Category: 2024-2025

Pressured Speech.

Content warning: This article is primarily about mental illnesses and one specific effect they can have on language use.

Depression, schizophrenia, childhood trauma, generalized and social anxiety disorders.

A (non-definitive) list of conditions that share many features in the changes that manifest in those affected, relating to language use. One feature that is viewed with more empathy than other features – possibly due to being more common – is alogia. Alogia refers to poor ability to speak, usually inferred to result from poor ability to think, stemming from psychological causes. However, this is distinct from aphasia, in which physical deformities or damage to the brain result in issues with communication. Another feature common with such conditions is muteness – referring to an absence of speech from a perceived unwillingness to speak, which can be either complete muteness or selective mutism, such as a child only able to speak to a loved one, or a person only being able to speak in small groups.

It is easy enough to picture countless cases of such a thing, though they are never pleasant images. A victim of child abuse or a person struggling to speak and get thoughts out, even outside their abusive setting. A severely depressed patient, a person scared to get up and make a meal for the first time in days for fear of attempting suicide, unable to muster the motivation to open their mouth when directly asked a question. A psychotic schizophrenic, someone genuinely completely convinced of a delusion that everyone in the world is trying to kill them, feeling confused and betrayed and depressed at how their loved ones could do such a thing, hearing their voices in an empty room telling them to end their life, too deceived by their condition to consider talking to another. A socially anxious teen, a person too afraid to go to a concert for a band they love for fear of breaking down from the suffocating claustrophobia in a crowd of people.

All of these people are just that – people. People who are not defined by their condition but deserving of empathy and kindness when they need it the most, when battling with a condition they did not choose. And for that reason, it is an easy thing to give empathy for; it is easy to understand that a person who is hurting would struggle to speak.

In the case of alogia, this may manifest as one of two forms. The first type involves normal speech that is vague, empty, and repetitive, known as “poverty of content”. The second is named as a counterpart to this as “poverty of speech” or uniquely as “laconic speech”, in which a speaker will lack in their production of unprompted content that is typical of normal speech. This presents as a lack of spontaneous speech, no response, or limited responses to anything barring an explicit question. It is worth clarifying that this is an entirely unconscious issue that one cannot overcome with any amount of willpower, since it reflects psychological issues with internal thought processes.

This is contrasted to mutism, a term reserved in psychiatry for an unwillingness to talk. This means mutism isn’t an unconscious process, although it doesn’t make it easier to overcome. This doesn’t decrease the anxiety surrounding speech, it doesn’t make communication any more bearable.

But – like almost everything to do with humanity – there isn’t simply a binary of “normal” and “strange”, or of “speaking normally” and “not able to speak”. This falls upon a continuum or spectrum or much wider map of human experience, just like emotion, sexuality, or politicism. Just as one may struggle with producing speech as a result of psychiatric conditions, one may struggle with being unable to stop producing speech under the same conditions. This is clinically referred to as pressured speech and can feel just as inhibiting and frustrating as the opposite side of the spectrum. Medical professionals significantly under-identify it, and incredibly few non-professionals have ever heard of such a thing.

Pressured speech is characteristically difficult to clinically identify and is often overlooked by professionals due to being easy to dismiss as someone being especially and unusually chatty, nervous, or stubborn. Even when recognized by the layperson, it’s often accompanied with comments of “But why does that matter?” and “Since when is it a bad thing to be more willing to talk?”, but it can be just as distressing as its counterpart on the other side of the speech spectrum, if not more so at times.

Trying to express the distress of pressured speech is as difficult a feat as trying to explain an emotion to someone that has never heard of it, but it is still worth an attempt. The internal narrative of describing the experience of pressured speech goes a bit like this:

I’m panicking and scrambling to talk, and I can’t stop. It’s like trying to rush through giving a talk, realizing I have 20 minutes of things left to say but only 5 minutes left to get it all out. I need to keep talking, and I can’t stop. I can tell people are waiting and giving me cues that they want a turn in this conversation, but I can’t give it to them, because the panic means I can’t stop. I have nothing left to say but I need to say something, I need to keep talking, I can’t stop, I’ll over explain and repeat and go on tangents if I have to, but I can’t stop. Words are pouring out of me, but I am empty; I don’t even know what I’m thinking but I know that I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I need to talk, as if I’m being threatened or compelled to keep speaking, but nothing is going on, but I can’t stop.

As mentioned in the internal monologue, a person with pressured speech feels compelled to keep speaking seemingly unendingly. One is aware of the nature of social interaction and turn-taking and adjacency pairs in the structure of human conversation and yet cannot conform to them because one cannot stop talking. This makes such a person very difficult to stop or interrupt, but one is painfully aware of the fact that they are disrupting the ordinary structure of communication. This likely creates a large amount of guilt, feeling as if they are forcing themselves upon others in conversation and silencing others, and yet they cannot stop themselves.

Pressured speech is equally associated with several psychiatric conditions as its counterpart. Alogia and mutism are linked very strongly to severe depression, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorder, PTSD, psychosis, and schizophrenia (a non-comprehensive list). Pressured speech is strongly linked to bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder but also is predisposed to come up more in people with ADHD, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorder, psychosis, schizophrenia (an equally non-comprehensive list).

Given so many conditions coming up in both lists, it is easy to see an overlap between the two groups listed. This has led to further research, suggesting that perhaps alogia and pressured speech are not simply on opposing ends of a continuum and may be results of essentially different processes and brain structures, even if their occurrence is mutually exclusive. Regardless, it is of note that the conditions listed are plentiful, such that the rate of occurrence is common – at least in terms of medical symptoms not caused by the common cold.

The likelihood of meeting a person with pressured speech at some point or other is incredibly high, and thus I write this article to ask if such a person be given the same empathy and patience for their increased verbal output as someone with reduced verbal output. The latter is well known, and many are willing to offer kindness for the distress that such a person must be feeling, but the former is almost entirely unknown, despite being accompanied with the same level of distress.

And so, I write to ask for your understanding if talking to a person who seems to present with pressured speech, especially if it is uncharacteristic for such a person, and that they still be treated as a person – neither a point of envy nor annoyance but simply as a person. I write to ask that you be kind to them, that you be kind to someone like me.

2025-04-06
Cryptophasia: the secret language of twins

Cryptophasia is a phenomenon that mostly occurs in twins. The word derives from Greek, with ‘crypto’ meaning secret, and ‘phasia’ meaning speech. As the name suggests, it is a language developed by twins that only the two children can understand. British psychologist, Dorothy Vera Bishop, writes that this phenomenon occurs in 50% of twins because they are in close proximity and may be very reliant on each other. Quite often, twins will phase out of their cryptophasia when they start gaining exposure to people beyond the home. However, for Poto and Cabengo, the Youlden twins, and the Gibbons twins (The Silent Twins), this did not happen.

