Connecting with your heritage language and learning without travelling with Chesline Pierre-Paul | Ep. #3

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Hedvig Sandbu: Welcome back everyone.

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Happy Monday!

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We're just going to jump
right into our third episode.

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You'll hear from Chesline Pierre-Paul,
who is one of those people who I

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feel brings a sense of purpose and
vision for changing societal norms

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into everything they do, including
their language learning practice.

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And a lot of the work they do within their
consulting company, and also outside of

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that, and you can read the full bio in
the episode show notes, but a lot of the

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work they do involves breaking apart many
of the myths and pretense around language

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learning, including colonialist ideals
that still shape the way that we think

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about languages and accents today, and
Ches brings that sense of purpose into a

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very conscious, mindful self loving and
empowering language learning practice.

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We're going to talk about how
you can learn a language without

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traveling and Ches will share
their own unique way of approaching

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languages and language learning.

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We're going to talk about language
deconstruction, which was a new

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term to me and de-colonialization
as well through language learning.

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And we'll talk about
what all of that means.

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So here we go.

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Welcome Ches, I'm so
excited to see you here.

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Chesline PP: I'm so excited to be here.

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Thank you so much for this space.

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Hedvig Sandbu: So,  like we've discussed,
I think there's such a breadth of

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topics that we have,  talked about,
uh, over the past kind of six months

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since we first connected, from social
impact and social entrepreneurship

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to multicultural identities and
anti-coloniality, and language learning.

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But let's stick with
language learning for today.

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Could you just give us a
short introduction of your own

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language learning experience?

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Chesline PP: Yeah, definitely.

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Um, I would say the long and short of it
is, you know, um, my parents are political

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refugees and activists from Haiti.

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They migrated to Dominican Republic.

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Then they came to Canada, then
I was born and I was born into a

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reality where that level of, you
know, um, intersecting multilayered

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trans-culturality was always abundant.

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I had family members that spoke,
different languages that I

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moderately or, you know, or non not
extently understood at the time.

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And so it had a Haitian Creole,
French, English, and Spanish.

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So that was the baseline.

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And growing up and I went into
higher education, had a foremost,

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um, focus in in languages.

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And that's how I picked up my own mantle
and going to those, you know, colonialist

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constructs of what a language makes
or doesn't, then questioning myself

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as to how am I solely being prompted
to gain fluency within languages

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that are divorced from my lineage?

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Uh, my self-construct and my
selfhood - challenging that.

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And then looking at decolonization
through that lens as an opportunity

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to re-appropriate and reclaim,
you know, my  biological ancestry.

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So I taught myself my native Afro-
indigenous language, Haitian Creole,

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and then I went on to extend my self
learning capabilities to my other

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languages, went to class to get my papers.

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I have the credentials, but did the
bulk of my own education solo style.

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And that's how I came into the language,
but it feels like a predestination

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because even when I didn't understand
what cousins or family members or

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auntie, or what have you were saying,
it was normalised for me to live in

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a state of heightened disruption.

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And there's a lot of engagement
that was being produced, where

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there was no intelligibility.

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So conversing with people in different
languages I don't know what you're

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saying, granularly, but through the
energy, the flow, the intentionality, I

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was able to lean on different parts and
parts though, and then put it together:

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Oh, you're going to the supermarket,
you know, after maybe five minutes

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of just me floundering, like.

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Um, you know, and then being at school,
the norm was a direct contradiction

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to that state of being, it was very
formalist, fixist and supremacist as well.

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Like the standard model of the native
was designed to be a direct projection

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of me as a human and then challenging
the norm of why does it only have to be

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a monolingual model or a bilingual model?

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And how can we intersperse the natural
flow of people coming in that come

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from different cultural legacies
and make it so that you don't have

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to teach my language for it to be
incased within your institution.

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Like there's so much more
that can be ingrained.

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So that's how I came into this.

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Like the shortened story.

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Hedvig Sandbu: Oh, wow.

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I mean, it's just, it's wonderful
to hear an example of,  a family

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where all of you sort of really
embrace this multilingualism and

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that, uh, what did you call it?

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The sort of disruptive energy almost, of
breaking down those stereotypes or the

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formality, as you said that you had in
school, and just playing with languages,

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not really caring about comprehension,
even, so much as just, well, let's

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try and communicate in some way.

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I'm wondering  what do you feel was the
benefit of having that from an early age?

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Chesline PP: Well, I would say to me,
the benefits of that is my default

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is not a monolith, which is to say
in many regards that my expectation

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for engagement was you don't have to
speak in a way that reinforces my norm.

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I was used to having asymetrical
conversations: I speak to her in French.

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She respond to me in either
English, Spanish, or Haitian Creole.

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That was one thing.

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Then around accents, understanding
that everybody has an

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accent, it's your vocal DNA.

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They don't carry the same
privilege within society because.

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It's an exclusionary construct, right?

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So people get rejected and you're
perceived as "less than", less

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intelligent, irrelevant, or legitimate,
but it has nothing to do with you.

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It has to do with the systems
that are  preset and preformalised

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before you come into it.

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And then the question is, am I
going to negotiate my legitimacy

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with something that is not of me?

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And when I decided that the answer
is no, I become the agent of

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potentialities,  and of disruption
and a beauteousness and an expansion.

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My default was, my standard of
operations for even thinking about

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the fabric of words, it's so much
more enriched than, than the format

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that you know was imposed or imparted.

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So I would say that's the thing.

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And for me, you know, when I look at
pluralism as part of languages, it only

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carries benefits The gift that, you
know, as Lisa Nichols calls it, like

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the gift wrapped in sandpaper for me
was my parents purposefully made it

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so that I didn't speak my language.

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That is my native Afro-Indigenous
language and that, you know, made

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it so that I was, you know, looked
at from different communities as

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always incongruent, insufficient,
problematic, and non-conforming, right.

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So, um, you're not black enough,
you're too white or you're not

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white enough, or you're not Canadian
enough or you're not Montrealer

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enough or whatever the case was.

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But the gift in that when you
re-emerge on the other side of

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that tension is I self-taught
myself a language, all of my own.

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And I can read and write in
ways that my parents who were

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born in the country can not.

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And the gift of being denied and resisted
is intentionality and expertise, which

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is to say that I'm much more granular.

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I have done my research.

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I've done the work and I
embody that so much different

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because I chose the language.

