By Finch Strub
Edited by Elim Chan and Alloe Mak

My relationship with German has always been a complex one. I am perpetually toeing the line between calling it a native tongue and abandoning it completely. I grew up speaking the language in the sense that I simply always could—my throat closing around different letters and rasping r’s without a second thought. My father would pray over me in his borrowed dialect, the words carrying a rhythm that still finds me whenever I enter a church. Rhymes lulled me to sleep often, the imported version of my mother’s childhood fairytales still echo in my mind when I cannot find comfort elsewhere. The radio broadcast at breakfast tells my parents the weather and the traffic for a place they no longer inhabit—the jingles somehow more familiar than anything from my hometown. On occasion, folk songs travel thousands of kilometres from my grandmother’s kitchen when she turns up the broadcast so I can listen, her voice harmonizing gently with the static. The soundtrack to my life is my mother’s CD collection endlessly on repeat, never fully making up for everything she can no longer hear live. The hiss of oldies echoing out of the stereo when I was picked up from work; the songs that bothered me in my childhood now bridging a cultural chasm I didn’t know had gotten so deep. I never mastered the words even after so many years, but when I feel adrift, they are the ones that make things recognizable again.

I have always understood that German is the only piece of home remaining for everyone in my family besides me—the language that bears bad news and long-distance charges. My Canadianness is automatic, splitting me gently from the words I grew up hearing. Though I can always articulate most of what I need to say, I freeze when writing grocery lists or reading plaques on vacation. My German has always been good enough to read a text from my grandmother or a source for class, enough to have something to mutter in, but I rely on autocorrect and the dictate feature to tell the ones I love that I will call later. This language does not belong to me, not in the same way it does my mother, cradling her words in an accent I can no longer detect. This language binds me to a country where I hold no citizenship, and likely never will. Words, idioms, and contractions are passed down from a bloodline that is now scattered across two continents, a piece of myself that I am constantly at odds with. Now, overheard biweekly phone calls have lovers telling me that they prefer my German to the original, the Austrian Alps creeping into my voice. The roundness of the dialect is like a wool blanket when I’m freezing—something that feels like home for a place I’ve never lived longer than three months.

I have loved this language my whole life, but I’m unsure if it loves me back. Perhaps my attachment to English is traitorous, and my split loyalties place me neither here nor there. Despite my mixed feelings, my soul and my vocal tract are linked by this language, each piece undeniably making me who I am.