What you speak is what you are

Photo: spacejunkie / photocase.com

Looking in the mirror, you sometimes ask yourself: "Who am I?". However, that question is usually answered best by the language you use and the way you talk.

Handing in your passport or ID card at the airport check-in desk, you reveal your identity. Or do you? One might argue that your name, appearance, and address do not constitute the whole of your personality. Who am I? How do others perceive me? These are very probably the more essential questions for human beings. They reflect a person's need to fathom what he or she represents. Interestingly, though, an identity exists that goes beyond the individual. Not only is identity a crucial issue for every single one of us, but also for communities, countries, and federations – such as the European Union. And both of these kinds of identity – the individual identity of a person and the collective identity of a group – are communicated, shaped, and negotiated to a large extent by language. So, do you know your 'linguistic identity'? Do you maybe also know Europe's 'linguistic identity'? From an etymological perspective – the word identity derives from the Latin word idem, meaning 'the same' – such a thing as a European 'linguistic identity' is difficult to discern: given that there are 23 official languages in the EU alone, and that they are, admittedly, not quite 'the same', it actually seems impossible.

Language and (European) identity

During the times of the late Roman Empire, the provinces now known as Romania, France, Spain, etc. started to break away from the Roman centre: alongside the cultivation of their own ways of living, their linguistic code changed and the Latin they spoke slowly but steadily became what we now know as the Romance languages. The development of their own language marked the process of these peoples becoming independent of Rome – it was a fundamental condition for shaping a national identity.  Europe's nation states have built individual identities over centuries due to the fact that most of the countries on our continent have developed their own language in which they transported their cultural distinctness, from the way to describe the construction of houses to the terminology of culinary specialties: for example, Inuit cultures in Greenland would have a different vocabulary for building a 'house' and a much more elaborate one for 'fish' than any other early European nation.

This link between language and identity is one vital reason for which the EU has as many as 23 official languages: a supranational institution overseeing the communal governmental affairs of 27 member states had better respect these members' linguistic identities in order to remain acceptable, especially in the eyes of people who do not speak more than one language. That is why the European Anthem still has no official lyrics: how would we decide which language it should be sung in?

Experiences of the linguistic "stranger"

The close link between a people's language and certain communicational characteristics which set them apart from other nations becomes evident when going abroad. You will quite automatically adopt a certain conversational style and communicational manner in no time and, as your skill in the foreign tongue builds up, you will take in a number of characteristics that form the basis of the daily routine that is typical of the respective country.

I clearly remember my own experience while working in France: while my French grew more and more fluent, I had the impression that my way of greeting people became more affectionate and – I have to admit – a bit less sincere. In retrospect, although this personal impression was a very curious one, I would not generalise this tendency as typically French. I would not go as far as Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), whose hypothesis famously claimed that a nation's character and its language are mutually influential.

Photo: Tobias Mittmann / youthmedia.eu

Who am I? Everyone has a need to fathom what he or she represents.

There is, however, a certain element of truth in his train of thought. During my exchange year in the United Kingdom I actually witnessed a sudden personality transformation in one of my fellow exchange students: Once he began to talk in English, he obviously stripped off his "German" awkwardness and instantly had much more of the pose and allure of an "English" gentleman to him.

A single language for a single identity?

So what can we as young Europeans do to make Europe a project with which people can identify? Should we 'Europeanise' our talking habits? Should we maybe all learn an 'intrinsically European' language, such as Esperanto, and exclude all other languages from international discourse to encourage some sort of European linguistic identity? We've already got a single market, a single currency, so why not have a single language? Maybe Europe's voice in the world would grow stronger if it were to talk a single tongue, even if it was some kind of 'Europeanised English' that is not necessarily any British (or American, or...) standard.

To be perfectly honest, all this seems quite improbable. I think it is just this linguistic versatility of Europe's politicians, students, etc. that earns Europe respect on the global stage. To say the least, I am convinced that multilingualism actually forms a most important part of a modern-day European identity, whatever you might add to it. Europe's identity is first and foremost a linguistic one, although we do not share one common language. Even though we all definitely have an individual identity that is not doubled by any of the other 700 million Europeans, I think there is such a thing as a collective linguistic identity – or, to be precise, a collective linguistic identity that lies in the non-identity of our languages as well as the ability of many Europeans to adopt several identities by learning several languages. This is what makes European identity vibrant and diverse.