Search For My Tongue

Search for my tongue
Revision guide for year 10’s poetry

was forced to adopt to a language that I didn’t belong to.
Adopted
Confused
Alienated
What language do I belong to?
She had to let go.
“Two tongue’s in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue”.
Crowded
Guilty
Too difficult to think with two languages.

Thought she had got rid of her language.
Difficult
Sadness
“Your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you spit it out”.
Too difficult to think in both languages.
Too crowded to have both languages in her mouth.
Felt like she had lost her identity.
Guilty
Lost
Didn’t want to let go.

Gujarati

The heart of the poem
She starts to remember her identity
“મનેહુતુંકેઆબ્બીજીભઆબ્બીભાષા(munayhutookayaakheejeebhaakheebhasha)
મેંથૂંકીનાબીછે(may thoonkynakhichay)
પરંતુરાત્રેસ્વપ્નાંમાંમારીભાષાપાછીઆવેછે(parantoorattraysvupnamamaribhashapachiaavaychay)
ફુલનીજેમમારીભાષામારીજીભ(foolneejaimmaribhashanmarijeebh)
મોઢામાંબીલેછે(modhamakheelaychay)
ફુલનીજેમમારીભાષામારીજીભ(fullneejaimmaribhashamarijeebh)
મોઢામાંપાકેછે(modhamapakaychay)”.
She misses her language.
It’s surrounded by the mother tongue.
Her language starts to grow back.

“It grows back, a stump of a shoot grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins”.
Her language starts to grow back and because of this the pace starts to quicken. It starts to go positive. Describes her language coming back as a flower. Like she has found her identity.