Language, Identity, and Jean Joseph Rabearivelo

The summer going into my senior year of college, my plans to study in France were spoiled by a global pandemic. Instead, I resided in the cultural hub of Maryland, good old Emmitsburg, where I took summer courses to make up for my lost credits from my non-existent study abroad. During that time, I completed my French Senior project titled "Je me souviens": La Langue, l’identité, et le Québec ("I remember": Language, identity, and Quebec). In this project, I explored the role of language in the formation of our personal and cultural or collective identities. Little did I know that this was all an act of Divine Providence.

After the initial weeks of school where, as I have already told you, I assessed my students’ speaking levels and learned more about behavior patterns, I decided I needed to do something in the classroom that would establish a much stronger and more profound relationship with my students, a task which was difficult to discern because I have well over 500 students. To do this, I wanted to give them something to remember me by, something they had probably never heard or thought about before. I reached into my bag of memories and pulled out this project I had completed which perfectly connected with the ideas, life, and struggles of a Malagasy poet all my students knew well enough, monsieur Jean Joseph Rabearivelo. The initials of my school are JJR. I will give you one good guess after whom it is named.

What I did was simple enough. To start, I explained to my students that I wanted to cover a brief history of the English language because I believe it’s important to know about the culture and origins of a language while you’re learning it as well as to give them a few strategies on how to connect French to English to improve learning and critical thinking.

It goes something like this:

A long time ago, the island of Britain was ruled by the Britons. Around 300-400AD or so, the Romans arrived and did what they did best, conquer things and then make it more like Rome. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Britons lingered with what was left of the Romans and some Roman structures. Between 800-1,000AD two groups of Germanic peoples, the Angles and the Saxons immigrated to the island. There were so many Angles living on the island that they began to call it Angleland, which I cut up for my students.

Angle-land

Angle-terre (Angleterre is the name for England in French)

Anyways, in 1066, a man by the name William, who would later be called William the Conqueror, gathered a Norman army and sailed from Normandy (northern France) to England where he proceeded to win the battle of Hastings and then conquer the island itself. At this point, there were now two peoples living on Britain. The first was the Viking Normans who formed the noble class and spoke French. The other was the Germanic Angles who formed the peasant class and spoke Anglish, which was a type of German.

Now it’s very difficult for society to get along when everyone speaks different languages. At one point, everyone was fed up with the confusion and so they combined the two languages, dropping gender, simplifying conjugations, and expanding tenses; thereby giving birth to the poor bastard child, English. This, I explained to my students, is why there are so many similarities between French and English. There is a plethora of patterns between the two languages simply waiting to be exploited by language learners from either side of the language. And this strategy, if used consciously, makes learning English or French incredibly easier. But this is where I diverged from the history of English.

I ask my students, “What is language?”

Maybe it’s a question you haven’t thought much about yourself. I followed up when there was inevitable silence, what do we do with language? It is at this point that I allow them to speak French because the question is hard enough on its own. We generally got to the idea that language is communication. That we speak, write, read, and listen in order to communicate. Like all good teachers, I press the question further. But what do we communicate? I received a variety of answers, all of which were correct: ideas, emotions, sentiments, hopes, dreams, fears, desires, instructions, commands, sorrows, etc. It was a good start. But I pressed further and further until we couldn’t go anywhere else.

At this point I ask them if I can speak in French, something which they gladly accept. So I begin by telling them about my studies in the university, about my family history of how they immigrated from Québec, of how I approached my project, and, most importantly, what I found. That is, I discovered that language is more than just a means of communication. Language is the medium through which we understand all that exists. It is the medium through which we see the world, comprehend it, and then communicate and express the reality we occupy. Language is the key medium we use to express the “self” and the “us”. Language does not exist solely in the individual, but in each and every person and between each person. In other words, it must exist within a community of language speakers. It is what connects, links, joins us all together and allows us to express who we are as individual persons and as a community or culture. The more we can control language, the better we understand ourselves, each other, and the universe around us. It allows us to share beauty, truth, and divinity. Without language, these things would have few mediums through which to be expressed, discovered, or manifested. In short, language plays a very important role in the formation of our personal and collective identities because it is the most profound medium through which we understand ourselves, each other, and the universe.

My students are trying to take this all in, and I can only imagine they are thinking, “What does this have to do with learning English? What is this American teacher going on about?”

I have to link it back now. “Donc, c’est pourquoi c’est si difficile d’apprendre une nouvelle langue.” Therefore, that is why it is so difficult to learn a new language. Because when we learn a new language, we need to change the way we think and the way we understand the world. “It is very difficult to do,” I say. “For instance, I understand it is difficult because I am now speaking 6 languages. And I confess that Malagasy is the most difficult language I have ever tried to learn.” That gets a good laugh. “This is because Malagasy and the European languages come from two completely different linguistic families. So, when I learn Malagasy, I need to completely change in my head the medium of understanding all that exists. That’s really hard.”

Now my students see where I have taken this. “I make plenty of mistakes when I speak French. It’s clear. So do not fear making mistakes in my class. I understand it is difficult. But I have the expectation that you come every class prepared to speak English and to try.” I get a lot of head nods.

“And think of this question,” I point to the board where I have written it. “What is language to you? How does language affect your identity? M. JJR understood this question.”

I get several big eyes as I, a foreigner, reference a very famous Malagasy poet.

“That is why he wrote poetry in both Malagasy and French,” I continue. “There was, in his soul, a conflict between his French identity and his Malagasy identity. In fact, in his poetry, he tried to mix and synthesize these identities. And it was difficult because he was trying to mix two ways of understanding the universe. So we can ask ourselves this question, what is language? What is language to me? How does language change me?”

Maybe my strategy on making a connection worked. Maybe it didn’t. I guess I’ll find out much later down the road. Or maybe not. In my blog about the Malagasy language (which is forthcoming), I write about irony. It is ironic, in a good sense, that when I read the poetry of JJR several years ago, that I would somehow use it to connect with Malagasy students. It is always interesting how God prepares you for what He has intended for you, whether you realize it or not. And I think that’s a beautiful thing. That is why I always tell people to value their education and every experience they have because you never know how God will use that aspect about you to touch the lives of other people. And that is what I would call Divine Providence.

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.