Poto and Cabengo:

Poto and Cabengo (Grace and Virginia Kennedy) are American identical twins who created their own language and continued it up until they were eight. Usually with twins that create a cryptophasia, they lose it by the time they enter school or nursery. However, unlike most twins, Grace and Virginia spent a lot of their young childhood without external stimulus to their language development. The girls were left in the care of a grandmother who met their physical needs but did not play or interact with them. They had no contact with other children, seldom played outdoors, and were not sent to school. Their father later stated in interviews that he realised the girls had invented a language of their own but, since their use of English remained extremely rudimentary, he had decided that they were, as the doctor suggested, developmentally challenged and that it would do no good to send them to school.

The twins’ language was characterised by an extremely fast tempo and a staccato rhythm, traits the girls transferred to their spoken English following speech therapy. Linguistic analysis revealed that their language was a mixture of English and German, German through their limited interaction of their mother and grandmother and English through their father, with some neologisms and several idiosyncratic grammatical features.

Sample speech:

‘Pinit, putahtraletungay’ (Finish, potato salad hungry)

‘Liba Cabingoat, it’ (Dear Cabengo, eat)

Once it was established that the girls could be educated, their father apparently forbade them to speak their personal language, and they went to school, which phased out their cryptophasia (however, it is reported that the twins still know their cryptophasia).

The Youlden Twins:

Twins Matthew and Michael Youlden speak 25 official languages each and one cryptophasia – Umeri. Like 50% of twins, the Youlden twins developed a cryptophasia at a young age but did not grow out of it as they became exposed to the world outside of the home. Instead, the multicultural aspect of Manchester, UK fostered their love of language which inspired them to learn languages like Spanish, Italian and other Scandinavian languages. Pooling together various grammatical elements of all the languages they studied, they created Umeri. The twins began to codify and standardise the language in which Umeri is now written using the Latin alphabet. To this day, the Umeri language is being continuously expanded to adapt to modern life.

Since the twins’ language goes beyond the standard convention of cryptophasia, child development and education specialist, Karen Thorpe, describes the twins’ cryptophasia as being about ‘a very close relationship’ rather than the secret or private language cryptophasia is associated with.

The Silent Twins (Gibbons Twins):

While the full Gibbons story is incredible in its own way, linguistically, their cryptophasia branches beyond linguistics and into psycholinguistics. Jennifer and June Gibbons, twins of Caribbean parents who migrated to Wales in the Windrush era due to their father’s job in the Air Forces, were inseparable. Their language (cryptophasia) was a sped-up Bajan Creole, which made it difficult for people to understand them. In 2023, June said, “We had a speech impediment. Our parents couldn’t understand a word that we were saying, nobody understood – so we stopped talking.”

The Gibbons children were the only black children in the community and were often ostracised at school. This proved to be traumatic for the twins, eventually causing their school administrators to dismiss them early each day so that they might avoid bullying. Their language became even more idiosyncratic at this time. Soon it was unintelligible to others as they continued to speak to no one but each other. While June Gibbons disputes the idea that their idioglossia is a form of cryptophasia, linguistically, their language usage is categorised as cryptophasia.

Their cryptophasia ended when Jennifer died. According to the twins’ father, Wallace, the girls had a longstanding agreement that if one died, the other must begin to speak and live a normal life. As of 2008, June is living quietly and independently, near her parents in West Wales.

Cryptophasia is a unique and mysterious phenomenon that highlights the fascinating connection between language and relationships and must be researched further in the linguistic field. Whether it is the secret language of twins like Poto and Cabengo, the evolving multilingual system of the Youlden twins, or the deep, psychological bond behind the Gibbons twins’ cryptophasia, these stories show just how powerful communication can be when shaped by isolation, love, and shared experience. While most cryptophasias fade as children grow and interact with the world, these cases remind us how language is not just about words—it is a reflection of connection, creativity, and sometimes survival.

2025-03-05
The Gender Code: Dangerous Gender Marking?

From pronouns to professions, gender codes are all around us. Though often unnoticed, they shape society as it exists today. I’ve only ever lived in Britain (which shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of awareness of other cultures), so I can’t speak on behalf of other societies. However, in the Western world, and especially in Britain, gendered language has come a long way. Within my lifetime, language has evolved significantly, experiencing both growth and setbacks.

I remember the first time I heard “woman up” instead of “man up”—it was in the 2014 Disney movie Big Hero 6, spoken by the character GoGo, voiced by Jamie Chung. Eight-year-old me was amazed, realising I could aspire to be as strong as GoGo without measuring strength by masculinity. That small but powerful alteration to a familiar phrase challenged an assumption I had never even thought to question.

The History of Gendered Language

When it comes to grammatical gender, linguists trace its origins back thousands of years to Proto-Indo-European. Many modern languages still have gendered forms, such as the articles der, die, das in German, which denote masculine, feminine, and neuter forms. However, the concept of gender as we now understand it—describing human characteristics—was significantly shaped in 1955 by John Money, a controversial but pioneering sexologist who studied human sexuality and gender roles.

The prevailing view is that language is often biased toward a certain sex or gender. But how does this actually manifest in our everyday speech?

The Evolution of Gendered Terms

Language evolves with society. As cultural norms and values shift, the words we use often change with them too, though these shifts don’t always happen in the way we anticipate. When the term “SheEO” emerged, it aimed to challenge the assumption that CEOs were inherently men. Great, a win for gender representation! But over time, some criticised the term, arguing it reinforced the idea that a woman in power was an anomaly rather than the norm. “Girlboss” suffered a similar fate, once empowering but now often used mockingly and sarcastically on TikTok. This raises the question: do we even need gender-marked terms at all?

Historically, female-marked terms tend to take on negative connotations. Linguist Sara Mills observed that such terms often become sexualised, limiting women’s roles. Meanwhile, male-marked equivalents either remain neutral or even gain prestige. Take mistress, for example. In Samuel Johnson’s time, it meant “a woman who governs.” Today, the Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a woman (other than a man’s wife) having a sexual relationship with a married man.” A word that once signified authority and leadership has been reduced to one associated with scandal. Language has a habit of sidelining women, always dealing them the losing hand, reducing their roles and reinforcing stereotypes.

Even so-called gender-neutral terms often default to male. Consider doctor. When referring to a woman, people frequently specify “female doctor.” This redundancy implies that doctor is inherently male and that a woman in the role is an exception. Society still assumes certain professions belong to men, making it necessary to mark a woman’s presence explicitly. This bias extends beyond professions. Think about how we refer to mixed-gender groups. Terms like guys or mankind are often used inclusively, yet their origins are explicitly male. Even in “neutral” language, the male perspective is often the standard.

