Mother Tongue

In language studies, mother tongue is linked to culture-its literature, artifacts, wisdom, generational ties, its jokes and proverbs, the names of flowers. A mother tongue carries the archive of one's own history-a sense of belonging at the heart of identity, one's central core. Language is among the first bonds between mother and child, words forging intimacy and communication. Yet, what happens when a mother tongue is associated with war and trauma? When language conveys displacement or the reenactment of a too -painful past? This essay explores the impact of growing up with a mother who suppressed her mother tongue and a daughter's search for the language of home that followed.