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I created a privilege for myself to
have that level of masterfulness and

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self-sufficiency, and I speak in a way
that is very proper to my identity.

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And so those are the gifts as Lisa
Nichols says wrapped in sandpaper,

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but it's the opposite of, you know,
um, a struggle or something negative.

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So, um, yeah, that would
be my journey there.

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Hedvig Sandbu: Wow.

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I love that.

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And what you said about  the fact that
you hadn't learnt Haitian Creole until you

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were much more deliberate about learning
it, and you kind of owned the learning

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process for yourself and you decided you
kind of created the way of expressing

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yourself in Haitian Creole that was
fitting to your identity is beautiful.

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And I think a lot of people resonate with
that, that fact that when you're learning

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a new language, you're actually having
an opportunity to reinvent yourself or

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to, I'm not sure if it's reinvent or just
to, um, express yourself better, maybe

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express your identity in a better way.

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So you you've talked about how
you,  you've learnt a number of

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languages at home, and then you've
learned Haitian-Creole by yourself.

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And you've told me that you didn't
learn these through actually

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traveling to Haiti or, you know,
actually going to these places.

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So can you tell me a little bit about,
about that and why that's so important.

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Chesline PP: Totally because, you know,
there's so many rampant misconstruals

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that are entertained by the polyglot
community as an industry as, as, um,

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as a club or, you know, as a reality.

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And for me, If we produce a one-way model
for all, it means that we incapacitate

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others, or we limit accessibility
around people gaining access to,

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you know, fluency all of their own.

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And it doesn't work for everybody.

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Not everybody wants to travel or has
the material needs,   to travel abroad.

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Um, so for me, it was really
important to challenge the

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narrative around, "oh, you have to".

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And what immersion looks like?

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So in my case, you know, I consider
that I self-taught myself all my

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languages and I went to school to get
my papers, um, so that I can have an

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extension of credibility that would
force people to let me in, have my foot

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in the door and then do my own thing.

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And how I did that was,  I always
rehash let's say the the core process

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because it works so well for me.

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And then I re implement
optimizing strategies over time

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because we mature into this.

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Um, and we're more knowledgeable
and we create and think

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and learn our way through.

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But my soul sister, Lina Vasquez,
you know, she, um, starts with,

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"do you know how you learn?"

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And most people don't and then they
would fault the language learning process

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as, oh, I'm not meant to be a learner.

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But the truest thing is you
don't know how you learn, period.

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So it doesn't matter if you're
trying to learn language or quantum

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mechanics, you will always have.

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Uh, a deficit ingrained in your
processes that is self engineered.

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So to me, it went back to how
do you normally, you know, think

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and how do you process knowledge?

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That was my starting point because the
whole thing is it has to be organic to me.

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A lot of the time we try to enforce
upon ourselves practices that

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are wholly disconnecting from our
truest organic, you know, um, you

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know, capacity to be, integrate,

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and re-engineer knowledge and
that's why  languages don't stick.

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So the way that I learn when I
was looking back to that, okay.

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Taking a minute, um, I have a few
different things, so I need to repeat

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over and over again, especially writing.

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And it's proven that writing
is terrific as, you know, uh,

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retention of data and knowledge.

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Okay, That was one thing.

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I need to talk to myself.

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To talk to myself out loud a lot.

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Okay.

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That's another thing.

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And let's say the way that I function is I
always go extremely granular and specific,

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and I always used a construction, so
I can have one sentence, very short

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and sweet, and I may break it apart.

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And I look for the pronouns,
the nouns, the adjectives.

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And then I look at how can I
put a different spin on it?

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Okay.

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So I can say, well, so I integrate
all the synonyms that I know.

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I play around with the sentence structure.

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I change the emphasis on different parts
of the construct on a sentential level.

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I play it, you know, so that I break it
apart, piece it apart I can reconstruct

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- deconstruct, so I become a master of
the units of the words, which is to say

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that I don't need a lot of content to be
extremely generative with my sentences.

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So if all I have are five words
I can spend those five words so

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well that I can generate maybe a
hundred sentences out of five words.

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Most people won't do that.

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Right?

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So the, they look at knowledge as a
quantification process, but they don't

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understand that it's about the infinite
combinations that you can engineer

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out of the minimum viable units.

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So that was my construct.

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This way, I don't need a
lot of sentences or content.

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I don't overwhelm myself, and I
become uber specialized in how

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I can recalibrate tactically and
optimally my own learning processes.

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I also learned that I need to
walk around the room, especially

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when I get excited learning.

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And then I look at how can I take the
different parts and pieces of my organic,

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um, you know, self knowledge capabilities,
hone them in into a sequence.

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And then every day I just re-implement
the sequence because you want to take

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out having to think into the equation.

221
00:14:53,739 --> 00:14:57,849
Every decision making process on the
micro level is time - energy consuming.

222
00:14:58,029 --> 00:15:01,539
And by the time that you actually start
doing the learning, you're already

223
00:15:01,539 --> 00:15:03,729
depleted or challenged energetically.

224
00:15:04,104 --> 00:15:06,534
So you take a minute to
understand how you learn.

225
00:15:06,754 --> 00:15:10,164
You re sequence, those different
elements into a streamlined

226
00:15:10,164 --> 00:15:12,144
system, very short and sweet.

227
00:15:12,564 --> 00:15:15,984
And then you look at every day,
you're just going to be reinforcing

228
00:15:15,984 --> 00:15:17,934
that over and over again.

229
00:15:17,934 --> 00:15:19,764
And you're going to hone it as you go.

230
00:15:19,824 --> 00:15:22,074
Then at the end of my week,
I have my post-mortem.

231
00:15:22,344 --> 00:15:24,474
What worked, what didn't,
where did I feel like bleh?

232
00:15:25,224 --> 00:15:26,274
Where was I "oh my God.

233
00:15:26,274 --> 00:15:27,054
So excited".

234
00:15:27,084 --> 00:15:30,024
And I look at the mechanics of
the variables that were at play,

235
00:15:30,204 --> 00:15:33,414
maybe as the time of the day when
I did that, and so on and so forth.

236
00:15:33,789 --> 00:15:36,309
So practically, I looked at that.

237
00:15:36,369 --> 00:15:40,859
And I find the one resource that I call
my Bible and I may have two of them.

