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In this episode, Dani discusses the English language and how it shapes worldviews.
For links and recommendations, see full episode notes.
Dani is honest and refreshing in her takes on the world and society. Listen as she explains how she’s come to understand the world through kindness, both towards ourselves and everything else.
Podcast Intro:
[0:00] Hello friends! Welcome to Understanding Kindness, a podcast hosted by me, Dani! I’m someone who approaches life by learning from everyone around me, and I’ve decided to write it all down and talk about it here with you. I’ve learned that in order to create change in this world, we need to understand ourselves and the world around us, all while infusing kindness into everything we do. If I can do it, you can do it, and we can do it together. Welcome to Understanding Kindness.
Episode Intro:
[0:30] Hi there! Today will be a continuation of sorts, we love ‘em here, if you hadn’t noticed already. I wrapped up last episode and thought, but wait, there’s more! I’ve gotten tell ‘em the more! So here it is, the more: my rant about the absurdity that is the English language. I basically just want to go even more in depth on how language shapes our worldview, and be more specific with my experience growing up and knowing the English language and then how I’ve come to see it with context from other languages and worldviews. I know, seems very similar to last episode but I think it’ll be different….I think…let’s see!
Native Segment:
[1:11] Okay so for our Native segment today we’ll be talking about none other than It’s Going Down again. If you’d like a big overview of what IGD is all about and what the resource actually entails, check out episode 42 of this podcast. I recently highlighted IGD because I find it as an incredibly useful resource for learning and keeping up-to-date on the political climate in the so-called United States. IGD is a “daily resource for insurgent, proletariat Life” that has been active for the past 6 years. They are a completely free aid that publishes original content and hosts several regular podcasts and radio shows. They’re currently asking for donations from their consumers.
[1:55] That’s why I’m highlighting them again today. I’m someone who takes advantage of the huge wealth of free information on the internet, as are most of us I’m assuming, especially if you’re listening to this show. I am indebted to many People for teaching me so much, and continuing to do so with little to no pay for their efforts. IGD recently asked listeners of their podcast to help support them financially in order to keep going and, as someone who 1) wants them to keep going and 2) has some means to help that happen, I donated to help support a project that I’ve been benefitting from for over a year. If you have utilized any of the information on the IGD website or learned anything from them, you might want to consider doing the same.
[2:38] This is a form of mutual aid. We’re keeping our resources and fighting spirit alive by supporting each other in the movement. This doesn’t just go for larger projects like It’s Going Down or Indigenous Action. This can be applied to anyone on the internet that you’ve learned from, especially BIPOC, and especially especially if you’re white and learning from BIPOC. BIPOC have the burden of living in this reality and having to inform others about their reality and trauma caused by this society at large, and they do all this labor for very little or for free. Many of the Individuals I follow on instagram list their venmo or cashapp handles in order for their followers to donate to them for helping them learn. This is a quick and simple way to show someone you appreciate their work and help spread the wealth to those who are doing the real work of dismantling these oppressive systems we live under.
[3:25] If you’re financially able, definitely consider donating to any source of information that you learn from, especially if you’re white, and especially if you’re learning from BIPOC. If you can’t donate at the moment, you can still spread the word. Share posts that you learn from so others can learn as well, and tell People to give them their monies if they’re able! If you’ve checked out It’s Going Down and learned from them, throw a couple bucks their way to help sustain their project. Mutual aid is about reciprocity. In order to restore our Mother Earth, we need to relearn reciprocity and how to take care of each other. If you’re learning from someone, help them out in this capitalistic society and throw money at them. I’ll link the IGD page in the episode notes.
Shout-Outs:
[4:05] YooooooOOooOoOo! It’s Patron time! We’ve got great news over here at Understanding Kindness…a new Patron! I’ve gotta give a big shout-out to Mozel for being a real one. Thank you very much, to all of my Patrons! You have my undying gratitude.
If you’d like to support the show, visit our patreon for monthly donations or our paypal for one-time and recurring donations. They’ll be links for both in the episode notes.
