Analysis: The way language changes shows us the very idea of separating things into 'foreign' or not does not make sense
What is it that makes someone 'native'? Maybe it's as simple as being born in a particular country. But around one in eight of the Irish population (12%) was born outside of Ireland, live their everyday lives here and have family and friends here. We might say citizenship is what makes a person native. But it is common for people to raise families, pay their taxes or even vote in places where they are not citizens. Again, Ireland provides a key example, thanks to the long history of movement in both directions between Ireland and Britain, which continues today.
Perhaps surprisingly, language might be the most important determinant of who counts as ‘native’. A major study by Pew Research found that a majority of people, across multiple countries, ranked speaking a country’s dominant language as the factor most important for ‘truly’ belonging to a nation – above factors like birthplace or religion. Language is absolutely central to who counts as ‘one of us’ – and, by contrast, who is not one of us.
However, building on the work of Theodor Adorno, I want to suggest that language shows that the very concept of ‘foreignness’ simply does not make sense.
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Adorno knew from personal experience what it meant not to be considered 'native'. He was a German philosopher, born in 1903 to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, and as Nazi power grew during the 1930s, Adorno had to leave Germany for his own safety. He moved to teach in the US, where he never felt fully comfortable, and returned to Germany in the late 1940s.
In an essay called "Words from Abroad", Adorno discusses German words that clearly have their origin in other languages. An example is ‘restaurant’, a French word that has been adopted in both German and English. Adorno writes that the foreign word is like "inserting a silver rib into the body of language." We might think that this means foreign words are like something fake or prosthetic coming into a language. But Adorno is very clear that "no language is organic and natural". Language does not just exist in the world. Like, for example, finance, language is a system of power that is both controlled by and controls human actions.
If language is not simply natural, it also cannot ever be a complete or closed system. This does not just mean that new words are added to languages, and that words become obsolete. It also means that an individual language, like German or English, cannot claim to name and define everything that has ever needed to be said, and would ever need to be said. What the ‘silver rib’ of the foreign word does, for Adorno, is remind us of this truth about language. By using a word like ‘restaurant’, which is both French and German (and English!), we are showing that no language is natural or complete.
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, 'He proposed on our first date': my experience of Irish culture shock
We can build on what Adorno says here to tell us something about ‘nativeness’. Since Adorno has explained why no language is ever natural, this means that the ‘foreign word’ is no more or less natural or native than any other word. In fact, it is not really any more or less ‘foreign’, because there is no way we could say "this language clearly starts here, and ends here." Just like a "silver rib" compared with our ribs made of bone, a word from another language is definitely different. It is important we recognise these words as coming from different languages, as that is exactly what shows that no language is natural or complete. But being different from each other does not mean any word is more ‘foreign’ or ‘native’ than another.
So what does this tell us about ‘native’ people? In his book Minima Moralia, a collection of short pieces analysing everything from slippers to the Loch Ness Monster, Adorno writes that "German words of foreign derivation are the Jews of language." One way to understand this phrase is that both ‘foreign words’ and Jewish people in 1930s Germany have been understood as ‘foreign’, as if they do not really belong. But I want to suggest that actually, Adorno’s example shows that the ideas of ‘foreign’ and ‘native’ do not make sense at all.
Read more: Sure I'm grand: what exactly are the characteristics of Irish English?
Adorno writes elsewhere that hatred of Jews is not really anything to do with Jewish people themselves, but is part of the way in which contemporary society cannot bear difference. Adorno argued throughout his writings that contemporary capitalist culture wants uniformity and conformity, and seeks to eliminate anything seen as ‘different’. An example that Adorno used is that all popular music tends to use the same chords, scales and structures, even if the tunes sound slightly different. Just like this similarity in music, Adorno says, contemporary culture wants political and cultural similarity everywhere. All of us live within our culture’s attempt to eliminate difference. This means that, to use Adorno’s example, even though Jewish people in 1930s Germany might have suffered especially badly, this is an extreme example of something that affects every person living in contemporary capitalism.
So, although different groups of people might have different experiences or suffer different circumstances, they are not 'foreign' to each other. We’ve seen that ‘foreign words’ in a language show that no language is complete, and so languages can be different from each other but not fundamentally foreign or native. Similarly, Adorno uses the example of Jewish people to show that we may have different experiences, but all are in some way struggling due to versions of the same contemporary capitalist culture.
Read more: Ireland's language shift: when Irish speakers switched to English
We use language as an important marker of our identity and our community. But language also shows us that the very idea of separating things into ‘foreign’ or not, does not make sense. We might say that ultimately, none of us can be ‘native’ anywhere. This might sound scary, but it does not mean getting rid of what makes a culture unique – quite the opposite. Not separating languages, or people, into ‘native’ or ‘foreign’ allows us to acknowledge and celebrate our differences in a way that does not exclude any word – or any person.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