238
00:15:40,859 --> 00:15:46,409
So the first one would be the grammar
essentials I've used McGraw Hill, and it's

239
00:15:46,409 --> 00:15:51,389
not as well developed for all languages,
but for Italian, oh my goodness.

240
00:15:51,479 --> 00:15:52,619
It's my favorite auto.

241
00:15:52,919 --> 00:15:54,929
And I've used it so much that it's broken.

242
00:15:54,929 --> 00:15:56,819
Like the cover page is ripped off.

243
00:15:57,239 --> 00:16:01,439
And so it's a one it's a pocket
size and literally pocket size,

244
00:16:01,879 --> 00:16:03,969
uh, "grammar Bible", in English.

245
00:16:03,989 --> 00:16:06,959
So it explains that language to
you in English, you have the two

246
00:16:06,959 --> 00:16:10,949
Italian examples and you have no
exercises, which is why it's so light.

247
00:16:11,579 --> 00:16:16,549
So I, what I did was overview in my
overview, I highlight the notions that I'm

248
00:16:16,849 --> 00:16:21,449
iffy about, oh, maybe it's that kind of
verbs for this and that, because I want

249
00:16:21,449 --> 00:16:23,549
to look at it from a macro perspective.

250
00:16:23,729 --> 00:16:26,729
And when I get micro, I'm intentional
about the parts that I need to

251
00:16:26,729 --> 00:16:31,759
leverage more because there's more
resistance in my knowledge retention.

252
00:16:32,609 --> 00:16:36,449
And then, um, I had
that holistic approach.

253
00:16:36,689 --> 00:16:37,109
Right.

254
00:16:37,319 --> 00:16:39,329
And then I will go, okay,
what gets me excited?

255
00:16:39,329 --> 00:16:40,529
For me, it's richness.

256
00:16:40,619 --> 00:16:44,339
I want to have more than one way to
see something or else I get frustrated.

257
00:16:44,819 --> 00:16:48,449
So I would look at, put on the
timer one minute and I just talk to

258
00:16:48,449 --> 00:16:51,719
myself in the language and I would
just write down, really quickly,

259
00:16:51,719 --> 00:16:52,709
the words that I don't know.

260
00:16:53,219 --> 00:16:56,219
What the thing is, I keep
talking in the language.

261
00:16:56,249 --> 00:16:58,119
I just have to find a workaround.

262
00:16:58,369 --> 00:17:01,004
So, if I forgot a how to say
chair, I'm going to say "the thing

263
00:17:01,004 --> 00:17:02,774
that I sit on" in the language.

264
00:17:02,894 --> 00:17:06,554
You don't break your flow, but I just
think two seconds short hand style.

265
00:17:06,704 --> 00:17:07,064
Okay.

266
00:17:07,094 --> 00:17:08,894
That's the word I didn't
know, but I keep moving.

267
00:17:09,144 --> 00:17:09,914
Timer is up.

268
00:17:10,094 --> 00:17:12,074
I have a list and then
I'm going to look them up.

269
00:17:12,104 --> 00:17:16,304
Before I look them up, I challenge
myself to say, okay, based on the

270
00:17:16,304 --> 00:17:21,354
information I have, my appreciation of
the logics,  the logic of that language.

271
00:17:21,654 --> 00:17:24,294
What can I anticipate
the answer would be like.

272
00:17:25,044 --> 00:17:29,934
Because you want to challenge yourself to
be autonomous and not resources dependent.

273
00:17:30,204 --> 00:17:33,864
By the time that I lend into my
dictionary, I am cross referencing,

274
00:17:34,104 --> 00:17:38,904
fact checking, but I already had a
baseline to just have information

275
00:17:38,904 --> 00:17:41,154
to validate or invalidate.

276
00:17:41,664 --> 00:17:44,154
And that's how I would pull
myself over and over again.

277
00:17:44,154 --> 00:17:48,114
And then you become intuitive by the
time that I opened up my tab, I already

278
00:17:48,114 --> 00:17:50,634
have 85% of the answer locked in.

279
00:17:51,369 --> 00:17:54,069
So those would be the sessions
where I would be tactical,

280
00:17:54,069 --> 00:17:55,749
intentional and research-driven.

281
00:17:56,019 --> 00:17:58,449
The rest of the time, I'm just
playing around with language and

282
00:17:58,449 --> 00:18:00,039
being silly and being grounded.

283
00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:04,089
So now I journal every mornings
in,  my three languages that

284
00:18:04,089 --> 00:18:06,069
I'm honing in and it's fun.

285
00:18:06,129 --> 00:18:08,349
It's grounding, it's
healing, It's liberating.

286
00:18:08,379 --> 00:18:09,339
I have my candles.

287
00:18:09,339 --> 00:18:13,709
I  have a whole ritual, but I wanted
it to be holistic, I wanted it

288
00:18:13,709 --> 00:18:15,539
to be organic and tethered to me.

289
00:18:15,569 --> 00:18:17,279
And I want it to be life-affirming.

290
00:18:17,519 --> 00:18:20,879
I don't want to wake up to that
and to dread the session that I

291
00:18:20,879 --> 00:18:22,649
have to open up my language books.

292
00:18:23,119 --> 00:18:24,749
It needs to be invigorating.

293
00:18:25,079 --> 00:18:28,019
And so you start with you,
how do you learn and function?

294
00:18:28,229 --> 00:18:31,709
So that then all you're doing is
you're normalizing the language

295
00:18:31,709 --> 00:18:35,729
learning experience into the
constitution of your, your functioning.

296
00:18:36,683 --> 00:18:41,123
So for me, it starts from the unit of you
as the centre, the grounding force and the

297
00:18:41,123 --> 00:18:46,643
baseline, and then naturally make language
cohesive within what you naturally do.

298
00:18:47,933 --> 00:18:52,163
Hedvig Sandbu: What do you say
to someone who says "I'm not

299
00:18:52,373 --> 00:18:53,903
good at learning languages?"

300
00:18:54,983 --> 00:18:56,363
Chesline PP: Oh, there's so many things.

301
00:18:56,393 --> 00:19:00,083
Um, I always start with  Lina's
(Vasquez)"do you know how you learn?"

302
00:19:01,193 --> 00:19:04,143
And usually that's just a
mic drop in crickets moment.

303
00:19:04,163 --> 00:19:04,433
Right.

304
00:19:04,463 --> 00:19:05,273
All at once.