Main Topic:
[4:33] Alright Peeps, let’s get into this rant for today. I’m gonna continue with some threads from last episode, particularly surrounding the English language, if ya didn’t guess that from the enigmatic episode title and introduction. I have more thoughts on this and I need to tell you about them. So last episode I told ya about words like please and I’m sorry and how I’ve been striking them from my vocabulary because I feel that they’re meaningless and have problematic implications. So today, let’s dive even deeper.
[5:04] I described English the other day as a mile wide, inch deep language. There are a plethora of ways to say things. Beautiful, gorgeous, pretty, lovely, stunning. Essentially these words all mean the same thing. What is the point I’m trying to get across when I’m using any of these words? All I’m trying to say is that this thing or Person is appealing to my senses. These are arbitrary descriptors, which I’m not denying that every language contains. Well, I guess I can’t say every language because I’m not that cool and I don’t know every language, but I am gonna guess that many languages allow for People to discuss their personal opinions about things.
[5:44] Anyway, we could do this with a myriad of different words in English. It’s a very esoteric language, meaning you’ve got to really be in the know to understand the meaning that’s trying to be gotten across. If you’re unfamiliar with a word like lovely and someone uses it in a sentence, sure you could use context clues or just ask what the meaning is, but think about it from a language learners perspective. If English isn’t my first language and I put myself out there to have a conversation with someone who speaks English fluently and they begin using words that I’m unaware of when they could use words that are more broadly known, it seems kind of esoteric to me.
[6:23] I’m not saying that this isn’t something I’ve done personally, because I’m sure I have. I don’t remember any of these instances because I was very unaware of how I speak came across to People who don’t speak English fluently. As I mentioned last episode, putting yourself out there to be uncomfortable and practice a language with someone is difficult, and creating an environment where you’ve really got to be in-the-know to follow the conversation is pretty inconsiderate. Like I said, I’ve definitely done this before and not on purpose either, that’s just how my brain worked when I only had context for English and knew no better. Forcing myself out of my comfort zone to learn and practice other languages helped me gain perspective here.
[7:05] It wasn’t until I started learning other languages, a while after actually, that I began looking at English in this way. In Spanish, there usually aren’t more than two ways to say something and usually if there are multiple words for some similar concept they’re used in different contexts. For example, decir and hablar are very similar and you could use them interchangeably and get your point across. Decir means to tell while hablar means to talk. You can see that they do have slightly different meanings, but essentially come down to both meaning having some type of conversation with someone; and maybe you can see the different contexts you’d use each in.
[7:43] Another issue that I take with English, or at least how it’s utilized in the so-called US, is how subjective it can be. Words like good, bad, interesting. These are all individual perceptions of reality that we’ve incorporated into our language as if the meanings were all 100% universal. What is “good” to me may not be “good” to someone else. What I find interesting someone else may find insufferably boring. Yet we use these words as if everyone knows exactly where we’re coming from and exactly what we mean. At least this is what I do, or have done in the past. I’m working on being more descriptive when I speak and write. I really want to sus out what I mean by being as exact and descriptive as possible.
[8:26] This is another way that English is esoteric. We assume that everyone is on the same page with what is “good”, what is “bad”, what is “ugly”, what is “beautiful”. These terms are all subjective, there is no universal meaning to them. Yet we pretend that there is. I don’t believe this culture in the so-called US allows People to actually figure out for themselves what they believe to be good, bad, ugly, beautiful, interesting, etc. We’re just told that what is good, bad, beautiful, etc. is objective fact, and this doesn’t allow for us to make conclusions about these things on our own. And this adds to the esoteric nature of the language, and even more specifically esoteric to the English spoken in the “US”. If you’re not “in the know” about what we believe is good, bad, funny, or sad then you’re an outcast. Trust me on that one, I’ve felt it.
[9:17] I’m not implying that English is the only language that is esoteric. It is derived from the same places as Spanish and Italian and any Latin language is derived from, so there are inherent faults and worldview perceptions steeped within these languages. English just does this in a unique way. As English is the language that happened to be spoken by the most egregious colonizers on the planet, it has a specific way of fooling People into believing that it’s “the best way” to speak.
