More than one English?!

Being able to communicate with others gives me a sense of power. Whether it may be my communicating skills at school or my speech at home with my family, I felt a sense of belonging. Growing up, I was taught two languages and heard two other languages regularly. I learned my first language which is Tamil through my grandma, and English through my parents. Switching between these languages happens very often and unconsciously. Growing up, I was exposed to a lot of informal speech and my parents would change between English and Tamil every sentence. Living in India for the first year of my life exposed me to a lot of dialects and slangs that changed on a daily basis. I would hear my grandma conversing in a language called Kannada, and I begin picking up words and pieces that still to this day can speak and recognize. Having a variety of languages spoken to me confused me and started to become a challenge. As I began to speak my first words, it was a fusion of my mother tongue, Tamil, and English. Still, to this day, I don't fuse two different languages, but I combine two different languages in a sentence. The one reason I tend to switch between the languages is because of how easily it comes to me. However, there is also different versions of my mother tongue that I speak in depending on the individual that I am talking to. My formal version of the language is spoken to my elders and my parents. The casual version is with my brother and others whom I am very close with.

This idea also tends to appear when I speak in the main language of the United States, English. My different dialects so to say change based on the people I am surrounded by. I use formal and more sophisticated terms when talking to my teacher to give them the respect that they deserve. When I'm communicating with my friends, my English is more shortened, and some slang is also incorporated. This change happens unintentionally and goes unnoticed by me multiple times. These varying versions of my "English" as Amy Tan would say, provoke the different sides to my personality. My formal side represents the calm and introverted aspect of me that emerges only in school and important environments. This part of my English does not give me much power because of the unusual way that it fits in with how I normally speak. It doesn't give me as much power as my informal and slang dialect of English does. I feel more comfortable speaking to my friends, where I would not need to worry about what I may say. Overall, in certain situations, I tend to feel a sense of belonging that gives me power, or I will feel uncomfortable and experience the loss of power or position. My different languages and styles represent me and allow me to accept who I am and how language has shaped me.