305
00:19:05,873 --> 00:19:11,423
And then looking at, you know, what are
things that you've been successful at in

306
00:19:11,423 --> 00:19:17,948
your life learning wise and what were the,
you know, backend implementation processes

307
00:19:17,948 --> 00:19:19,628
that led you to a level of mastery?

308
00:19:20,838 --> 00:19:25,998
So based on whatever they tell me,
we start architecting, you know,

309
00:19:26,028 --> 00:19:30,858
this kind of matrix where now we can
map out your thought processes and

310
00:19:30,858 --> 00:19:35,178
then look at language as something
that can be super imposed onto your

311
00:19:35,178 --> 00:19:40,533
own, um, you know, self-knowledge,
instinct or intelligence or acumen.

312
00:19:40,953 --> 00:19:45,303
Then the other thing is we want a shift
in language to have a shift in perception,

313
00:19:45,513 --> 00:19:51,183
because if you are emerging out of self
defeatism, you are going to re articulate

314
00:19:51,183 --> 00:19:53,363
the reality that your thought induces.

315
00:19:53,703 --> 00:19:57,483
So if you come in from a deficit
driven narrative, you will look for

316
00:19:57,483 --> 00:20:02,333
opportunities to then reinforce the
statement that you are not good.

317
00:20:02,333 --> 00:20:04,638
And so it's challenging
the notion of good.

318
00:20:04,638 --> 00:20:07,278
What does it mean to be
good or bad at language?

319
00:20:07,518 --> 00:20:11,388
Often times what emerges is
you want to speak like a quote

320
00:20:11,388 --> 00:20:12,708
unquote "native speaker".

321
00:20:12,708 --> 00:20:14,178
So you want to be assimilated.

322
00:20:14,538 --> 00:20:19,608
You don't look at your previous linguistic
background as an enrichment to the

323
00:20:19,608 --> 00:20:21,408
new languages that you're integrating.

324
00:20:21,438 --> 00:20:25,308
And you look at everything that
makes you idiosynchratically unique,

325
00:20:25,548 --> 00:20:30,138
singular, remarkable, outstanding,
norm-defying, non-conforming

326
00:20:30,138 --> 00:20:31,498
you look at that as a handicap.

327
00:20:31,908 --> 00:20:33,588
And how can I obliterate that?

328
00:20:33,588 --> 00:20:38,868
How can I neutralize my linguistic
singularity so that I sound and behave

329
00:20:39,138 --> 00:20:41,468
like somebody who ultimately is in me.

330
00:20:41,928 --> 00:20:43,818
So it's challenging that notion as well.

331
00:20:44,208 --> 00:20:46,488
And then we look at,
okay, what are you doing?

332
00:20:47,268 --> 00:20:47,928
Talk to me.

333
00:20:48,018 --> 00:20:50,748
I want to hear you and listen
to you in the language.

334
00:20:50,808 --> 00:20:52,818
Then I have my re-framings for you.

335
00:20:53,118 --> 00:20:55,758
And I tell you, you're
doing this beautifully.

336
00:20:55,818 --> 00:20:58,428
And then we're going to look at the
things that we want to hone in on.

337
00:20:58,758 --> 00:21:00,618
But again, language is a big part of it.

338
00:21:01,428 --> 00:21:05,208
So it's challenging your standard, your
standard for linguistic excellence.

339
00:21:05,418 --> 00:21:10,188
If it is something that defeats you, if
it is something that crushes you, it's

340
00:21:10,188 --> 00:21:15,978
not a standard that you want to, you know,
you want to articulate within your life.

341
00:21:16,368 --> 00:21:17,448
It's not serving you.

342
00:21:18,168 --> 00:21:22,398
So I would say it's a combination of those
things, but there was no such a thing as a

343
00:21:22,398 --> 00:21:27,838
bad learner , a bad speaker, there's just
a learner who doesn't know how they learn.

344
00:21:28,178 --> 00:21:30,728
And you just go back down to
that level of understanding.

345
00:21:30,728 --> 00:21:35,048
If you're trying to learn the language
like I do, you're challenging yourself.

346
00:21:35,408 --> 00:21:37,388
So let's focus on, on you instead.

347
00:21:38,078 --> 00:21:39,098
Hedvig Sandbu: That's wonderful.

348
00:21:39,428 --> 00:21:45,438
Um, I want to move on to, um, what
we discussed just very early on,  in

349
00:21:45,438 --> 00:21:46,818
our conversation, which was around.

350
00:21:47,498 --> 00:21:52,568
Um, kind of your heritage language or
languages actually in your case, right?

351
00:21:52,968 --> 00:21:56,568
In your family, you have different
languages that you grew up with, and of

352
00:21:56,568 --> 00:22:01,338
course, uh, Haitian Creole, which you,
in fact, didn't learn from an early

353
00:22:01,338 --> 00:22:03,498
age and then reconnected with later on.

354
00:22:04,291 --> 00:22:07,311
What was the trigger for you to
start learning Haitian Creole?

355
00:22:08,851 --> 00:22:11,831
Chesline PP: I would say was
always something in the backdrop.

356
00:22:11,891 --> 00:22:15,581
For instance, I would understand
perfectly people talking to me.

357
00:22:16,031 --> 00:22:19,661
Um, but I was never
seen as Haitian enough.

358
00:22:20,111 --> 00:22:24,886
I was looked at as a mimicry
of legitimacy in the community.

359
00:22:25,246 --> 00:22:29,266
And that's the same in what I would
call like white America as well,

360
00:22:29,296 --> 00:22:32,866
being around, first question out of
people's mouth is where are you from?

361
00:22:33,286 --> 00:22:38,476
And then the segue to that is more
invalidating than the first postulate.

362
00:22:38,836 --> 00:22:43,396
So the thing was, I never had a
space where I belonged, I was seen

363
00:22:43,396 --> 00:22:48,916
as incomplete, as disruptively
and disempoweringly nonconforming.

364
00:22:49,186 --> 00:22:52,666
I was seeing as illegitimate,
so that was my story.

365
00:22:53,176 --> 00:22:57,616
I always wanted to speak, but
then I got castigated for it.

366
00:22:57,916 --> 00:23:01,006
So people calling me out on
my accent, calling me out.

367
00:23:01,066 --> 00:23:05,236
Um, oh, you speak poorly and yada, yada,
I'm talking about Haitian Creole now.