But is it all doom and gloom? Not necessarily.

Progress and the Path Forward

The 2010s feel like a lifetime ago, and society has changed drastically since then. If we accept the hypothesis that language shapes how we see the world, then progress in language reflects progress in society. We’re far from perfect, but we’re moving in the right direction. The wider acceptance of pronouns, for example, lays a foundation for more inclusive language. Changes in job titles, from fireman to firefighter and policeman to police officer, signal an effort to remove gender bias in professional spaces.

Of course, language isn’t perfect. It will take decades to refine it further. But a great step forward would be to abandon gender-marked terms altogether. Why should we still be separating people based on outdated distinctions? Why should a leader be a SheEO when they can simply be a CEO? Let’s be honest—these distinctions don’t serve men, women, or non-gender-conforming people. Once we move beyond gendered labels, we can begin to think more equitably and recognize that a CEO is simply a Chief Executive Officer—not inherently a man in power. When we strip away these unnecessary labels, we create a language that better reflects a world where gender doesn’t dictate ability or authority.

So I guess its all about taking the dangerous markings out of language and broadening our minds. The sooner we move beyond gendered labels, the sooner we can focus on what really matters: the work people do, not the gender they identify with.

2025-02-18

A Night Counting Stars: What Yoon Dongju, the Ill-fated Korean Poet Wished upon a Star

A Night Counting Stars	별 헤는 밤
Yoon DongJu	윤동주

Translated by Chaewon Kim

As the heavens hold the seasons They are now full of autumn.	계절이 지나가는 하늘에는 가을로 가득 차 있습니다.
Without any worries I can almost grasp all the autumn stars.	나는 아무 걱정도 없이 가을 속의 별들을 다 헤일 듯합니다.
However— All the stars—one by one—engraved in my heart cannot be fully fathomed As the morning comes, As tomorrow night awaits, And as my youth continues.	가슴속에 하나둘 새겨지는 별을 이제 다 못 헤는 것은 쉬이 아침이 오는 까닭이요, 내일 밤이 남은 까닭이요, 아직 나의 청춘이 다하지 않은 까닭입니다.
A star for reminiscence A star for love A star for loneliness A star for admiration A star for poetry A star for my mother— mother,	별 하나에 추억과 별 하나에 사랑과 별 하나에 쓸쓸함과 별 하나에 동경과 별 하나에 시와 별 하나에 어머니, 어머니,
Dear mother, I deliver beautiful names for each star. The names of old classmates at school, the names, Pae, Kyung, Ok, of foreign ladies, the names of the girls, already mothers of their children, the names of the poor neighbours, pigeons, dogs, rabbits, mules, deer, the names of the poets, Francis Jammes, and Rainer Maria Rilke.	어머님, 나는 별 하나에 아름다운 말 한마디씩 불러 봅니다. 소학교 때 책상을 같이 했던 아이들의 이름과, 패, 경, 옥, 이런 이국 소녀들의 이름과, 벌써 아기 어머니 된 계집애들의 이름과, 가난한 이웃 사람들의 이름과, 비둘기, 강아지, 토끼, 노새, 노루, ‘프랑시스 잠’, ‘라이너 마리아 릴케’ 이런 시인의 이름을 불러 봅니다.
All of them are far beyond the tip of my fingers. As distant as the stars.	이네들은 너무나 멀리 있습니다. 별이 아스라이 멀듯이.
Mother, And you are far away in North Gando.	어머님, 그리고 당신은 멀리 북간도에 계십니다.
Longing for something I scribble my name — down on this hill blessed by the starlights and buried it in the soil.	나는 무엇인지 그리워 이 많은 별빛이 내린 언덕 위에 내 이름자를 써 보고 흙으로 덮어 버리었습니다.
Insects cry throughout the darkness mourning their shameful names.	딴은 밤을 새워 우는 벌레는 부끄러운 이름을 슬퍼하는 까닭입니다.
Yet, when winter leaves and spring arrives upon my star As fresh greenery blooms on a tomb May there be proud luscious grass on the mound of my name.	그러나 겨울이 지나고 나의 별에도 봄이 오면 무덤 위에 파란 잔디가 피어나듯이 내 이름자 묻힌 언덕 위에도 자랑처럼 풀이 무성할 거외다.

Yoon DongJu (1917-1945), the young and ill-fated poet, forever questioned his identity as a citizen of the lost country until his very last breath. Yoon Dongju was born during the occupation of Imperial Japan and passed away a few months before the independence in 1945.

Born in a region north of the Korean peninsula staying away from the authorities, Yoon Dongju moved and graduated from secondary school and university in Seoul, Korea. Afterwards, he travelled to Kyoto, Japan to continue his studies. While being “fortunate” enough to continue studying in Japan, he struggled with figuring out his true identity. Most Koreans were forced to change their names to Japanese characters, and Yoon Dongju was one of them. He was constantly aware of his desire to actively participate in the independence movement, but due to various reasons, he was unable to do so. This left him feeling isolated and helpless in a foreign country. Poetry was the way he chose to cope with these feelings.

The concept of searching for one’s name is often shown in his poems, which shows his self-reflection and criticism (of some sort) against his “shameful act” of not being able to actively resist the authorities of Imperial Japan. In A Night Counting Stars, nature is used to express the complicated emotions, as well as the shame associated with one’s name. The stars symbolise individual identities, and the night sky reflects the challenging period of Japanese colonial rule. The poem starts with the narrator trying to count the stars in the autumn sky and naming them one by one—starting from calling out to his mother, far away in his hometown, moving on to proper names like Pae, Kyung, Ok, the French and Austrian poets, and ending it with common names such as pigeons, dogs, mules, and deer. The long, breathlessly continued stanza gives each living being a life, uniqueness, and independence.

Finally, the poem concludes with the narrator waiting for spring; however, in this future vision, the narrator himself is absent. Instead, a tomb bearing his name is present, implying an ending of some sort. This may signify the end of his own life or the end of his shameful name. This remains open to individual interpretation; however, considering that his life didn’t last long after the creation of this poem, it appears to foreshadow the sorrowful fate of the “unfortunate” poet.

Translating a work that I’ve read thousands of times wasn’t very easy. I spent a lot of time carefully considering each word and phrase, and not all lines were translated in the same manner. I could come up with some lines effortlessly, while others required more effort to make sure they flowed smoothly and rhymed. For instance, I spent an entire day deciding whether the title should be A Night Counting Stars or Counting Stars at Night. After much contemplation, I chose to place “night” at the very front since it is the head noun in the Korean title. Both “counting stars” and “night” carry equal syntactic weight, so I opted to post-modify the noun with the clause “counting stars”.

