Experiemental Academic Essay
Cigarette smoke lingers among a low hum of conversations.
Words are shared in between the inhale and exhale – an uneven rhythm of breath. Voices blur as we are engulfed within the wave of mumbled vowels, the pauses and pursed lips that hold moments of deep thought and contemplation. Words seem to become longer, stretched and tightened as if allowing themselves to carry more within a single space – much like the smoke that surrounds them. We wring them out like soaked towels, squeezing for something that lasts, hoping to formulate speech that is memorable enough to those around us.
Capturing moments through the art of foreign conversations.
Bodies move closer, each engaged in their own quiet exchanges. They listen carefully to whispers, as secrets are deciphered by those who understand the hieroglyphics of language that have been presented in front of them. Each word is carved with delicate precision, outlining the intricacies of what each letter stands for, revealing the relationships between sound, form, and meaning.
He. Lui
She. Elle
Us. Nous
Faces are only visible from the nose downwards, illuminated by the amber hue of the lighter’s small flame. It’s intimidating, approaching conversations that you can ultimately understand, yet struggle at times to formulate answers fluently with an unfamiliar vocabulary. After all, comprehension does not always equate to perfect articulation; the mind always moves faster than the tongue.
So, one must learn how to piece words together like a puzzle, shaping fragments to make sense of the whole image. However, bilingual speakers are multitaskers and must perform this skill in both languages. They assemble speech like a bouquet of flowers – deliberately choosing colours that contrast yet belong, where each element is chosen with intention, so that what is finally said feels not only correct, but complete.
‘Is it better to speak, or to die?’[1]
This question, drawn from Andre Aciman’s novel Call Me by Your Name, highlights the quiet risk embedded in one’s vulnerability to express oneself through the act of speaking. To speak is not just about the production of sound, but what is heard – where there is potential to be misunderstood or left unanswered. Aciman’s quote is often paired alongside Futile Devices by Sufjan Stevens, a song that has come to resonate with many young people online, creating various forms of content, such as asking strangers their opinion on what the answer should be.
Speaking no longer becomes something simple – it is not merely a sequence of words.
Language, although so easily overlooked, is one of the most delicate and complex gifts we are given and have the privilege to call our own. Our mother tongue is forged in our early years, the one we begin to speak instinctively as children. For multilingual individuals, alongside this gift lies the ability to learn many more languages or to reawaken dormant ones later in life.In many ways, we take this capacity for language for granted, unaware of the brain’s ability to reorganise itself or forge new neural connections through neuroplasticity. These pathways extend and intertwine, joining together like the roots of an oak tree, deepening beneath the surface and strengthening over time if taken care of. What makes this sense of grounded connection feel even more immediate than the intricate workings of brain chemistry are the earliest encounters with language – the fetus’s exposure to the mother’s voice.
Before comprehension, before articulation, there is sound. A voice, familiar without being understood. From around the twenty-six to thirty-week mark of gestation, the fetus begins to hear. Inside, sound is muffled as if underwater. In complete darkness, nestled in the warmth of the womb and cradled gently beneath the fragile, paper-thin barrier of the mother’s skin, one might imagine how the patterns and tone of her voice seep through. Thus, this may suggest that language is first experienced not as words, but as presence.
It is here that bilingualism first takes shape.
Mum.
Maman.
Two words, one presence.
As we grow older, this unity begins to separate and thought moves freely. However, expression hesitates – caught between tongues. In Kapengut and Noble’s journal article titled Parental Language and Learning Directed to the Young Child, they discuss the idea that language acquisition is a dynamic process by which children construct meaning out of interactions with caregivers.[2] Thus, children recognise that language is, in fact, a social tool that allows them to share their own intentions with those around them, forming connections through conversation.
For those who are bilingual, that connection is no longer anchored to a single language, but stretched across many. Maintaining this closeness with both worlds often depends on conversations between native speakers. This art of conversation in foreign languages, even if small- an exchange of simple words or phrases – is far more complicated than one may initially think.
You are sitting in a room. A phone rests in front of you.
Two voicemails wait from a stranger that you must call back.
One is in English, your first language – the language you speak every day at school to friends, teachers, acquaintances, or those who serve you the ice cream you adore on a Friday evening. The other is in French, the language you speak at home with your family, the language in which you sometimes struggle to pinpoint certain vocabulary. The language that feels so familiar and simultaneously like a stranger. Reading street names on the way to Mami’s house at Christmas becomes an act of careful pronunciation, each syllable tested before it is spoken.