368
00:23:05,846 --> 00:23:10,186
And so I would, you know,
speak to myself on some level.

369
00:23:10,696 --> 00:23:12,406
Uh, but I was being guarded about it.

370
00:23:12,496 --> 00:23:16,486
And I would also speak with other
cousins who were in the same situation.

371
00:23:16,486 --> 00:23:20,086
Cause cousins who came from Haiti,
had exactly the same discourse, right.

372
00:23:20,086 --> 00:23:23,206
They're raised by those people who
would talk to me in such a way.

373
00:23:23,626 --> 00:23:27,676
So the thing was languages
became my secret garden.

374
00:23:28,476 --> 00:23:32,506
It's a thing that I internalized
and in my, you know, fictionalized

375
00:23:32,506 --> 00:23:34,546
world that I carried within myself.

376
00:23:35,186 --> 00:23:37,646
There was no judgment and
there was no language police.

377
00:23:37,646 --> 00:23:39,326
There were no gatekeepers.

378
00:23:39,956 --> 00:23:44,816
And an extension of that was when
I went to my path of languages.

379
00:23:45,026 --> 00:23:49,136
I chose English because the people in
my household didn't speak the language.

380
00:23:49,376 --> 00:23:53,336
So I had something to hold on
to that was intrinsically mine.

381
00:23:53,672 --> 00:23:58,322
And then I got that express, um,
experience of, of liberation, of

382
00:23:58,322 --> 00:24:02,582
self proclamation, and then I carried
that back into Haitian Creole.

383
00:24:02,762 --> 00:24:06,302
Cause by that time I had already
learned a few, three languages,

384
00:24:06,302 --> 00:24:07,742
three, four, something like that.

385
00:24:08,072 --> 00:24:12,512
And I go, well, now that I know what
liberation and self-determining looks like

386
00:24:13,112 --> 00:24:18,242
I get to reappropriate the same emotional
metrics back into your Haitian Creole.

387
00:24:18,632 --> 00:24:22,052
And that's where I really started having
fun with the language because I was no

388
00:24:22,052 --> 00:24:23,942
longer trying to speak like my parents.

389
00:24:24,372 --> 00:24:30,332
I was no longer trying to be an emulator
of a norm that was, you know, rejecting,

390
00:24:30,332 --> 00:24:34,682
contradicting of me, but also ultimately
not of my own design and purpose.

391
00:24:35,012 --> 00:24:39,162
And  you know, when you learn different
grammar styles,   your sentences,

392
00:24:39,612 --> 00:24:43,122
they started behaving different
because I have different models.

393
00:24:43,362 --> 00:24:47,232
And so with German, with Italian and all.

394
00:24:47,232 --> 00:24:51,532
So then I would have all those different
ways of playing around with, you

395
00:24:51,532 --> 00:24:56,547
know, uh, syntax, with lexicon, with
deconstruction, with understanding,

396
00:24:56,967 --> 00:24:58,947
um, how you can have a unit.

397
00:24:58,947 --> 00:25:02,967
So talking about, uh, morphological
derivation, so you have one word

398
00:25:03,237 --> 00:25:06,747
and then you can make it an adverb
an adjective a noun, this and that.

399
00:25:06,927 --> 00:25:11,997
So I have all that toolkit by the time
that I re engaged, um, Haitian Creole

400
00:25:12,017 --> 00:25:17,367
from a place of determining, empowerment,
daring, and being very grounded.

401
00:25:17,697 --> 00:25:22,782
And that's when I really,  uh,
exploded into expansion.

402
00:25:23,112 --> 00:25:26,532
So that's how I got to that
place with the language.

403
00:25:26,562 --> 00:25:32,112
And now when I speak it as a gift
to myself, I would, I do poetry

404
00:25:32,112 --> 00:25:35,922
work in the language, and it's
extremely unintelligible if you

405
00:25:35,982 --> 00:25:37,902
speak French, because if you think

406
00:25:37,932 --> 00:25:41,052
oh, is a Haitian Creole is like
French, like, no, honey, it's not.

407
00:25:41,052 --> 00:25:45,552
So part of my decolonization process
is I go and I do research on the

408
00:25:45,552 --> 00:25:50,262
Afro indigenous roots and I use
words from our indigenous roots and

409
00:25:50,352 --> 00:25:52,302
the Pan-Africanism of the language.

410
00:25:52,602 --> 00:25:56,712
So those are things that three
to four, five generations ago, my

411
00:25:56,802 --> 00:26:01,729
4, 4, 4 grandparents used to say,
but in 2021,  we're losing that,

412
00:26:01,759 --> 00:26:03,499
particularly in urban centers.

413
00:26:03,799 --> 00:26:09,679
So I created the reverse imagery of
being so empowered within the language

414
00:26:09,679 --> 00:26:14,584
itself that I speak something that
is of my ancestry, but not of the

415
00:26:14,614 --> 00:26:16,834
contemporary world that denied me.

416
00:26:18,814 --> 00:26:19,744
Hedvig Sandbu: That's awesome.

417
00:26:19,824 --> 00:26:23,694
What I was going to ask you, but I think
you kind of answered is, you know, how

418
00:26:23,694 --> 00:26:26,244
did you come out of that secret garden?

419
00:26:26,274 --> 00:26:28,364
But it sounds as though you.

420
00:26:29,394 --> 00:26:34,854
You, you almost took a detour to these
other languages, but do you think you

421
00:26:34,854 --> 00:26:39,984
would have been able to come out of that
shell if you will, with Haitian Creole,

422
00:26:40,464 --> 00:26:47,694
if you hadn't learned other languages and
kind of, um, figured out a few new ways

423
00:26:47,694 --> 00:26:49,194
of being more creative with the language?

424
00:26:50,799 --> 00:26:57,279
Chesline PP: For me, like the second
you get into like two or three more

425
00:26:57,279 --> 00:27:03,669
language you already have, and you really
hone in on their singularities and how

426
00:27:03,669 --> 00:27:05,579
you  decolonise them and all that stuff.

427
00:27:06,689 --> 00:27:09,539
Um, it's an enrichment that
you can never uncreate.

428
00:27:09,539 --> 00:27:10,079
You know what I mean?

429
00:27:10,079 --> 00:27:14,519
So I feel that when you embody
your languages, so intentfully

430
00:27:14,579 --> 00:27:18,659
and holistically, there's no
element of separation between them.