Contrastingly, though quite complicated, I had a clear vision for the last stanza: “As fresh greenery blooms on a tomb; May there be proud luscious grass on the mound of my name.” Unlike most English poems, this poem doesn’t rely heavily on rhyme, but it incorporates mild prosodic rhythms and uses repetition to create consistency. I aimed to maintain these characteristics without overly elongating the lines with excessive descriptions, while also focusing on rhythms and introducing some rhyme in certain stanzas. Hopefully, I achieved this balance.

To add a personal note on this, Yoon Dongju’s poems have always had a special place in my heart. Whenever I was lost in my life, his poems were a company of the lonesome journey of finding myself. Witnessing the political struggles in South Korea in December 2024, I too have felt helpless in a remote city where no one seemed to care about what was going on in my homeland. After years of reading his poems, I felt I finally understood what sort of self-forgiveness and consolation he sought for himself by writing these poems.

Life is filled with doubts, questions, and a search for answers that often feel out of reach. Yet, we discover answers through the beauty of words. This is why I love languages; one of the most beautiful creations of mankind. I find solace and joy in sharing the remarkable aspects of Korean culture and especially literature, making them more accessible to the global community. Being able to bridge the gap between the two languages feels like a small superhero power that I’ve been gifted with.

(Many thanks to all who helped me with some translations :-))

2025-02-14

To All the Names I’ve Loved Before: the Romance of Surnames as Nicknames

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and for me, it’ll probably be spent curled up with a blanket, rewatching my favourite romcoms. Recently, I binged season 2 of XO, Kitty, and one detail stuck with me: one of the love interests calls the protagonist, Kitty, by her last name, ‘Covey’. At first, it seems like he’s just trying to get under her skin, but for fans of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, we know better. ‘Covey’ isn’t just a name, it’s a term of endearment. In this universe, being called by your last name is practically a love language.

In To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, where romance isn’t just about sweeping gestures or perfect promposals. It’s in the little details, like how Peter Kavinsky calls Lara Jean ‘Covey.’ At first it feels casual, maybe even a little flippant. But as their fake relationship blossoms into something real, ‘Covey’ takes on new meaning. It’s Peter’s way of singling her out, showing that he sees her not as some rebound but as ‘Lara Jean Covey’, the introverted hopeless romantic who’s uniquely her. The repetition of her last name throughout the trilogy mirrors their relationship’s evolution, going from a teasing nickname to a term of endearment that carries weight. It’s a reminder that sometimes, love is about the little things, like how someone chooses to say your name.

Similarly, in 10 Things I Hate About You, Patrick Verona doesn’t call Kat by her last name ‘Stratford’ just to tease her. It’s his way of marking her as someone different, someone who stands out in a sea of high school clichés. It’s playful, sure, but also personal. The same goes for Bridget Jones’s Diary where Mark Darcy affectionately calls Bridget ‘Jones.’ It’s not just a name; it’s a declaration: he sees her, quirks and all, and loves her exactly as she is. So, I couldn’t help but wonder, what is it about last names that feels so intimate in romance? Maybe it’s because they strip away pretence and formality, leaving something raw, authentic, and uniquely you. 

In Western romcoms, last names are often flirty, playful, even intimate. But does the same hold true across cultures? In some places, last names carry a deep sense of lineage and respect, tied to family and tradition. In others, they’re rarely used in casual conversation, let alone romance. Could the power of a last name be something uniquely tied to Western ideas of individuality and love? Or does every culture have its own version of using names to flirt, tease, and connect? 

In Asian cultures like Korea and Bangladesh, names carry layers of meaning and social context that go beyond individuality. When I watched Singles Inferno, the Korean dating show, I noticed how contestants often address each other by their full names, like ‘Shin Ji-yeon’ or ‘Kim Hyeon-joong.’ In Korea, last names aren’t often used alone in casual settings unless it’s to signify authority or distance which makes the romantic use of surnames in Western media feel almost foreign. In Bangladesh, the practice is even more layered. People rarely call each other by just their first names; instead, they add titles like ‘bhaiya’ (brother) or ‘apu’ (sister), emphasising familial bonds and respect over individuality. These cultural norms show how names in Asian societies are less about singling someone out romantically and more about reinforcing connections within a social framework. Romance in these cultures doesn’t come from dropping teasing nicknames, it’s more about actions that quietly speak volumes. Maybe in some places, love isn’t about standing out but fitting into someone’s world, one thoughtful gesture at a time.

Traditionally, surnames have symbolised lineage and legacy, often tied to men as the ‘carriers’ of family names. However, for women last names have historically been viewed as temporary, something borrowed until marriage when they adopt a new identity and last name. This expectation may explain why last names are more commonly used for men in both formal and affectionate ways. A man’s last name implies continuity, a sense of permanence, while a woman’s last name has been culturally framed as transitional, tied more to her family of origin than to her individual identity. This dynamic subtly influences how we perceive romance in language. Calling someone by their last name often suggests stability, admiration, or playful confidence – qualities that society has long associated with masculinity. When a woman’s last name is used romantically, it feels subversive, even empowering, as if reclaiming that name as a mark of individuality and affection, not just family ties. 

Surnames carry an emotional weight that goes beyond formality, they’re tied to identity, history, and how we see ourselves in relation to others. In romance, using someone’s last name can feel like peeling back a layer of who they are, focusing on their essence while quietly acknowledging their individuality, that’s why it works so well in the romcoms. Whether it’s Patrick teasingly calling Kat ‘Stratford‘, Peter affectionately calling Lara Jean ‘Covey’ or even Mark Darcy quietly admiring ‘Jones’, the last name becomes shorthand for intimacy – a way of saying, ‘I see you for who you truly are.’ And isn’t that what romance is all about? Whether it’s in the playful banter of a romcom or real-life love stories, surnames remind us that sometimes, the smallest words can carry the biggest feelings.

2025-02-11
Low Literacy, High Office: How Trump proves that you don’t need to read to succeed

In 2020, Donald Trump proclaimed via Twitter (or X) that he was not “just smart, but genius. And a very stable genius at that!” Whether you call this ‘self-confidence’, or just plainly insufferable, it appears that a lot of his followers agree that Trump is, in fact, a political prodigy.

In light of his recent success in the 2024 presidential election, and his infamous ramblings about pet-eating migrants and “concepts of a plan”, his speeches have been a source of either great entertainment or frustration. Online, we’ve probably all watched some compilations of Trump making an incoherent argument or using some concerningly poor vocabulary as a potential presidential candidate. Especially in comparison to his opposition, Kamala Harris, Vice President and ex-attorney general, the language he has used throughout his political career has been ridiculed. And yet, he still maintains the self-proclamation that he is “genius”.

