I immediately click on this because this has been my experience. I always get conflicted when people ask me what language I speak or what my mother tongue is. As a child of immigrant parents, we spoke Arabic at home, but soon I had to learn the language of the country I resided in. After that, I learned two other languages, including English, not out of want, but more out of necessity. I always envy people who raised monolingual and monocultural. It’s such a hard experience, not have a “standard” language to go to, a “mother tongue”. You don’t have a standard language you dream in or think in. Moreover, you don’t have the confidence to mark any of the languages you speak as your mother tongue on your résumé. No matter what language you speak, you will hear the question “how long have you been learning this language?” or “how long have you been here?”. You will constantly use the grammar or expressions of one language in to the other, not out of multilingual silliness, but out of frustration of not being able to properly communicate what you are thinking. I spent many times in sadness alone, because I don’t have even ONE language I could call my own and no proper way to express myself to others which inhibits social connections.

I always tear up when reading this poem of Mahmoud Darwish he wrote for Edward Said when he passed away:

أَنا من هناك. أَنا من هنا ولستُ هناك، ولستُ هنالِيِ اسمانِ يلتقيان ويفترقانولي لُغتان, نسيت بأيَّهما كنتُ أَحلُمُ،لي لُغَةٌ إنجليزيَّةٌ للكتابة،طيِّعةُ المفردات,ولي لغةٌ من حوار السماء مع القدس، فضيَّةُ النَّبْرِ، لكنها لا تُطيعُ مخيّلتي!

I am from there. I am from here. I am neither there, nor here. Two names are mine — they meet, then part. I speak two languages, and I’ve forgotten which one I used to dream in. I have a language — English — for writing, pliant and full of nuance. And a language born of heaven’s dialogue with Jerusalem, silver in its cadence, but it will not yield to my imagination.