Language is Freedom

If you were born on an uninhabited island, your only form of knowledge would come from your parents. Your parents tell you, “It you leave this island you will see beings that don’t look like you, don’t speak like you, and are out to hurt you.” That is your wealth of knowledge about the outside world. You are confined to the island by the fear that the outside world is a dangerous land of alien beings that want to do you bodily harm. Now imagine that you were captured and brought to America, even if you managed to escape your captors, you would still not be free. You are no longer physically on and island, but you are mentally secluded to your own knowledge with no way to access more knowledge. Without language to express knowledge we are trapped on an island of ignorance. If you feel this story is far-fetched take into account Malcolm X’s essay “Homemade Education” where he talks about how frustrating it was to not be able to use the English language to express his feelings. Slang was his language of choice, but it catered to a small audience of illiterate hustlers and drug dealers. He wanted to correspond with the mayor of Boston, the governor of Massachusetts, and Harry Truman, these people didn’t understand slang, nor were they going to put forth an effort to translate the broken English of a convict. His right to freedom of speech was suspended not by an outside force, but by his lack of understanding of the English language.


Language is how you free yourself from others insinuations about you. Before you know a person you may have preconceive idea about them because of there physical attributes or what you may have heard about there culture. When you allow them to express themselves, you get a much better view of what they are about, and also free yourself from prejudice. Susanne K. Langer says that we use language as symbols to free thoughts into physical forms such as spoken words, writing, and art. Imagine if Dr. Martin Luther King would have never materialized his thoughts of equality for all races, would we just be having the civil rights movement in 2010? Obviously his thought weren’t original; to the contrary they were confined in the minds of all minorities that felt the wrath of segregation. Martin Luther King was just a captivating mouth-piece that was articulate and courageous enough to express the idea. He used language as a weapon of mass destruction aimed directly at the legislation that segregated minorities. If Dr. King was an uneducated man he would have not had the impact that he has had on the world because of his language barrier. Like Malcolm X before he received his “homemade education”, the community around King may have known him as a great thinker, but he lacks the ability to communicate those thoughts in proper English.

Language is freedom because knowledge is freedom, and language is the primary way to transfer knowledge.