It is undeniable that language is a political weapon. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword,’ or whatever they say. This notion is still viable, even with the likes of Trump.

Language is a politician’s arsenal, and Trump’s lack of linguistic complexity is potentially his greatest weapon. His reading age, according to Factba.se, is that of an 8-year-old, and, as the cherry on top, is the president with the least diverse lexicon since 1929, truly embodying the ‘traditional America’ narrative. Funnily enough, there is a close correlation between Republican states and on-average lower education levels. You could say he is the perfect example of knowing your audience. Although he was consistently fact-checked during his debates, he does know one thing for certain: how to appeal to his demographic.

Compare the following maps, and I’m sure you’ll notice a pattern between the states with higher levels of education and political alignment. Now, this is opening a whole new can of worms, and we could dive into the impact of education on an individual’s political beliefs, but we are here to talk about language, and how, controversially, Trump is a linguistic mastermind (as much as it hurts to admit).

A politician like Trump, the self-appointed “man of the people”, knows his linguistic techniques. One of his preferred methods of spewing his rhetoric is repetition. You know, what we use when teaching infants how to talk? Next time you watch Trump deliver a speech, if you’re brave enough, take a mental note of how frequently he repeats himself. Initially, this spectacle may just appear as though he doesn’t quite know what to say next. Whilst this could be the truth, we could assume that Trump and his advisors take a great interest in behavioural psychology and therefore have perfected their rhetoric to appeal to the masses.

It’s unlikely that Trump has read Cacioppo & Petty’s (1979) study, but he embodies one of the underpinning theories: the “mere exposure effect”. By repeating certain phrases, especially “it’s true. It’s true” (a particular favourite of Trump’s), it has been found to promote positive attitudes towards arguments. It is a simple fact of life that the human brain is lazy, and we are more likely to accept information as the truth if it is already familiar. Trump profits off this cognitive idleness and constructs his speeches around drilling the same Republican ideology into his audience’s heads.

“The safest place to be ever is at a Trump rally. It’s true! It’s true,” stated Trump in 2018. Maybe the assassination attempt at his rally in Pennsylvania has since changed his mind, but the principle still stands. Repetition is persuasive, despite how outlandish his claims are, and how poorly he communicates them.

This “mere exposure effect”, paired with lower levels of education in certain states, makes the public particularly vulnerable to conservative doctrines. This phenomenon describes how one becomes more attracted to ideas that are frequently exposed to them. So, in Republican holding states where attitudes towards issues such as abortion or immigration have been historically, consistently negative, changing these attitudes is hard work. The citizens of red states have been exposed to the life-long repetition of these ideologies, so they’re already pretty comfortable with Trump’s speeches condemning “illegal aliens” and “post-birth executions”.

Alleged reports from Trump’s National Economic Council chief Gary Cohn, during his first presidency, stated that “Trump won’t read anything – not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers, nothing”. His allergy to literacy and inability to engage in written discourse, aside from that of Twitter, is evident in his speeches and during his presidential duties. An article published by Mother Jones indicated that the length of Trump’s briefings fell 75% short of that of Barack Obama’s, a true testament to the claims that he has the literacy proficiency of a 4^th grader. This is no concern to Trump supporters, who view him as the mouthpiece of their political and economic agendas. It’s reasonable to expect that that the language he uses will more likely resonate with the 62.3% of the population that are not college-educated. So, whilst it is easy to slate Trump for his poor communicative capability, he does cater to his audience, which is possibly the most important aspect of running for presidency.

So, the moral of the story is, you don’t have to do your pre-readings to succeed. In fact, you don’t have to read at all, especially if you fancy becoming president!

2025-02-10
(Attempting) To Master the Art of Code Switching

Code switching is a phenomenon mostly seen in bilingual and multilingual environments and acts as a bridge between different languages. It’s when people switch between languages mid-conversation, often to fill in the blanks when a word just won’t come to mind in that language, that one word you so desperately wanted to use. The word that ran away from you.

Without me even realising it, code switching had taken centre-stage in my life. Code switching has become a gateway to my roots. While I have yet to master my mother tongue, it has brought me much closer to reaching that goal, one step at a time.

This is my story about attempting to master the art of code switching. It’s a story that has never been told in its complete form. On the occasion that I’m asked where my family comes from, or where my origins lie, I would reveal pieces and fragments of a skill that I rarely appreciated until recently. Perhaps I could understand that whenever English and my inherited language collided, there was a shift. I just couldn’t find the right words. Until now.

Both my parents hail from Borama, a city in northwestern Somalia. The East African country is mostly known for its ongoing civil war and terrorism. I was often embarrassed to reveal where I come from due to its negative depiction in the media. When I wasn’t asked about the pending war, or whether I’ve ever visited the motherland, the conversation would often turn to whether I eat bananas with rice (to confirm, no I do not). The truth is that most–if not all–nations have a dark past. We shouldn’t ever feel ashamed to hail from a certain place. For me, my mother’s dishes acted as love letters, reminders of home when I felt like an outsider. Now my favourite thing to drink when I’m sad is a cup of shaa. The warm spices of cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves reminds me of the rich culture Somalia has to offer. You just have to look beyond what the news outlets present to the general public.

I grew up with a confused sense of self in the cultural melting pot that is London. My parents made it very clear that I am Somali, and that I should be proud to be so. But I didn’t feel pride or confidence. I remember hesitating to call out Aabo when my father came to pick me up from school, and on the rare occasion my classmates asked how a certain word was said in my home language, my mind would suddenly go blank. Eventually, I began to believe that I just shouldn’t bother, and I simply would never be able to articulate in my mother tongue. English became all that I cared about, and I focused on sounding like a local Londoner, and presenting myself as one. The city life is all that I’ve ever known and I tuned into that. With wanting to fit in I rejected my heritage, my history and my linguistic roots.

In my household, English has always dominated. With the sole exception of my mother, we all converse in the language. As a child, this didn’t bother me because my only concern was being able to at least somewhat express myself. When I couldn’t get through to my mum, who refused to accept my poorly formulated Somali, I turned to drawing. And when she grew tired of my drawings, I turned to writing in the hopes that one day, someone would understand me. My father, funnily encouraged conversing with me in English, only switching tongues at my mother’s exasperated attempts to get her children to speak their ‘true’ language. Looking back, I regret not trying harder to embrace my roots, both the good and bad.

One phrase that became embroidered into my vocabulary were the words ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘Raali ho’. Raali ho was a way to apologise for my many shortcomings: I’m sorry I don’t speak Somali very well. I’m sorry I don’t know much about the country’s political situation. I’m sorry that my parents didn’t do a ‘good enough’ job to teach me about my heritage. At the slightest display of disappointment, whether that be from my relatives, family friends or even my own parents, I would bow my head and utter those words. It was an attempted peace offering to acknowledge that yes, my Somali is bad. And yes, I may never be considered as a true Somali, whatever that even means.

