"This universe can very well be expressed in words and syllables which are not those of one's mother tongue"
About this Quote
Ben Jelloun takes a scalpel to the cozy myth that reality comes pre-labeled in the language you were born into. The line sounds calm, even generous, but its provocation is sharp: the universe is legible in borrowed sounds. Mother tongue, in this framing, is not destiny; it is an origin point that can become a border.
As a Moroccan writer who has long worked in French, Ben Jelloun is writing from inside a charged postcolonial dilemma: the colonizer's language as both constraint and instrument. French can carry the residue of domination, yet it also offers circulation, publication, and a shared stage where private experience becomes publicly intelligible. The quote refuses the piety of authenticity politics without denying the violence that made certain linguistic choices necessary. Its subtext is pragmatic and defiant: if you want to speak to the world, you may have to speak in a language history has already weaponized.
The word "expressed" matters. He isn't claiming the universe is the same in every language; he's arguing it can be rendered. Translation here isn't a downgrade but a technology of survival and expansion. "Words and syllables" emphasizes the physicality of speech - mouthwork, breath, rhythm - suggesting that belonging can be practiced, not inherited. For a poet, that's also an aesthetic claim: meaning is not trapped in native idiom; it can be remade through sound, form, and disciplined estrangement.
The line ultimately champions a cosmopolitan imagination with teeth: identity is real, but it doesn't own your vocabulary.
As a Moroccan writer who has long worked in French, Ben Jelloun is writing from inside a charged postcolonial dilemma: the colonizer's language as both constraint and instrument. French can carry the residue of domination, yet it also offers circulation, publication, and a shared stage where private experience becomes publicly intelligible. The quote refuses the piety of authenticity politics without denying the violence that made certain linguistic choices necessary. Its subtext is pragmatic and defiant: if you want to speak to the world, you may have to speak in a language history has already weaponized.
The word "expressed" matters. He isn't claiming the universe is the same in every language; he's arguing it can be rendered. Translation here isn't a downgrade but a technology of survival and expansion. "Words and syllables" emphasizes the physicality of speech - mouthwork, breath, rhythm - suggesting that belonging can be practiced, not inherited. For a poet, that's also an aesthetic claim: meaning is not trapped in native idiom; it can be remade through sound, form, and disciplined estrangement.
The line ultimately champions a cosmopolitan imagination with teeth: identity is real, but it doesn't own your vocabulary.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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