431
00:27:19,409 --> 00:27:22,909
And for me, the purpose is I want
them to keep on being, inter-

432
00:27:22,929 --> 00:27:26,659
communicating, and I want them to
keep on transmogrifying each other.

433
00:27:26,984 --> 00:27:31,904
So the sequence of itself to me
is of no relevance in so much as

434
00:27:31,904 --> 00:27:33,524
there is a sequence to start with.

435
00:27:34,124 --> 00:27:38,264
I always want there to be something
disruptive that signifies that

436
00:27:38,264 --> 00:27:41,954
I'm not here to rehash norms
I'm here to create paradigms.

437
00:27:42,314 --> 00:27:46,974
And I do so because I don't settle
for the typically program-normative

438
00:27:46,994 --> 00:27:50,774
sentence structure or the language
ideology that comes with it.

439
00:27:51,174 --> 00:27:54,054
So for me, it's by default.

440
00:27:54,074 --> 00:27:57,554
Now, when you truly embodied
you do the healing, you do,

441
00:27:57,644 --> 00:27:59,564
um, your meditation practices.

442
00:27:59,564 --> 00:28:02,444
You do your journaling, you work
in those different languages.

443
00:28:02,444 --> 00:28:05,394
There's an element where there
is no differentiation for you.

444
00:28:05,804 --> 00:28:09,389
And that means that whether or not
I carry awareness of that fact,

445
00:28:09,629 --> 00:28:13,679
when I iterate sentences in Haitian
Creole, there are elements that

446
00:28:13,679 --> 00:28:17,669
if you deconstruct that from a
psycholinguistic level, you can see here,

447
00:28:17,699 --> 00:28:21,659
oh, that's the touch points actually,
between those two languages here.

448
00:28:21,749 --> 00:28:25,049
The reason why you created that
kind of sentence structure is

449
00:28:25,049 --> 00:28:26,669
because you speak German, you know?

450
00:28:27,059 --> 00:28:31,289
Um, so, so that's where I want
to have this flow, this wholeism

451
00:28:31,769 --> 00:28:35,564
that centers and grounds how I am
and I do language on the daily.

452
00:28:37,294 --> 00:28:39,634
Hedvig Sandbu: So, is that what
you mean when you say, because I

453
00:28:39,634 --> 00:28:44,544
think a term that's new to me is
kind of deconstructing a language.

454
00:28:44,874 --> 00:28:47,904
Often when we talk about learning a
language we - we're talking about.

455
00:28:48,874 --> 00:28:50,944
Uh, maybe constructing, right?

456
00:28:50,944 --> 00:28:53,164
So sentence construction.

457
00:28:53,534 --> 00:28:55,214
About kind of building things.

458
00:28:55,874 --> 00:29:00,794
So I know you mentioned, you mentioned
healing, you mentioned journaling, you

459
00:29:00,794 --> 00:29:07,859
mentioned, um, embodiment, um,  what
does that process look like when

460
00:29:07,859 --> 00:29:10,859
you are deconstructing a language?

461
00:29:11,624 --> 00:29:13,134
Chesline PP: Um, I can
give you an example.

462
00:29:13,134 --> 00:29:13,554
So

463
00:29:14,024 --> 00:29:14,734
Hedvig Sandbu: Yes, please.

464
00:29:14,734 --> 00:29:17,594
Chesline PP: the people listening won't
see it, but I have my little journal here.

465
00:29:17,594 --> 00:29:21,584
So this is my, one of my
most precious possessions.

466
00:29:21,914 --> 00:29:22,844
And it's very simple.

467
00:29:22,844 --> 00:29:26,264
It's a beautiful book,
basically a notebook.

468
00:29:26,444 --> 00:29:29,234
And in it you have a bunch of words
that I wrote down in Haitian Creole,

469
00:29:29,254 --> 00:29:32,144
so that's one of the first things
I do when I wake up in the morning.

470
00:29:32,624 --> 00:29:35,594
And what I did was, um,
I'm special like that.

471
00:29:35,624 --> 00:29:39,194
One of my favourite
books are dictionaries.

472
00:29:39,524 --> 00:29:44,684
So I found when I made the best
online dictionaries for Haitian

473
00:29:44,684 --> 00:29:48,104
Creole and I took him in it, as I was
telling you before, what are all the

474
00:29:48,104 --> 00:29:49,374
words that I don't know how to say.

475
00:29:50,064 --> 00:29:52,964
And what are other words that I
know how to say, but I have only

476
00:29:52,964 --> 00:29:55,604
one synonym for, or not even that.

477
00:29:55,994 --> 00:29:59,684
So for me, it's looking at where am I
stuck, limited, unimaginative and non

478
00:29:59,684 --> 00:30:03,494
generative with the words that I have,
and I don't have, and I would sit down,

479
00:30:03,494 --> 00:30:06,524
I do my research and I just pulled
them all up and then I write them down

480
00:30:06,944 --> 00:30:08,954
and then I start noticing patterns.

481
00:30:09,014 --> 00:30:13,709
It's like, I didn't know that you
can generate out of a verb, this

482
00:30:13,709 --> 00:30:16,949
type of, of nouns, which means
that now I can overextend that

483
00:30:16,949 --> 00:30:18,239
to all the nouns that I know.

484
00:30:18,539 --> 00:30:22,349
So automatically I double the
amounts of vocabulary that I have,

485
00:30:22,379 --> 00:30:25,889
because all those words that exist
in one category, all those nouns.

486
00:30:26,099 --> 00:30:28,739
Now they have the potential
to become two extensions and

487
00:30:28,739 --> 00:30:30,089
the same original construct.

488
00:30:30,209 --> 00:30:30,539
Right?

489
00:30:30,839 --> 00:30:34,559
So that's how you look at deconstruction
is you look again at the minimum

490
00:30:34,589 --> 00:30:40,619
viable unit, the one word, how can
I engineer 10 words out of the one.

491
00:30:41,309 --> 00:30:46,769
So your main more intentional instead
of, oh, I need to have 10,000 words

492
00:30:46,769 --> 00:30:48,269
for me to be considered fluent.

493
00:30:48,299 --> 00:30:48,599
No.