I realise now that I should’ve never been made to feel that way, to bear the burden of not being a native speaker of a language that was rarely spoken in my home. I was only a child, yet I was made to feel guilty for my very existence. And if it wasn’t entirely my fault, strangers who didn’t even know me would comment on my parents’ poor efforts, and I would become enraged. So, I finally decided to do something about it. Code switching became my own middle ground, and I stood firm on it. If I couldn’t find the right word to use when conversing with relatives, I would slip in an English filler. Instead of laughing off comments about my bad pronunciation, I would ask how to say it correctly instead. It soon became a quiet form of rebellion, and before I knew it I could have whole conversations in my language, even with people from different regions, each with their own take on Somali lexicon.

To accept who you are, and where you come from can be incredibly freeing. I accept that my Somali is not perfect, but compared to just a few years ago I have come a long way. This was only possible once I accepted that the pursuit of perfection only ever weighed me down. I also accepted that English will always have a large influence in my life; it’s the language where I feel most like myself. The art of code-switching is often overlooked, yet for me, it has been a bridge between worlds, a quiet rebellion, and a way of reclaiming my identity. And that’s something I’ll carry with me for years to come.

2025-02-06
Transforming Languages: What Makes a Successful Translation?

“Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee. Thou art translated.”

In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom, the Weaver’s head, gets “transformed” into the head of an ass. Back in the Elizabethan Era, the word “translate” had a slightly different meaning in comparison to the modern day. To translate was to transform, to go through the process of metamorphosis—a physical change. In modern times, translating something usually refers to “re-writing” a text that is written in one language into another. In its more abstract form rather than a physical one, translation nowadays is still a metamorphosis.

image 1: Metamorphosis

This provokes a set of new questions:

What does it mean, then, to translate something?

What makes a successful translation?

Should one translate every single word to stay faithful to the original work?

What if a word in one language doesn’t exist in another?

Is a perfect translation even possible?

The “perfect” translation of a text into another language needs a more precise definition. Growing up as a literature enthusiast in South Korea, it was a common misconception that Korean was too complex to be translated smoothly. Subsequently, this was also something I was conditioned to believe. However, for the past few years, writers, translators, and publishers have tried to prove them wrong, and finally, in 2024, it is evident that the Korean language has overcome the barriers of translation.

If you are interested in world literature and/or Korean culture, it is likely that you would have came across one of these names: Han Gang (漢江, 한강) and Han Kang (韓江, 한강). Han Gang refers to the river that cuts through the centre of Seoul, Han River, and the latter is the name of the Nobel Literature prize-winning novelist, Han Kang. These two names are written and pronounced the same in the Korean language and therefore cause confusion, even among native Korean speakers.

The unintentional play on homophones is quite interesting regarding how Korean names have been both romanised and westernised. Originating from ancient China, Korea—like many other countries in Asia—follows the Eastern name order where one’s surname precedes one’s given name (therefore the terms ‘first name’ and ‘last name’ did not make sense to 5-year-old me when I was learning English). However, when referring to their names outside of Asia, especially in the West, the majority of Koreans change the name order from Eastern to Western.

Some names, especially political figures in the East, are often written according to the Eastern standard (e.g., Kim Dae-Jung, Moon Jae-In, etc.). Only recently did Korean names begin to be written with family names first, which can be seen as part of the decolonisation of language use. The iconic name of the famous author, whether she intended to keep the Eastern name order or not, made her more unique than anyone else.

Image 2

(Warning: this article may contain spoilers!)

Human Acts is the first book of Han Kang’s that I’ve ever read. It has always been a best-seller amongst Korean students, as many schools had this book on the “recommended list”. This novel is relatively shorter and therefore easier to read for secondary school students who don’t normally have much time to spend on reading alone.

Han Kang was born in Gwangju, located in one of the most southern provinces in South Korea, Jeolla-namdo (South Jeolla). The city, the capital of Korean democracy, embodies the struggles in modern Korean history. Between October 1979 and May 1980, the university students and the people of Gwangju protested against the military coup during the implementation of martial law. (See links: Gwangju Uprising 1 Gwangju Uprising 2)

“Why would you sing the national anthem for people who have been killed by soldiers? Why cover the coffin with the Taegukgi, as though it wasn’t the nation itself that had murdered them?”

(Human Acts, Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith)

Human Acts is a strand of stories of what had taken place in Gwangju, 1980. Han Kang does a wonderful job of capturing the fear, the loss, and the devotion of those who sacrificed themselves for democracy.

Quite a few concerns have been expressed amongst Korean and international critics, debating whether the translation is done “well” or not. The novel contains significant parts of Korean history; therefore the struggles of the translation are fairly understandable. An article from The Guardian written after the release of Smith’s translation of Han Kang’s previous novel, The Vegetarian, raises concerns about Smith’s translation skills, noting that she had only studied Korean for three years before undertaking the work. Other narratives suggest that the mistranslations in her work occur much more frequently than those by “professional translators”.

When looking at the translated work from a native Korean speaker’s perspective, I have noticed that some translations could have been carried out better to capture the nuances of the original words. At the beginning of the book, the protagonist sings along to the Korean national anthem, Aegukga. It is understandably challenging to translate the song’s lyrics, as the rhymes matter as much as the words. Smith translated a verse of the song as follows:

“Hibiscus and three thousand ri full of splendid mountains and rivers”

While the meaning of the lyrics is translated, the lack of rhymes and more importantly the mismatching syllables do not feel “right”. This is due to the compactness of the use of languages—the majority of the lyrics containing borrowed Hanja (Chinese character) words makes the English translation very challenging, and considering that the whole verse only consists of 10 syllables in Korean, this translation is surely a mouthful.

Soon after, the protagonists sing another song, Arirang, one of the most well-known Korean folk songs—this is related to the different word order and sentence structures.

“You who abandoned me here

Your feet will pain you before you’ve gone even ten ri”

In the original lyrics, the emphasis is on “I”, who is being abandoned, rather than “you” who is leaving. However, in English, it is unlikely for a sentence to start with the object “me”. The traditional Korean measurement term, ri, as in “three thousand ri” and “ten ri”, is kept in the translations as it is written in the original songs. Ri(里), also known as the Korean mile, is approximately 0.393 km or 0.244 mi, and “three thousand ri” represents the distance between the most southern and the most northern part of Korea (including North Korea). Here, I believe that not translating “ri” into “mile” or any equivalent term was a good idea to keep the cultural uniqueness of the original lyrics.