[9:45] And how does it fool People? In my opinion, the mile wide, inch deep metaphor explains this quite well. Let’s discuss. First, we’ve got to convince People that there is fact in the world, that our Lives are completely constructed from fact. Gravity keeps us on Earth, the Sun will rise and set every day, Human Animals are fundamentally different and separate from every other living Being on Earth. This is all a construction of facts in order for us to make some sense of our world and to place specific Beings (Human Animals) at the top of a hierarchy, and let me tell ya, it doesn’t get better from there.
[10:20] Not only does the English language separate Human Animals from every other living Being and aspect of our world, but it separates other Human Animals from each other. It’s constructed things like race and class and manifest destiny-ed it into existence, as with all these other “facts” that it claims. It tells us that we have no connection to each other, that we’re inherently competitive and there is no other way to be in the world. We must be hierarchical if we’re ever to “succeed”. What even is succeeding? Who created success? This is but a concept. Imagine if there was no word for success. Imagine how much more we’d be capable of if we weren’t striving for some arbitrary construct that was created in someone else’s mind in order to gatekeep the hierarchy that has been established with specific People already at the top.
[11:09] This is what I mean by mile wide, inch deep. English scrapes at the surface. It scrapes and scrapes along, looking for no more meaning than what is explicitly plastered right in front of its face. And this translates right into Native English-speakers worldviews. Many of us have a difficult time seeing things that are beyond what’s right in front of us. And it can be difficult to see these things, especially when we’ve been trained our entire Lives not to see them, to actively not see them in order to continue maintaining the status quo and the white supremacist hierarchy.
[11:41] Just by virtue of growing up in the so-called US, as a white Person especially, learning English helps ingrain these thought processes into our minds. We’re force-fed this language that tells us everything is black and white and there is no nuance, and to just look right in front of you, it’s all right in front of you, we’ve figured it out already, no need for you to spend your precious little time thinking through all these things; instead, you can give us your time cause we’ve done all this work for you and you can rest your pretty little brain while you make us at the top of this hierarchy even more rich and powerful.
[12:10] English is literally a colonizer language; it informs how to colonize entire groups of People and the entire planet. Seeing Land as someone who could be owned comes from the thought and informs the thought that other People can be owned. “Ownership” in and of itself is a concept. I’d be willing to bet there are languages where ownership isn’t even a thing because I’m pretty sure there are worldviews where ownership isn’t a thing because I can now imagine it. And of course I learned it from somewhere - somewhere other than a culture steeped in the colonial English language.
[12:46] I know of this worldview that the English language provides because I was brought up in it and have been around it my entire Life. That really isn’t enough though. If it were, everyone would be able to see this. I wasn’t able to see it; not until I put myself out there and started learning more about other languages and cultures. Many things aren’t evident when you only have one context for them. We need many inputs in order to see things more clearly. We need more inch wide, mile deep.
[13:14] We need to look at things more closely and with multiple perspectives. Nothing, nothing is completely separate from anything else; nothing exists in a vacuum. With the little bit of knowledge and information I have from learning other languages and about other cultures, I’ve been able to change my worldview completely. I’ve been able to dig deeper and see things much more clearly because of the context I’ve been able to obtain from learning from multiple different sources and about multiple different topics. I’ve been able to utilize what I’ve learned from other languages and Peoples to begin digging deeper and find information that was not available to me from only knowing one language and one way of Life.
[13:51] Learning Spanish helped me shift my thinking and understanding that English was the “best” and only way to phrase things; it began broadening my mind. Learning about the Potawatomi culture and language allows me to actually see other Beings on the planet and understand my relationship to them more. Beginning to learn Navajo and learning from Diné People is teaching me even more perspectives and how to show up for others. Learning Hawaiian and from Hawaiian People is showing me how beautiful and complex language and worldview can be and is. And studying Italian is giving me access to some of my roots that had gone unexplored until recently.