Which one do you call back first?
There is perhaps a sense of shame in choosing English, the “easiest,” the one in which expression feels immediate and unrestrained. Whilst in French, there is a guilty silence before speaking, a preparation or hesitation before one must commit to enduring a conversation in a foreign language. Each word must first be tested before it can be trusted. In this way, many bilinguals – or even trilinguals- suddenly feel a subtle disconnection from one of their languages. And in that shift, a language that is equally theirs can begin to feel as though it belongs more to those who speak it as their first language.
There is a sense of needing to prove oneself. How quickly can you speak? How accurately can you shape the accents, or know when to let silent letters fall away? It can become exhausting, this performance of fluency, constantly trying to be accepted in a community of native speakers whilst one negotiates against their “second language.”
For those growing up in bilingual households, there is often a double association: two words for one object, person, or feeling. These words seem to hold more emotional resonance for some than for others. Suddenly, there is a heightened awareness of meaning and translation, which becomes more valued due to knowing multiple languages. Words are symbols, after all, that shift depending on context, memory, or language itself. Hence, there is also a comfort in this multiplicity. A comfort in realising that language can act as a vessel, connecting you with home in various ways by holding it in more than one form.
I love you.
Je t’aime.
Engraved on stone walls, carved into old trees, or etched as initials on rusted lockets overlooking bridges, the words of amour carry a history far beyond a single lifetime. Instead, they span centuries, capturing how the spoken act of love has endured.
At its core, much of what we speak today is rooted in Latin, echoing the beauty of its history and origin. As argued by Haywood in Modern Languages and Latin, she asserts that Latin holds a foundational place in the study of language and should ultimately be the ‘first foreign language studied first in academic importance, if not in order.’[3] One must not forget that Latin is the mother of most tongues in Western Europe. There is a notable absence of Latin in many state school curricula due to reasons such as lack of funding, limited qualified teachers, and its perception as a “dead” language. Latin was at its peak during the Roman Empire yet declined in the Middle Ages following the fall of the Western Empire. Nevertheless, the major Romance languages -Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian, have evolved from Vulgar Latin, carrying those fragments forward to be spoken by millions today. What may feel like isolated forms of speech are, in many ways, inseparable -sharing structure, sound, and roots.
It is only natural that our language will evolve too. This evolution introduces another obstacle: navigating both traditional forms and the informal expressions that native speakers create. Slang may appear to offend linguistic structure, erasing letters so that words no longer stand complete, but are broken down – where meaning is implied, abbreviated, or altered entirely.
Girl.
Meuf.
Expressions like this demonstrate how language adapts to context. With the rise of social media accelerating the spread of informal slang or derogatory vocabulary, some argue that this weakens the integrity of language or even the value of bilingualism. However, according to Plato’s Theory of Language, as interpreted by Raphael Demos, speech is a tool fashioned to fulfil a function: ‘the use of language is to declare reality.’[4] Thus, slang remains a valid and purposeful form of communication, reflecting contemporary life. In contrast, Esperanto represents an attempt to stabilise language. Developed in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof, it aimed to reduce misunderstanding through a neutral, simplified system. However, its constructed nature has been criticised for lacking cultural depth. This highlights a crucial insight- language cannot exist purely as an artificial system. Slang, by contrast, is a living, collective form shaped through human interaction.
Nevertheless, there will always be opposition to language and its limitations. Can a feeling, a memory, or a person ever be fully captured, or does language only take us so far?
This tension is explored in The Waves, where Bernard questions language itself. He reflects that to make someone understand, he must tell a story – yet none are entirely true: ‘some little language… broken words, inarticulate words,’[5]suggesting that authentic meaning lies not in perfection, but in fragmentation. His distrust deepens as he attempts to find authentic meaning, not in perfect speech, but in the imperfect expression. Bernard’s deeply profound reflections convey how his intellect is not measured simply by the amount of knowledge he attains but by his awareness of the world around him. Woolf highlights how meaning is not found in the words themselves but in the spaces between them.
Finally, as Ludwig Wittgenstein writes:
‘Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.’[6]
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
One must recognise that pauses are an essential part of mastering conversation, particularly in foreign languages. Meaning is found not solely in words, but in the moments that surround them – the inhale, the exhale, the hesitation before speech.
These pauses are not empty. They are where understanding is born. To listen is to interpret, and to speak is to reveal.
It is here, in this balance, that the art of conversation resides.