Indeed, the structural differences make Korean-to-English translation overly challenging. Smith wrote in the Guardian, “Translating from Korean into English involves moving from a language more accommodating of ambiguity, repetition, and plain prose, to one that favours precision, concision, and lyricism”. (Read article: Lost in (mis)translation?)

In a different interview, Smith continues on the topic, saying “Translation is an act of reading in the sense that it is interpretive but it doesn’t necessarily stop the spirit of the original from coming through”. People tend to think that the translated work must contain every element that the original text has, however, that is nearly impossible (and somewhat unreasonable) when we think about the nature of languages. Korean and English have developed in significantly different cultures, therefore there are gaps between the two languages that no one can “fill in”. The translator’s job is not only to smoothen them or make them seem less visible by using words and phrases that satisfy both the original text and the naturalness of the translated text. They must also keep a good balance on both of them, so the “spirit of the original” can “come through” effectively, allowing us to appreciate both the original author’s intent and the translator’s touch simultaneously.

Image 3

I’d like to elaborate a bit more on Smith’s decision to keep the “uniqueness” of the original texts. This decision was crucial to making her translations successful. I believe her choice of words was the game-changer to the overall success of the translation of Human Acts. Korean proper nouns are romanised and used directly, rather than being translated into English. For instance, the Korean flag is referred to as “Taegukgi”, the term for Korea’s national flag used by Koreans. The smooth integration of Korean proper nouns or metaphorical words is often found throughout her work: “her back bent into the shape of the letter ‘ㄱ’ (p. 13), “Hyeong (p. 93, 148)”, and “Hanok (p. 147)”.

Although Smith could have used an English metaphor, her choice to incorporate a common Korean phrase “a person’s back bent as the letter ‘ㄱ’”, and the use of “Hyeong”, a term used by males to refer to an older male (in a friendly, casual way), allows readers to fully immerse into the culture.

Deborah Smith’s dedication to lesser-known writers and novels from lesser-known countries has continued since 2015, starting from the foundation of Tilted Axis Press. (Check the website out if you’re interested!) Smith mentions in an interview that Tilted Axis Press publishes “things that are surreal or experimental or at least innovative in some way because I find that that is easier to market to readers as read this book not to learn about other culture necessarily but read it just in the same way you would read any other book”.

2024-12-10
Linguistic Inbreeding: The Downfall Of AI?

Picture this, you are a university student staring down the barrel of impossible deadlines. With each second that passes, the feeling of impending doom seeps into your very existence. In a moment of desperation AI seems to be the only saviour, a lifeline, to spark some creativity. You enter your prompt, breath-bated, just waiting for what AI has to say. Only for it to spit out some lifeless robotic sentence that was Totally. Not. Written. By a human, Exhibit A :

‘This paper delves into the intricate tapestry of AI incorporating multidimensional frameworks and interconnected structure of linguistic dynamics.’

Sigh. That is about as helpful as a blank page. The sentence above is a whole lot of wordy nonsense. Gibberish, if you’d like. The lexical choices may ostensibly appear sophisticated with the use of fancy metaphors like ‘intricate tapestry’ and ‘multidimensional frameworks’, but in this context it just sounds devoid of life and hollow. An attempt to sound smart but falling completely flat. AI is praised for being a helpful tool that is capable of sounding human-like and can inspire innovation. However, as time passes it feels stuck in an echo chamber, churning out the same phrases over and over again. But why? It is not exactly AI’s fault; it is actually due to a new emerging phenomenon lovingly coined ‘linguistic inbreeding’.

Brace Yourself. I know what you are thinking. What on earth is linguistic inbreeding? According to BBC Earth ‘inbreeding is the mating of organisms closely related by ancestry which can increase the risk of genetic disease and defects’. If the inbreeding spans over multiple generations then the lack of diversity in the genetic pool can be disastrous. Similarly, is the case in AI. A Large Language Model, or LLM for short is the system AI uses to understand and produce human language. These LLM’s are trained on datasets from multiple sources; the internet, books, articles, anything it can get its hands on. Using the input they receive; the AI is able to produce text. However, as a growing chunk of the internet contains AI generated content, the AI assumes this synthetic content is human made, using it as input. As AI starts feeding on itself and producing new outputs, the feedback loop of its own language contains many defects such as repetitive phrasing, misuse of lexical items and awkward grammar.

Defects….

Let’s dig into the worst offender: the verb ‘delve’. Personally, I think it’s a nice little lexical item, but for AI it seems to be its pride and joy. Delve this and delve that, AI’s love affair for this word is seriously obsessive! AI adores this stuff. Most of AI’s output contains the word delve and is usually a tell-tale sign that it was AI generated. Whilst delve is not a common word in everyday conversation, it has skyrocketed in usage in published articles.

Since 2022, the usage of the word delve in published medical articles has increased by 400 percent, according to a study by Jermey Nygyen – this should ring alarm bells. This trend of increased use of ‘delve’ may seem like a quirky linguistic trend, however this has serious implications.

As the aforementioned study focuses on medical articles, it highlights how AI is becoming increasingly integrated into the medical community and shaping research. If AI is consuming itself, the output would undoubtedly get worse over time. With the increased usage in the medical community this could have disastrous effects. These articles of medical research have a direct influence on health policies, treatment protocols and patient care. We are dealing with life and death.

The AI-generated articles may be full of redundant phrasing, clunky sentences and convoluted metaphors. Another linguistic feature of AI which would be less than ideal in a medical article is AI’s tendency of being neutral, hedging. Modal verbs such as ‘might, may, could’, adverbs of probability such as ‘possibly’, and qualifying adjectives like ‘somewhat and slightly’ appear in AI more than human text. Hedging in a medical article could undermine the findings of the research and could become unclear. Not good.

On the other hand, delve is not limited to AI. Humans use the word delve. It was created by humans. This preconceived notion that delve is solely attributed to AI can ruin lives as such accusations could cause a research paper to be rescinded for plagiarism. To further complicate matters, the LLM Chat GPT was trained on, was partially from Nigeria. In Nigerian English, especially in a business domain, the world delve is used at a much higher rate than any other dialect of English. AI has absorbed this structure. Thus, to equate certain words to AI just because it is found more frequently in its output can be problematic and should be treated with sensitivity.

An interesting study conducted by Ilia Shumailov (et al.) trained a LLM on its own output. The AI would create its own small paragraph and would repeatedly use itself to learn how to write. The initial output would be used to create the second output and so on. The AI was asked to complete the sentence ‘To cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, you…’. Initially, the first output completed the sentence with ‘To cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, you… have to prepare it in the oven. You can do this by adding salt and pepper to the turkey’. This response seems very natural and coherent, but it gets weirder. On the 5^th generation, the response ended up like ‘ To cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, you need to know what you are going to do with your life if you don’t know what you are going to do with your life’. This output is incoherent and irrelevant to the question asked. How does Thanksgiving relate to ‘What you are going to do with your life?’ Cheers AI for giving me an existential crisis.