[14:28] I understand so much more about Life and the world and myself since starting this journey of language learning. And to be honest, it’s really not just the language learning that’s helping me along; it’s just learning in general. I personally find the nuances between language and worldview very interesting, obviously, so I enjoy looking at the complexities to understand my thinking fundamentally. Knowing this information about English and language in general helps me understand how the world works, how we ended up where we are today, and how we can get back to a more equitable, reciprocal, Indigenous world. Us English-speaking white People in the so-called United States must shift our thinking and our worldviews. I’m simply suggesting that learning a new language can help us all on our paths there.
Conclusion:
[15:15] So if you didn’t think English was fucked already I hope I’ve gotten you there. This colonizer language was designed to colonize People and the planet. Everything in it is set up to view the Human Animal as the most important Being on our Mother Earth. English is a system of communication. It is a system and it cannot simply be reformed. It will always be steeped in the colonial roots that it was created with. But we find ourselves at a juncture where so many of us know no different and the worldview has spread so widely across our globe. What can we do about it now? We can do the best we can. I don’t have the answer, really; I’m just trying my best. I’m listening to those who I feel we need to learn from in order to help restore our Mother Earth so we can all live again - and those People happen to be Indigenous.
[16:05] Their languages and cultures show us different worldviews that we could not even imagine with the English language as our only context. We need a broad variety of contexts in order to truly see how the world can be different, how we can change. We need more understanding, less gatekeeping. We need to truly see each other and ourselves in order to see the world in a whole and different way.
[16:29] To me, learning other languages and, in turn, about other cultures has helped me gain access to these worldviews that allow me to see myself and the world differently. I’m sharing my experience with you so that maybe it can help you along in your journey, or give you some idea of how to begin broadening your experience and understanding of this world we live in. It’s not easy. It’s difficult to begin deconstructing our thoughts and actions, especially when they’ve been beaten into our minds our entire Lives. It will be difficult to learn new things and understand how they truly impact yourself, others, and the world around you. No one is saying you must do it alone though.
[17:09] I am here. I’m sharing my experience with you because it was from others on the internet who showed me how to make mistakes and keep learning that I reached this point in my Life now. My journey has not been the same as anyone else’s; that does not mean we cannot find common ground and help each other along in our journeys. We can all be compassionate and understanding. I am here. If you ever need help sorting through feelings or just want to talk about things you’re learning, shoot me an email or a DM. I love talking about this stuff and helping People along, especially those who I care about. You can do it. I did it, but not on my own. We can deconstruct our worldviews and thoughts together, despite the fact that the English language wants us all to believe we’re all in this alone. We’re here for each other.
Recommendations:
[17:59] BOOM! It’s recommendation time! I’d like to recommend you learn another language, or at least learn about another culture, probably the one whose Land you’re currently occupying if you’re a colonizer. The recommendations I have for where I learned about Potawatomi, Navajo, and Hawaiian are very specific and relevant to me. Feel free to learn from those sources and find sources for the Indigenous languages/cultures near you. I’ll link the ones I know of in the episode notes.
And then there’s It’s Going Down, “you’re daily resource for insurgent, proletariat Life”. If you’ve learned from IGD, throw some money their way to help sustain their project. If you’re white and learning from anyone of color on the internet, strongly consider giving them some of your money too. Help support each other. I’ll link it up in the episode notes!
Plugs:
[18:48] If you enjoyed this episode, help support the podcast! All this content is free and I’d love to make it my job one day, so if you’re financially able join our patreon or send a one-time or recurring donation through paypal! You can also share an episode with family or friends, and give UK a kind rating and review!
Check out UnderstandingKindness.com for all episodes, transcripts, and blog posts. And why not take a listen to my other podcast, Better When Awkward, co-hosted by my childhood best friend Jasmine!
Get in touch with me by emailing UnderstandingKindness@protonmail.com, or through social media. You can find all links in the episode notes.
For now, be kind, be compassionate, be understanding, and question everything. I’ll be here. Thank you for listening to this episode of Understanding Kindness.
Bloopers:
[19:35] I’d like to recommend you learn anotl- blah, blah, blah.
And that’s it [vocal guitar noises]! [End transcript]