Language, as a representation of the world one lives in, is inextricably linked to identity. It allows us to both name and understand ourselves and our relationship to the world around us. Edited by Eufemia Fantetti, Leonarda Carranza, and Ayelet Tsabari, Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language includes 26 essays by Canadian writers of a dizzying diversity of origins, all struggling with their relationship to their mother language and, many times, to English, the language they came to learn as immigrant children and in which their essays are written. A profound sense of loss pervades many of the works, as the authors reflect about their experience with moving to Canada as children or young adults and being forced by circumstances, erroneous beliefs from parents, or trauma, to learn English — to the detriment of their own mother tongues. Carranza, born in El Salvador, says all three editors had been considering writing about language “for many years.” After her own piece focusing on language was published under the title Tongue, they decided to use it as the inspiration for the new anthology. Carranza says her own work explores “similar themes” including “the shaming and exclusion” children experience while learning a language. “I feel like I’m really interested in language and how it feels like belonging,” she explains. “Or in the ways that language operates and creates barriers for people.” Many essays also touch on language and translation as political acts that reassert the search, use and love of one’s mother language against English, considered a colonizer tongue. Such is the case in Rebecca Fisseha’s essay, “Say Something In Your Language,” where she makes the case for not italicizing words in Amharic, her mother tongue, when writing in English. The process, she argues, has the effect of writers othering themselves in writing rather than seamlessly inhabiting the world in whatever language it exists. “Amharic words barge in while I’m speaking to a monolingual person in English, or how I naturally mix languages when I’m speaking to an English-Amharic bilingual person,” she writes in her essay. “It’s all the live version of non-italicizing.” Fisseha believes that the coexistence of non-English words with their English counterparts actually enriches the text. “Non-English languages might have English equivalents, but they’re not quite the same,” she told New Canadian Media in an interview. “When writing in a non-Western context, there’s an advantage to adding non-English words in that it really adds to that specificity.” She continues: “So that even if the reader doesn’t know that language, even the sound of those words creates just an unfamiliar echo in their mind, which is a kind of entry into that culture. They might never know the specific meaning of the word, but it’s still something you know.” In “The Seven Grandfathers and Translations,” Ashley Hynd writes about translation as a political act that forces humility on the English speaker by being excluded from a language that they don’t read or speak. “Ultimately, replacing an English word with Anishinaabemowin is a political act in the sense that it allows access to parts of the story to only a select few,” Hynd explains. “It forces non-Anishinaabemowin speakers to experience the humility of not understanding something, and it gives Anishinaabemowin speakers the privilege of being the only ones who know.” The preoccupation with language transmission is the focus of many of the essays. Writers explore themselves as both transmitters of language (to their children) and holders of it (what they received from parents and grandparents). In “How to Say Banana in Kiswahili,” Taslim Jaffer opens her essay by recounting a discussion she had with her 12-year-old daughter about the word ‘sufario,’ the term for ‘pot’ in Kiswahili. “It’s a sufario,” Jaffer says to her daughter. “It’s a pot,” replies her daughter laughing. The anecdote reflects the conflict and fear many immigrant parents experience when faced by the language choices and inclinations of their children, whether they’re arriving in Canada or are born here. “I’m afraid their monolingualism will erase where they came from,” Jaffer declares in her essay. Jaffer, who is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in creative non-fiction while also teaching writing, feels the pressure to keep her Kutchi culture alive in her household. “I feel like I am a bridge between another country and another culture and this country and this culture,” she told NCM. “And that if I don’t successfully envelop my children in their ancestral culture, it stops there. The language will stop. And whatever traditions I don’t pass down will stop.