The Power of Language

Until I researched Frantz Fanton, I had never thought about what made me perceive different countries in the way that I did. I had always assumed that I judged different countries rightfully based on their ethnicities and cultures. I had never considered the power of language. If I had arrived on an unknown island and had seen people of a different color living quite modestly, I probably would assume that they were underdeveloped and uncivilized. If it turned out that they came up to me and started speaking in English, I am sure that I would begin to think higher of them and identify more with them. The fact that they spoke English didn't change the color of their skin or their modest way of life, but it would make me more interested in communicating with them and learning about the differences between our cultures. Perhaps it would be because I knew that maybe we had more in common than I thought because they probably had some connection to one of the large English speaking countries that I am familiar with.

My point is that language can really influence the identity of a country or society. In Fanton's book Black Skins, White Masks, he discusses his disgust in the way that his country accepts the French language and how this helps the French to maintain ownership of them as a colony. "A man who has a language," Fanon suggests, "consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language."  He continues to argue that not only does the fact that the French colonies adapt to the "mother" country by speaking French make them more part of France, but it also makes it easier for the French to rule them. I thought that this was a very different way of looking at colonization and I think that Fanton was right that French colonies accepting the French language helped the French to maintain dominance over their colonies.