Intended to Unite but Slippery in a Fight: The Double-Edged Blade of Language

Illustration Credit: The Wall Street Journal | Illustration | Riki Blanco

Saying you speak two, three, four, five, or more languages is an immense flex. You can dazzle locals around the world, order smoothly without pause, and communicate with co-workers. Traveling abroad is simpler, finding new jobs around the world and having a partner from a different culture all become easier. You can do all the formalities, and all the day-to-day basics without a hitch.

Yet sometimes the reality is that while you can communicate effectively in all languages, you can not express your emotions in them. In the heat of a fight, when emotions run high, you might find yourself stumbling over words, struggling to recall the ones you could effortlessly use just hours earlier to pitch a business idea or in an oral presentation.

Instead, you revert to your native language: your home base. There is the place where you can express yourself, where you can describe every emotion you are feeling in painstaking detail, where you can defend yourself. Yes, you can communicate in all the languages you spent countless hours perfecting, but you cannot always be yourself. A word in one language may not be able to capture the emotion you wish to express, but your original language can.

Maybe you have a partner, and both of you speak English as one person’s native language is Spanish and the other’s is French. Say there is a fight. The Spaniard may instinctively reach for Spanish, and even though they have spoken English for years and mastered it, they can only properly express themselves in Spanish.

The French person may instantly retreat to French because that is where they can express themselves best. But then what happens? One speaks French, the other Spanish? The room is filled with a symphony of words, both spoken and unspoken, in French, Spanish, and English. Where does the conversation go now?

English was the language of compromise. Yes, potentially both of them when looking hard enough can find the words they need in English, but they will not carry the same weight, the same passion, or the same meaning. Languages are not just the same words pronounced differently: there are deeper cultural, emotional and personally significant meanings to each word and each pronunciation.

Instead, the words can simply build on one’s chest without any way to effectively express them, and silence can fill the void. There is an enormous difference between communicating and expressing. We already struggle to do that when two people of the same native language speak. Imagine throwing in other variables, other languages, and two people from different cultures. It becomes a feat.

Season 4, episode 7 of “Emily in Paris” depicts this very well (albeit with more complexities and differences than the example above) when Gabriel rants in French to Emily about the impossibility of only communicating in English. She in turn does not understand what he says and stands there in confusion and shock.

This phenomenon is particularly powerful not only when you are already speaking a language, but also during the process of learning one. Learning a foreign language is already challenging, but maybe you have mastered a good amount. You have been on the Duolingo grind, maybe even pulling Rosetta Stone out of the dust.

But when someone frustrates you or makes you sad, you choke on the words, your mind instinctively reverting to its comfort language, its home. And then what do you do? The other person may not speak your language, and you remain mouth open, unable to formulate an expressive sentence to describe how you feel.

There is also the idea that we are different versions of ourselves depending on the language we use. You have the all-encompassing language of your identity, but maybe you are more confident in one language, maybe another one brings out a different side of you. It is a deep and personal connection that will always go beyond simple linguistics and Duolingo streaks, or A, B, or C-level certification.

When trying to learn a new language and faced with a situation where you need to defend yourself or articulate your emotions, sometimes you simply cannot grasp the words. This is not simply a lack of proficiency.

Research shows that multilingual people actually activate all the languages they speak in their brain, even when not using all of them. The languages are therefore all active in your brain at the same time. You have to use the concept of inhibition to suppress the non-relevant language, but this control system can fail. Language juggling and communication is not only an emotional response: your brain is literally juggling these languages, trying to block the flow of one to allow the other.

When these emotional situations arise with people you know and are familiar with, there are paths toward resolution. Switching languages to say “I can’t express myself properly” or “I don’t have the words” is not anything your friend or loved ones would judge you or deny you the opportunity for. But what about emotional situations with a business partner, with someone on the street if you made a mistake, with a teacher? Finding ways to navigate your emotions without understanding them in all languages is a rigorous mental task.

Despite these challenges, learning a new language remains one of the most useful and significant things one can do. It connects you with more places, people, and cultures. You can master a language and even use it to show your love for people, like learning wedding vows for your partner in their native language. The power of language is beautiful and unlimited. But sometimes there will never be the words to express how you truly feel.

The duality of language is striking: it is designed to bring us together yet can sometimes tear us further apart. You can know all the words of every language, but all the emotions may gravitate towards that one that just clicks with you. The one you use at your happiest, your saddest, your angriest. The language you dream in, the language you fight in, the language you write in.

Home never has to be a place. It can be a language. You may find different versions of yourself in the languages you speak — but there will always be one that feels like home, even if you no longer live there.