494
00:30:49,079 --> 00:30:53,129
It's out of the vacuum, out of
nothingness, out of no access to

495
00:30:53,189 --> 00:30:58,409
internet or something that is extrinsic
to your body as a resource, how can

496
00:30:58,409 --> 00:31:03,959
you basically extensively create more
words for and within that language?

497
00:31:04,559 --> 00:31:08,399
So at both, it goes down to that
level of critical, um, you know,

498
00:31:08,399 --> 00:31:11,399
system awareness of grammar as a code.

499
00:31:11,609 --> 00:31:13,469
It's a system, it's a matrix.

500
00:31:13,709 --> 00:31:17,249
And so it means that there's an ingrained
logic that creates predictability

501
00:31:17,249 --> 00:31:19,019
in pattern making and creation.

502
00:31:19,259 --> 00:31:24,179
So if I understand the logic of that
pattern, I can create more out of

503
00:31:24,179 --> 00:31:27,809
it and I can become autonomous and
fluent and then create new words.

504
00:31:28,356 --> 00:31:29,927
Like now we use "I Google".

505
00:31:30,227 --> 00:31:33,497
Google is used as a verb now,
but it used to be just a noun.

506
00:31:33,837 --> 00:31:38,787
So it's just this capacity to create
new words that people will automatically

507
00:31:38,787 --> 00:31:44,487
understand, but it's out of richness,
creativity, um, and you know, this

508
00:31:44,487 --> 00:31:47,487
kind of, um, imagination that you have.

509
00:31:47,787 --> 00:31:50,607
So for me, I would sit
down and have those words.

510
00:31:50,637 --> 00:31:52,737
And then I look at what
are the patterns here?

511
00:31:53,247 --> 00:31:55,257
How can I play around with this word?

512
00:31:55,257 --> 00:32:00,037
So I have more than one way to use
it, and that's been slowing down.

513
00:32:00,847 --> 00:32:05,137
Looking at the bulk of the words
that you have as part of your

514
00:32:05,137 --> 00:32:06,907
living repository of knowledge.

515
00:32:07,267 --> 00:32:11,527
And then again, the idea is you
want to multiply that resource.

516
00:32:12,277 --> 00:32:15,397
So that's how I would look at
that level of deconstruction.

517
00:32:15,397 --> 00:32:18,487
And another thing I love
doing is creating registers.

518
00:32:18,697 --> 00:32:20,067
So I have one sentence.

519
00:32:20,362 --> 00:32:25,882
How can I say exactly the same thing, but
politely, informally, in a verbal manner,

520
00:32:25,952 --> 00:32:27,972
in a provocative and a sarcastic one.

521
00:32:27,972 --> 00:32:31,672
So again, it's the challenge
of being a generator out of

522
00:32:31,672 --> 00:32:33,622
the singularity of a unit.

523
00:32:35,442 --> 00:32:36,312
Hedvig Sandbu: That's amazing.

524
00:32:36,312 --> 00:32:38,892
Do you have an example that
you could share with us?

525
00:32:39,922 --> 00:32:40,312
Chesline PP: Sure.

526
00:32:40,312 --> 00:32:45,652
I mean, um, it could be,  if I
want to say, um, "I love this".

527
00:32:45,742 --> 00:32:46,702
Let's keep it at that.

528
00:32:46,702 --> 00:32:48,832
So that's the, the unit
that I'm working from.

529
00:32:48,832 --> 00:32:54,142
So I can say, um, you know, "this I
love", so already that inversion, but

530
00:32:54,142 --> 00:32:56,512
then rationalizing back to myself.

531
00:32:56,512 --> 00:32:58,042
What is the significance in that?

532
00:32:58,042 --> 00:33:01,852
So objectively the same
amount of words are there.

533
00:33:01,932 --> 00:33:07,872
What is then the change that is in
occurrence that I get to comprehend?

534
00:33:08,342 --> 00:33:12,902
Well, because those languages like
languages like English and French and what

535
00:33:12,902 --> 00:33:15,182
have you, you read from left to right.

536
00:33:15,692 --> 00:33:19,742
That the distribution of words
signifies the relevance of the

537
00:33:19,742 --> 00:33:21,422
words and the emphasis granted.

538
00:33:21,572 --> 00:33:23,522
Then now I'm going to go for a synonym.

539
00:33:23,522 --> 00:33:28,112
So I love, I adore, I cherish
and I will explain to myself

540
00:33:28,202 --> 00:33:29,732
all those variations in tones.

541
00:33:29,732 --> 00:33:30,982
What do the significance?

542
00:33:31,012 --> 00:33:32,502
So the six signifies.

543
00:33:32,502 --> 00:33:35,522
So bring it back down to
the original statement.

544
00:33:35,702 --> 00:33:41,042
How am I destroying, reinforcing, um,
contradicting, et cetera, et cetera.

545
00:33:41,042 --> 00:33:46,952
So having that acute level awareness
and acumen around the power of the word.

546
00:33:47,342 --> 00:33:51,182
So how am I creating a more empowering
statement out of the same thought?

547
00:33:51,392 --> 00:33:53,012
So those would be things that I do.

548
00:33:53,089 --> 00:33:56,359
And for me, another challenge
is, I don't want to repeat the

549
00:33:56,359 --> 00:33:58,009
same words over and over again.

550
00:33:58,339 --> 00:34:04,429
Thus, when I can find myself on the
cusp of reiteration, I pause and I

551
00:34:04,429 --> 00:34:10,519
go for generation rather than say
the same words and it's frustrating.

552
00:34:10,519 --> 00:34:13,729
And to me, it speaks to
a gap that I may have.

553
00:34:13,999 --> 00:34:18,769
And then when I look to what is a
reframer that I can induce around

554
00:34:18,769 --> 00:34:22,579
that construct, around that sentence,
that's when I go back to what I

555
00:34:22,579 --> 00:34:24,409
talked about before: patterns.

556
00:34:26,219 --> 00:34:30,619
Hedvig Sandbu: I'm reminded of in
Italian, how you canadd -ino or -one

557
00:34:31,149 --> 00:34:37,384
and -ino basically makes the noun the
thing smaller and -one makes it bigger.

558
00:34:38,914 --> 00:34:41,254
I think is just such a
beautiful and creative way.

559
00:34:41,414 --> 00:34:45,374
Chesline PP: I would say the thing
is the capacity for self regeneration

560
00:34:45,374 --> 00:34:47,714
exists in all languages, but
it's not going to look the same

561
00:34:47,714 --> 00:34:49,184
because they don't behave the same.

