maiqilai:

karimboubker: Meet the kid who can speak 20 languages. It’s impressive how anyone at such a young age can be so determined to redefine conventional wisdom and embark on a journey of such excellence. Even more impressive are his reasons for learning these languages. Only in America? He’s not talented, he’s ugly and I hate him. Where’s my special on BBC for all the fucking languages I speak? Huh? HUH? ＨＵＨ？！ 他妈的装逼씨발새끼блядьныйhostietabarnacشرموطةヤロウ

the thing i find interesting about this (beyond the fact that he is incredibly young to be named a hyper-polyglot and his talent isn’t something to sneeze at)

its the investment in helping a white person learn so many languages, namely ones from the global POC diaspora. from the language teachers to the language scholars to the youtube comments correcting his pronunciation. its almost like a recementing of the mindsets of colonialism and imperialism. because at the same time people of color and non-native english speakers are expected to speak english as a means of surviving and assimilating in the United States. at the same time non-native POC english speakers are chastised for speaking their native languages in the work place, in public spaces which have been coded as “only english speaking” spaces based on the false equivalency of the official language of the United States being English. we have a young white person being encouraged to speak many of the languages people are told to leave behind upon immigrating to this country.

and with this there also needs to be a critical examination of why white people are encouraged to be multi-lingual over people of color. the rhetoric which makes it acceptable and encourages white people to learn multiple languages in a way people of color are not encouraged to.

watching this video also makes me wonder how many people of color in the world could be considered polyglots and then hyper-polyglots, and for whom that label becomes valuable and in what context

(via maiqilai)

Source: karimboubker-blog