix of using smartphone translations (another post for another time), but the comedic clumsiness of muddling through by being open to others, with the frequent fun-filled misunderstandings that are forgiven when one makes an attempt.
Belittling others for not speaking your language fluently does not make you superior, especially when those “others” probably have competence in multiple languages, while you claim empty superiority in your ability to speak only one. In the current global political climate, it is just another tool in the toolkit of those clinging to their power by dividing those they rule by pitting them against each other. It’s a tool of the School-slop Seymours, the Drunk Unka Winnies, the Cheeto Felons, and the megalomaniac Muskrats of the world to distract us from them robbing us blind, while blaming anyone “other” than us.
I for one, am happy to stand, and commune, with the others!
For your enjoyment, here are the Muttonbirds on The Queen’s English:
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