We Are What We Speak: The Relation Between Language and Identity
How language enables us to establish, affirm and preserve who we are and where we came from
In the Spring of 2019, I was offered the chance to complete an internship in Barcelona. The job did not really interest me, but simply giving up forty hours of my weeks seemed like a small sacrifice to make if that would enable me to spend the rest of my time roaming the streets of the Catalan capital.
Barcelona had exerted a certain attraction on me for a long time. Not because of Gaudi’s architecture or the Mediterranean lifestyle but because I have always harboured a peculiar interest in the Catalan separatist movement, especially in the part which the Catalan language plays in that movement.
This very specific interest of mine is but a fraction of a much broader subject: the function of language as a carrier for common values; the role of language in establishing identity.
This article will explore how language weaves into the complex spider web of culture and then dive deeper into the role of language in separatism and national identity. Finally, it will look at how the death of a language affects its respective culture. All to answer the big question: what role does language play in establishing…
