Language is more than a vessel of communication; it is a repository of history, culture, identity, and power. To speak English is to enter a linguistic universe shaped by colonial conquest, imperial ambition, and global capitalism. Yet, the experience of English is not monolithic. It is deeply bifurcated by histories of privilege and subjugation, of native fluency and imposed mastery.
When some speak English, it is often because it is the language of their inheritance- unmarked, unquestioned; their first tongue. It is the language of their childhood lullabies, their literary canon, their cultural frame. It is comfortable, natural and a seamless extension of one’s self.
You Speak English Because It Is the Only Language You Know. I Speak English Because It Is the Only Language You Know. We Are Not the Same
When others speak English, it is often because it is the language that the coloniser permitted them to know. In other words, it is the language of displacement, of interrupted lineage and of erased mother tongues. It is both a tool and a burden- a language mastered not through inheritance but through necessity, survival, and resilience.
This distinction really matters. It matters because it (both literally and figuratively) gives a voice to the asymmetries of power that are embedded within language itself. English, as a global lingua franca, often functions as a homogenising force, erasing multiplicity and glossing over the long histories of violence that brought the language to prominence. Therefore, it can be suggested that to speak English is to do both simultaneously to gain access and to concede loss.
Moreover, the shared vocabulary masks unshared experiences. The cadence, idioms, and inflections carry the weight of different worlds. A word uttered in a North London flat might resonate with a certain ease, while the same word spoken in a distant Middle Eastern village might carry echoes of exile, of negotiation between cultures, or of a fractured identity.
To say “we are not the same” is not to claim superiority or inferiority. It is, instead, to acknowledge and recognise the impossibility of conflating so many lived realities under one single linguistic umbrella. It is an assertion of the persistent otherness that language has the single-handed ability to both conceal and reveal.
So, in a world that often insists on linguistic conformity as a prerequisite for belonging, acknowledging these differences becomes an act of resistance, as this is a mindset that refuses to flatten identity into mere words. Because to truly understand one another, we must first recognise that language carries histories that shape who we are and how we relate.
And so, while many may speak the same language, it is important not to forget that our words do not always speak the same world.
