Talking in Code

My fingers
Move sly against your palm
Like women everywhere, we speak in code

Anzaldua's chilling descriptions of what she calls 'linguistic terrorism' unpacks some of the most insidious, yet powerful zulmat that colonialism imposes. In particular, "taming a wild tongue", she says, is a manifestation of the colonial impulse to discipline and enforce conformity. She further argues that an essential feature of what refers to as "communicating with ourselves" are the specific linguistics that they feel an affinity with, and extends this argument by saying I am my language. The knowledge system she decolonizes is the knowledge system produced by being forced to understand and communicate with the world in a language that is not one's own, and thus in an identity that is not one's own. Linguistic terrorism, then, in a way, detaches the self from the self and the world, forcing a conceptualisation that is not innate to one's self. Angreez humein apni jarroun se door karke chale gaye, woh jarr tou humein apne aap se waaqif karti thi. If she was to observe me, she would say that I write, think, and understand the world in English not because English is innately "twin skin" to my identity, but because this is been imposed through the linguistic terrorism of the coloniser.


I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue. 

The way Anzaldua decolonises our way of knowing is that she challenges a pre-existing conclusion/assumption/bias that most, if not all, in the colonized world share. Our creative forms of language, and the transient ways in which we express ourselves linguistically, is not a source of shame. I am not inferior for having un-Anglicized pronunciations, and I should not be made to feel shameful. Mein kiyoun apne aap ko angreezi bol kar apni urdu bolne waalay dostoun se behtar samajhta houn? Mujhse kiyoun urdu nahi parhi jati? Mein apne aap ko urdu mein express nahi karsakta, mera apne aap se hi taaluq angeezi ki basis par bana huwa hai. I am helpless; I cannot even express my helplessness without the aid of a language that is not mine, a language I feel no ownership of, a linguistic modality that is alien, that creates differences amongst myself and those I inhabit the world with. Andzaldua asks of me to forego this shame, to think of, understand, and communicate with the world the way I see fit. Why must I talk in code, why must I be self-conscious of the linguistic framework that I feel most comfortable with? My case is even more exceptional, because I do even know what linguistics I relate to. What I do know is that English feels alien, and that I am not this language that I speak in. I am confined in a cage, and I know nothing but the cage. I understand even my confinement through the cage.

Anzaldua asks of me and you to do away with the discomfort of speaking in a language that we are most familiar with. She calls for self-discovery through discovering the linguistic framework that feels like us. If we are our language, and if our language feels alien, then we are alien to ourselves, and for her, the path to relating yourself, to yourself, has the essential medium of a language where we belong. This medium has been hijacked, and we are forced to walk on this path on an alien vehicle. For Anzaldua, we may never reach to the inner core of our being, we may never understand ourselves, if we do not throw out the alien medium that is the coloniser's tongue, and with pride, communicate and understand in a language where we belong.