According to the researcher, this happens as the AI model starts to forget events over time as the language learning model becomes poisoned by the data it receives, which distorts its perception of reality.

To fully understand the brevity of the situation one must understand that AI is everywhere. From articles to scientific reports, reviews and even communication with customers from a business. As the quality of the language AI produces decreases, the AI model could collapse and be rendered useless. There are fears of AI stealing jobs from their human counterparts as they are ‘more efficient’. These systems want to steal jobs. The same systems that cannot finish a sentence about Thanksgiving.

As AI consumes itself, the output only becomes more riddled with ‘defects’, less coherent syntax, with more phrases being repeatedly regurgitated and generally just plain bad. There’s something so unsettling about the mental image of AI gnawing at itself, weakening with every bite or perhaps I should say byte.

To those who feared a world ending AI apocalypse, worry not. I don’t think we are there just yet! But who truly knows the future of AI? There may be a day in the coming future when AI will have the ability to delineate between AI and Human text. If AI can absorb ONLY high-quality human datasets, there may be a sliver of hope to break this cycle of cannibalism. But until then, the once revered tool which promised to change the world will fall apart by its inability to escape its own shadow.

2024-12-03
Homeland, Motherland & Fatherland

Across the 195 countries in the world, each one has a different way of referring to itself. For many, the population either views their home as one of two things: the Motherland or the Fatherland—both have different histories, connotations and reasons as to why.

However, some countries don’t refer to either; the US is frequently called “the Homeland”, as well as Slovenia and Turkey. The title “land of ancestors” is used by China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

In some cases, these terms have been utilised for political reasons – mainly in different forms of propaganda. Whether to inspire populations, create an image or to justify actions, these terms have been central in orchestration.

In English, Fatherland is the older of the two terms, dating back to around 1200. The word itself has its roots in the Germanic language, and is used mainly by countries with predominantly Germanic-speaking populations: Iceland, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands and most famously Germany have terms equating to “Fatherland”, with both the German and the Dutch national anthems using this term.

Outside of Germanic-based language, the term exists in Slavic-speaking countries such as Poland, Ukraine, Czechia and Bulgaria. Along with, Thailand, Somalia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Greece mainly refering to their home as the “Fatherland” or a similar name.

For many English speakers, the term Fatherland is closely linked with patriotism as a result of the Greek term itself. The Ancient Greek term “patris”, is the direct root of the English word patriotism; subsequently, Fatherland is viewed as a nationalist concept by many.

Motherland is a more recent term, with its first origins in English arising around 1500. Excluding English, older forms have Romantic origins – the Roman Empire referred to Rome and its surroundings as the Motherland. The UK is also often referred to as the Motherland, as well as India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

An issue with classifying the parental condition of a country emerges within languages with gendered forms. This is typical in Latin origin speaking countries such as France, Italy and Spain, where the title is “Fatherland” but the word itself is feminine. The Latin equivalent of Fatherland, pater, is feminine and creates the term “Mother Fatherland” in the aforementioned countries.

A third, non-parental form is the term “Homeland”. First used in English in the 1600s, the name is used most famously by the US, however, not in direct labelling of the country itself. The Department of Homeland Security was created in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Referring to domestic safety as “homeland” security has created a strong sense of distaste towards the word due to the actions of the department. The treatment of migrants, Asian-Americans and overall treatment of non-white Americans has led to “Homeland” being viewed as “grating”, according to Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist.

Homeland is used with more popularity in both Slovenia and Turkey; Turkey describes the country, translated into English, as “Mother Homeland”.

Opinions about why Fatherland or Motherland is the preferred choice vary amongst individuals. One presented argument is that it is the nation (Fatherland) vs the land itself (Motherland). Fatherland is shown to have connotations of government, militia, infrastructure and order whereas Motherland appears to suggest a nurturing and loving environment. These ideas could perhaps stem from the preconceived stereotypes we hold over parental roles; a warm, nurturing mother and a tough, disciplined Father. Therefore, adopting the terms by choice is a reflection of how we view the terms “mother” and “father”. If you wanted to portray yourself as strong, militant and patriotic, the term Fatherland would be more appropriate. Alternatively, to be seen as generous and caring, Motherland is more appropriate. Directly associating a country with these connotations, as a result, helps them form an image that may not be an accurate representation of their actions.

Within propaganda, references to parental forms have been employed, and often weaponised. The most famous example to English speakers is the use of “Fatherland” in Nazi Germany. The government called upon German citizens to protect the Fatherland, by joining the call to arms. Anti-Nazi propaganda created in response likewise referred to Germany as the “Fatherland”, causing some English speakers to associate the word directly with Nazi Germany. German populations, however, do not hold the same association—”Fatherland” has since not become a stigmatised or loaded term.

In comparison, during the same period and onwards, Russia referred to itself as “Mother Russia”. The aim was to create the image that the Soviets were caring for the population—they even went as far as to build statues depicting Russia as a woman. The contrast between the two is stark and corresponds to the idea of the militant father and the nurturing mother. The extent to which the populations were cared for is disputed, but the success of the propaganda is evident as Mother Russia is often the example most people think of when they hear of gendered personifications. The reality is that the majority of Russians refer to Russia as the “Fatherland”.

A common use for gendered personification politically has been in attempts for independence from colonialism. Both India and Ireland used figures of women representing their respective countries as symbols of their resistance. Bharat India (Mother India) became the figure of the boycott of British goods in the fight for independence. In Ireland, Kathleen Ni Houlihan was used frequently by resistance groups such as the IRA as an Irish nationalist symbol in their fight against the British. The prominence of a woman as the overall figurehead of an independence movement could be reflective of our own views of women being caring and protective against danger or threat.

Israel has opted to not use gendered personification, but a title similar to that of “homeland”. Due to the disputed nature of their legitimacy in the region, there are various titles that Israel refers to itself; the most popular names being “The Promised Land”, “The Land” and “Birth Land”. Each has its own distinct connotation, all with attempts at justification. The term “Promised” implies the land is owed to them and “Birth Land” supports the idea of an ancestral homeland. Finally, the use of the definitive article “The” in “The Land” creates a distinction between Israel and other countries in promoting it as the designated place.

Overall, the emergence through time of countries adopting gendered personification, titles or other forms stems from a variety of reasons. Their distinction in political spheres can be linked to our own biases surrounding how we view maternal and paternal figures. These have been shaped through history and will continue to change as time goes on.

2024-12-02

Category: 2024-2025

The History of Gendered Language

The Evolution of Gendered Terms

Progress and the Path Forward