562
00:34:49,544 --> 00:34:53,384
So in English for me, it's,
especially with my verbs, you

563
00:34:53,384 --> 00:34:58,814
know, I can add I Z E at the end
and I turn and noun into a verb.

564
00:34:59,084 --> 00:35:04,214
So they won't always have the same,
you know, objective behavior, but the

565
00:35:04,274 --> 00:35:08,384
reproduce internally the same capacity
for the one word to then be multiplied.

566
00:35:09,604 --> 00:35:09,934
Hedvig Sandbu: Yeah.

567
00:35:09,994 --> 00:35:10,744
Yeah, it's true.

568
00:35:11,224 --> 00:35:11,584
Okay.

569
00:35:11,584 --> 00:35:15,214
I think we're actually coming
to the end of our interview.

570
00:35:15,814 --> 00:35:19,531
Do you have any, final
message for our listeners?

571
00:35:20,401 --> 00:35:21,451
Any final thoughts?

572
00:35:23,501 --> 00:35:23,861
Chesline PP: Yeah.

573
00:35:23,861 --> 00:35:28,451
Well, how can I summarize this?

574
00:35:28,451 --> 00:35:30,611
But I would say.

575
00:35:31,466 --> 00:35:36,056
Never presumed that there is a
dearth of richness in the language.

576
00:35:36,116 --> 00:35:41,666
So if you say that language is easier
or harder than, it means that we take

577
00:35:41,666 --> 00:35:46,226
two different languages that behave
differently, and we impose the standard

578
00:35:46,256 --> 00:35:47,816
of one language over the other.

579
00:35:48,326 --> 00:35:48,626
Right.

580
00:35:48,626 --> 00:35:49,376
So that's one thing.

581
00:35:49,376 --> 00:35:54,146
And it also means that because you stop
expecting beauty, you only encounter

582
00:35:55,181 --> 00:35:59,171
the opposite of that, you presume
that that language was inferior on

583
00:35:59,171 --> 00:36:01,961
some level, and then you started
treating it from that perspective.

584
00:36:01,961 --> 00:36:05,981
So now you're barring yourself off
of, from, you know, the richness that

585
00:36:05,981 --> 00:36:10,631
he can deploy, and all the different
iterations of linguistics that it carries.

586
00:36:11,111 --> 00:36:14,401
And that's something that then
gets reflected in how you speak.

587
00:36:15,011 --> 00:36:17,201
So just nurturing that humility.

588
00:36:17,951 --> 00:36:21,971
And it's also a tool of decolonization,
recognizing that, you know, all

589
00:36:21,971 --> 00:36:26,901
languages are equally sophisticated,
they just behave divergently, right.

590
00:36:26,901 --> 00:36:30,951
And it doesn't take anything away from
me just because it's not reminiscent

591
00:36:31,071 --> 00:36:33,351
of me as a norm, as a standard.

592
00:36:33,441 --> 00:36:37,431
It doesn't mean that it's lessened
or that it is inferiorizable.

593
00:36:37,731 --> 00:36:42,681
So I would just say that: don't
presume a lack of richness and

594
00:36:42,681 --> 00:36:46,131
depth and sophistication and that
their languages- have the humility

595
00:36:46,131 --> 00:36:50,841
to understand that um, they're all
equally self-supported, they're not

596
00:36:50,931 --> 00:36:53,901
all equally visiblised are legitimised.

597
00:36:55,366 --> 00:36:55,996
Hedvig Sandbu: Beautiful.

598
00:36:56,026 --> 00:36:59,116
All languages are rich
in their different ways.

599
00:36:59,441 --> 00:36:59,651
Chesline PP: Yeah,

600
00:37:00,286 --> 00:37:00,586
Hedvig Sandbu: Yeah.

601
00:37:00,976 --> 00:37:01,666
Wonderful.

602
00:37:02,086 --> 00:37:04,486
And how can our listeners find you?

603
00:37:04,922 --> 00:37:08,342
Chesline PP: Yeah, I would say
Instagram is my favorite place to be.

604
00:37:08,402 --> 00:37:15,962
Um, so it's just, uh Chesline PP, at C
H E S L I N E P P and then my website.

605
00:37:15,992 --> 00:37:19,712
So if you have one more in-depth
content interactions, um,

606
00:37:19,742 --> 00:37:20,972
that's where you can find me.

607
00:37:20,972 --> 00:37:25,442
And it's chesline.com,
C H E S L I N e.com.

608
00:37:27,109 --> 00:37:27,679
Hedvig Sandbu: Okay.

609
00:37:28,129 --> 00:37:31,369
If this interview resonated
with you, please go follow Ches.

610
00:37:31,489 --> 00:37:32,449
They are awesome.

611
00:37:33,019 --> 00:37:36,649
And final thing is a question for you.

612
00:37:37,069 --> 00:37:41,719
This one will be especially relevant to
you if you're thinking about this question

613
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:43,349
of "what language should I learn?"

614
00:37:44,149 --> 00:37:48,829
I'd like to encourage you to consider
what a heritage language might be for you.

615
00:37:49,399 --> 00:37:52,579
It might not apply to you, but I
have a feeling it'll be relevant to

616
00:37:52,579 --> 00:37:54,439
more people than you might think.

617
00:37:54,829 --> 00:37:58,639
In the UK where I live, there
are 14 indigenous languages.

618
00:37:59,209 --> 00:38:02,959
Some of them have actually gone extinct
and then been revived through the

619
00:38:02,959 --> 00:38:06,409
efforts of people who wanted to connect
back with their history and the rich

620
00:38:06,439 --> 00:38:13,324
cultural heritage of languages like
Scots, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish and

621
00:38:13,604 --> 00:38:15,334
others, there's literally 14 of them.

622
00:38:15,884 --> 00:38:20,244
I still can't wrap my head around that
because, being in the UK, there's this

623
00:38:20,424 --> 00:38:26,724
sense that everything is English and
that the English world is all there is,

624
00:38:26,754 --> 00:38:29,424
but there really is so much more to it.

625
00:38:29,999 --> 00:38:35,369
And remember that languages, as Ches said so beautifully are not

626
00:38:35,549 --> 00:38:37,919
inferior or superior to one another.

627
00:38:38,099 --> 00:38:41,669
And that means there really is no wrong language to learn.