Mother Tongue Tied

‘Brilliantly illustrates how multilingual mothers are disproportionately tasked with preserving linguistic heritage on one hand and preparing children for public society on the other – all while finding a language for their own new maternal identity’ Eliane Glaser, author of Motherhood: A Manifesto

It is estimated that more than half of the world’s population communicates in more than one language and over a third of the population in the United Kingdom is multilingual. And yet life in multiple languages is rarely discussed publicly, myths and misconceptions prevail and the pressure to keep heritage languages alive has become a private conflict for millions. Linguistic diversity is more prevalent than ever, but so is linguistic inequality.

Linguist Malwina Gudowska, herself trilingual, sheds light on the ways in which we navigate language, its power to shape and reshape lives, and the ripple effects felt far beyond any one home or any one language. It takes one generation for a family language to be lost. One generation – like mother to child. Mother Tongue Tied explores the emotional weight of raising multilingual children while grappling with your own identity and notions of home. At what cost does a mother save a language? Or does she let it slip away and, with it, a part of herself her children may never know.

Author Biography

Malwina Gudowska is a Polish-Canadian writer, editor and linguist living in London, UK. A National Magazine Award winner, her writing has appeared in Financial Times, Vogue, Literary Hub, The Globe and Mail and several book and magazine anthologies. She is a PhD researcher in applied linguistics exploring the emotions of mothers raising multilingual children. Her newsletter, Motherlingual examines the intersection of language and motherhood.