I grew up with two languages, Khmer and English. My first word in Khmer was the word for “banana,” ចេក, and my first word in English was “cup.”
I think of being bilingual as having two language trees growing in my heart. One tree is English. It is a strong, large tree with many branches and deep roots. The other tree is Khmer. It is just as old, though it does not have as many branches, and the roots still go down into the soil of my heart.
An adult learning a new language does not have this same situation. For them, they are trying to graft new branches onto their original heart language tree. If all goes well, this plant might grow and grow until it intertwines with their original tree and finally puts a root or two into the soil.
This difference means that I relate to my languages differently than someone who learns a second language. I didn’t learn Khmer like an English-speaker. I learned Khmer in preschool and in the community with my friends and neighbors. I didn’t learn English like a Khmer-speaker. I learned it from my parents and from school. In my brain, Khmer isn’t translated through English, and English isn’t translated through Khmer. I just understand them with different facets of myself.
An English-speaking friend recently was explaining how he’d made a breakthrough in understanding Khmer vowels, but his breakthrough came through using a concept from the English alphabet. I was happy for him, but I couldn’t understand how the concept related to Khmer vowels at all!
Back to the tree metaphor:
I think some people have the idea that to be bilingual is to know two languages at equal depth and breadth. This isn’t necessarily true. For me, my two trees aren’t equal. Khmer has fewer branches, primarily because my education was predominantly in English, we spoke English at home, and I consumed mostly English literature and media. However, the Khmer tree has some branches the English tree doesn’t.
Growing up, there were certain topics that I only ever used Khmer for, and there were some topics I used Khmer for first. For example, I’ve only ever been to a bike mechanic in Cambodia. So, even recently, as an adult, I froze in the middle of a conversation, unable to come up with a way to say “put air in my tires” in English. (A common occurrence actually.) My brain was only giving me Khmer. If I want to complain about the heat, my go-to phrase is a Khmer one that means: “hot-want-to-die.”
Then there are concepts that can only really be expressed in the Cambodian language. For example, there are certain ways to communicate relationship and respect of persons that do not translate well into English. (There is even a “high language,” special vocabulary used when speaking to or about gods and kings.) Here we start to get into how language and culture are closely linked together. If I want to show my respect to somebody, my Khmer side instinctively tries to assert itself. Age matters a lot in Cambodia, and the language reflects that.
There are even poetic devices and kinds of wordplay that work a certain way in Khmer. Khmer hymns are so beautiful to me, in a way that English ones often aren’t.
Having this other side to myself linguistically often causes wires to cross in my brain. In America, where Khmer speakers are rarely seen, that entire part of myself has to be suppressed. I often end up speaking slowly and struggling for words over there, purely because the wrong language is coming up my throat and nobody’s going to understand that!
Of course, English has its strengths as well, and as a writer I adore the language. Just like Khmer, there are topics I’ve only used English for (and more of those), and there are things you can say in English that you can’t really express in Khmer. But that is the language I’m writing this article in, so I won’t bother going into much detail here in its home turf.
I have said a couple times that being bilingual feels like having slightly different “selves”. When I express myself in Khmer, I feel a bit different. The Cambodian culture colors my thoughts and worldview as I speak their language. When I speak English, it’s different again.
Some days my Khmer side seems a bit more lively and active, interfering with my English to the point where I start thinking in Khmer for no particular reason. Other days I’m so inside English that my tongue starts tripping over my Khmer when I start talking to someone.
Sometimes, switching abruptly from one to the other causes a physical sensation in my head. It’s weird.
Interesting. Do you find writing more difficult in Khmer, as it seems you probably used that language mostly orally?
Yes, writing in Khmer is more difficult and iffy with spelling for me. I do use it more orally!
Thank you for sharing your world and perspective, Savanna, as only you could do- so beautifully.
I remember as an American living in Germany that some of the American kids attended German kindergarten. They learned to speak and understand German just fine. But if you asked them to translate from German to English, they couldn’t do it. Sounds the same as what you are saying about your two languages.
Great article Savannah! I love the inside look into your mind and heart as a two language “MK” 🙂
Once again, a perspective I never even considered. Thanks for the thought provoking blog!
Nice metaphor. I don’t ever feel like I have to switch languags modes. No different ‘selves’ just a dually informed ‘self’. My sources just depend on the situation or environment.
With me, how much I understand the two cultures/languages comes into play more often than my ability to verbally express myself in either (an ability lacking in both English and Khmer). Take the ‘under’ from under-stand more literally, and you’re left with two language potatoes that feed the brain from below. The English potato was my first discovery, attached to the pounding blood vessels in my brain (during a migraine I would guess). The eyes of this potato first let me know what people wanted, what things were called, and how things looked. As I grew, so did potato and the count of its eyes.
Somewhere along the line as a toddler, my English potato ran into something with its sprouts -another potato. The Khmer potato was already there, almost unnoticeable, and without many sprouts. The Khmer potato being so small, took longer to grow more eyes. Both potatos continually referred their knowledge to me as they grew, but the larger English potato had more eyes facing certain directions, monopolizing areas of understanding with sprouts to feed its own size. As the potatoes were fed by their instinctively placed sprouts in different life experiences, the potatoes grew and sourced my understanding. As potatoes, they have little desire to grow past their natural size, and won’t grow at all unless they are watered and placed in new territory. This is the reason that new seeds, when produced, do not have the ability to grow so easily. The sprouts take a long time to form into tiny new potato (Japanese). It has only old soil and experiences that it must convert to nutrients by reprocessing, and has to be watered more frequently.
Years of growth in my linguistical understanding produced the leaves of my brain/potato plant and are the visible and expressable results. Both the size of a potato and the type of experiences it grew by decides how much it contributes to a leaf. My Khmer potato made a small leaf almost equal in size to the potato itself. However small, it is sturdily supported by its own stem. My English leaf is big and floppy, not certain which direction to go unless steadied and expressed over time by writing. Sometimes the extra vocabulary is like a curse, causing me to stutter and blank out in conversation as the leaf is to much to handle. When supported though, the English leaf completely overwhelms the rest of my language, being the healthiest on the surface. The difference in our experience may simply be the difference in how we spent our days growing up.
Your love for the people of Cambodia is so evident as I read your blogs. What an advantage you have, being raised in that culture and language. Many (most?) missionaries, it seems, begin their ministries as transplants and have to give so much energy to adapt to the different soil.
I remember the brief moments I met with you face-to-face at Anchor Baptist Church in Little River, South Carolina. You came across (to me at least) as a foreigner. I do not say that in a negative way. I thank our great God that when you went back to Cambodia, it was then that you were going home.
Press on, my dear sister.
So much fun to read of your brother Elijah’s and your metaphors for understanding your bilingual life – trees and potatoes. Deep and deeper roots versus the number of potato eyes. As for me, what little French I learned in two years at high school has ‘gone with the wind,’ a tornado most likely.