Language | Travel | Personality
Does Switching the Language Change Your Personality?
How does language take a big role how the way you think
Language is the most magical ability that we have as a human. There are more than 7000 in the world. Assemble more than 7000 cultures, habits, ideas, and speculation at the same time. So many languages don’t even use the A-Z alphabet or stick with it with some extra vowel variations. Some spell it from left to rights, like English and some languages in general, including my mother tongue.
Some spell it from right to left like Arabic. Some spell it from top to bottom like Japanese. Not even all languages have numbers in them. The Pirahã people, a tribe living in the Amazon, Brazil even didn’t know about numbers in their language. Not all also use the words “right” and “left” to describe directions in general. They only use the cardinal points to point the way. It also happens but in the local language where I live, Sundanese. But we still know “right” and “left” it’s just that the word in the cardinal direction is more often used by native people.
Some languages even distinguish nouns based on gender such as feminine, masculine and neutral. However, this rule is different for each country, so sometimes it makes it funny and awkward when someone switches language.
In fact, people who speak more than one language may unconsciously feel like changing their personality when they switch to another language. Seeing the various variations of the language I described above it seems reasonable. To be honest, apart from my mother tongue, I’m only good at English. But I was born in a country rich in ethnicity and culture. So, in my country, even when I moved cities the regional language was different.
Even regional languages are still different from one location to another. I think there are several factors why language can shape personalities.
Fluency level
When we just start to learn a new language, we tend to speak more formally than once we speak our native language. It could be because our vocabulary is still limited and even if we know other vocabularies we are still not sure whether it is appropriate in certain situations. or not.
Sometimes there is a lack of confidence when speaking a foreign language, especially if you are not fluent enough.
This is the reason sometimes someone is more silent and shy when speaking a foreign language, but so expressive and cheerful when speaking their mother tongue.
Uniqueness
Have you found one foreign vocabulary that has a specific meaning and it will be different when you translate it? or vice versa, there is a vocabulary in your mother tongue that loses its meaning when translated into foreign vocabulary. That’s the uniqueness of language.
For me, language is not just a communication tool but a work of art that must be appreciated. Each language has its own accent and finally gave birth to its own characteristics and jokes. Each language has its own concepts and its own way thinking of. When you talk in another language you automatically adapt its concepts, and this, in turn, influences your thoughts as well.
Specific meaning
As I mention above, there are some vocabularies that are difficult to translate into other languages, even if you can convert the meaning will feel different. For example, when I translate the words “beauty” and “gorgeous” into Indonesian, they mean the same thing, even though in English, beauty and gorgeous have different placements and meanings.
When you are already fluent enough in another language, there will be situations where you want to use that language in a certain mood or when you want to describe something that you know doesn’t mean the same thing when converted to your own language. My boss speaks in English when he dives into more serious discussions with us.
He also speaks English when on fire and excited about something. I feel more comfortable expressing something mellow in English. Because for some reason it sounds whiny when I write in my mother tongue.
Perception and culture
Based on Merriam webster language is the form or manner of verbal expression.
When we speak a language, we unconsciously also learn how to form a good greeting, how to say thank you, how to make jokes, how to show anger with the language, to learn which vocabulary is casual or formal.
At the time, we bring the new perception and culture at the same time especially once we did repetition where culture and perception become embedded in the cognitive areas of our brains as well.
Bottom Line
In my opinion, language didn’t change personality. It just stimulates to bring out another side you’ve never seen in yourself. But it’s still you.
I am one of those who believe there is more than one dominant personality in us. Language is only one way to trigger it to appear.
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things but learning another way to think about things.” Flora Lewis
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