Poems From Other Cultures and Traditions :: English Literature

Poems From Other Cultures and Traditions From 'Search For My Tongue' Tatamkhulu Afrika, Maqabane (1994) When you read this poem, bear in mind that language and the use of the mother tongue (our own language, the one we were brought up speaking) are very important to any individual. We all take it for granted that we can use our language if we live where we were born. We don't even have to think about it. But when you go to live in another country you have to learn another language, and it can be very confusing. The use of another language, one that is not your own, often functions on an emotional level. Also, after a while you start mixing the two languages. This is the problem faced by the speaker in this excerpt. Those of you who were not originally English speaking will recognise the dilemma expressed in this excerpt! Read the poem once or twice. Go through it slowly after that, in your mind relating the use of language (tongue) to the physical tongue. Some of you will, of course, recognise and understand the Gujerati in the centre of the extract. For some of you this will be your mother tongue! But most of you will be unable to decode it. So there will be many different reactions to reading this poem. I wish I were present to hear these reactions! Point of view Here we have a first-person speaker addressing 'you'. There appears to be a conversation going on, as the 'you' has just asked the question that prompts the rest of the poem. A conversation is appropriate for a poem on language and communication. Grasping the dilemma Imagine you had two physical tongues in your mouth. That's how Bhatt asks the listener to perceive the problem. We unconsciously relate language to the tongue. How often have we said to people, 'Have you lost your tongue?' when they fail to give us an answer or when they remain silent? That's because the tongue is one of the crucial organs we use when speaking. The speaker here has taken a new slant on the question and has said her tongue has indeed been lost, but she means her mother language has been lost, not her physical tongue. The extended metaphor Notice as you read and study the poem that the whole extract builds on an extended metaphor - the physical tongue as a metaphor for language. The idea of having two actual tongues (of course the speaker means languages) in your mouth provides a strong physical equivalent of the discomfort felt by someone operating in a foreign language environment. The nature of this discomfort if elaborated in lines 5-6.