You know who I really rate? Polyglots. As a bilingual (soon-to-be-trilingual 😂) queen, I get so fascinated by people who can speak multiple languages. My fascination turns into me asking a million questions about language and translations and how they use both to interact with the world around them.

What language do you think in?
What language do you dream in?
What language does your inner voice default to?
What language comes out when you get mad?
What language comes out when the gist is getting sweet?
And what language do you turn to when you need to just breathe?

Now that I think about it, I’ve always been quite intrigued by all kinds of language. Body language. Verbal language. Sign language. I remember being so taken by sign language back in secondary school that I signed up for competitive miming and expression💀. Shout out to my best friend at the time (Anjola) for being my partner, because even though we never learned proper sign language, we ended up creating this ridiculous shorthand system between us that went on to win us many competitions. Nobody else knew our language but we knew exactly what the other person meant. It was our “thing”, created out of need just like every other language.

Over time, our language evolved. We would come up with more effective shorthands. We would change how we signed some words. We would invent new signs for some common phrases. But through it all, our code adapted. Nothing ever felt lost in translation (probably because we built the language ourselves). If she signed something, I knew exactly what she meant and we didn’t need any additional explanation. We basically ran the show!🥹

I wish verbal languages worked like that. I wish I could translate a thought from Yoruba to English and have it line up exactly to convey the specific thought in my head. Too often, I blurt out something in Yoruba and find myself doing everything I can to explain and translate, before eventually accepting that English words may never be able to capture the full depth of a Yoruba thought. Other times – and these are my favourite times – the literal translation surprises me. I uncover so much depth in a translated word or phrase that it makes me stop and think. I allow myself to be a little fake-deep.

My favourite one is when you tell someone to “calm down” in English. You could use that phrase in pretty much any scenario whether the agitation is physical or mental. But you see, it’s different in Yoruba. The translation of “calm down” actually depends on the context.

If you’re talking about physical restlessness, then you’d say “f’ara balẹ̀” which directly translates to “touch your body to the ground”. But if it’s more mental or emotional unrest, you’d say “f’ọkàn balẹ̀” which literally translates to “touch your mind to the ground”.

The more I think about it, the more profound it gets for me. The two phrases are invitations to ground yourself and return to something solid. One is telling you to feel the earth beneath your feet, to steady your body. The other one is telling you to settle your thoughts and quiet the storm in your mind. It’s grounding in the most literal and metaphorical sense. And the fact that there are two distinct ways to say “calm down” feels like proof that the people who shaped Yoruba language understood, intuitively, that calming isn’t one-size-fits-all. There’s a physical grounding and a mental grounding, and each deserves its own attention. Staying grounded is honestly one of the best reminders we can give ourselves when life feels chaotic and that’s how you know language can be both poetic and practical.

Another example is when you say I love you in English. In Yoruba, it’s Mo ní ìfẹ́ ẹ or Mo nìfẹ́ ẹ . But if you translate Mo ní ìfẹ́ ẹ. literally, it reads, “I have your love.” That’s so fascinating, because they’re both describing love but in two very different ways..

“I love you” frames love as something you feel about someone else. It’s a declaration. These are my feelings. There is something intimate about it. Being vulnerable, putting your heart into words, and expressing feelings for someone out loud.

“I have your love” is flipping it. This is an acknowledgment. This thing already exists. It is now a connection, not just an emotion anymore. There’s a sense of responsibility in it, a humility. A recognition that I don’t create love alone. I hold it, yes, but it’s already here, existing between us.

Anyway, I wasn’t going anywhere with this. I think I was going somewhere before and then I just started rambling and was like you know what? These are pretty chaotic thoughts, post them 😂 I guess I’m just trying to say language is really beautiful. Almost everyday, I keep discovering new wisdom in translations and they just make me fall in love with language all over again.

If you speak multiple languages, humor me. What language do you think in, dream in, love in?

Whatever your answer is, may it always bring you back to yourself…grounded in body, mind, and soul 🫶🏾