Considering the importance of national languages and how they are a ‘primary means of expressing and preserving a nation's culture’ (www.verbalplanet.com, n.d.), I believe it is important to discuss the work of Zineb Sedira, an artist who works in photography and video. In particular her ‘Mother Tongue’ (2002) video series (see Figure 1.) which consists of three videos presenting three generations of women; daughter; mother (Zineb Sedira); and grandmother. They talk to one another in pairs recalling past memories in their native languages. These conversations seem to flow initially, to a viewer who may only speak one of the languages, like myself, proving there to be no difficulty in the exchange of heritage and showing a clear understanding of each other’s languages. Until, on further inspection by Smyth (n.d.) the grandmother’s and granddaughter’s exchange stops due to an inability to understand each other. Languages are constantly translating experiences, so when the translations are unattainable, the experiences are lost along with the connections to those people. 

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The casual composition of these videos reflect the informal conversations, this in turn leads the viewer to focus solely on their voices, enhancing the importance of speech and audio in this installation. The three dialects of Arabic, French and English are widely recognisable through listening to accents and distiguishing distinctly different vocal styles. However, due to their blood relations, the viewer may not be able to pinpoint where the subjects are from as a result of language being their only obvious ‘cultural signifier’ (Symth, n.d.). This exemplifies how important language is when trying to decide where to connect yourself to a specific geographical location, for example in the cases where individuals may not have physical traits that align with a nation, leaving language as the only accessible borders between the two. Contrastingly, even when considering the completely different environmental factors that have gone into upbringings and therefore appearances and personalities, to a stranger they are undoubtedly family and assumed to be of the same origin, yet they are separated by language. This in itself creates confusion for the viewer when they begin speaking due to Sedira, along with her mother and daughter, being ‘audibly distinct yet visually interconnected’ (Symth, n.d.). 

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The concept of ‘dual’ heritage implies that it is only possible to be split by two cultural factors, so when considering not only in the mother’s instance; who has a mother from Algeria, grew up in France and then migrated to England; but also the daughter; who grew up England, has a French mother and Algerian roots, it becomes a much more complex question. How far back should you go into your roots to determine where you truly belong? Or does it then just come down to which culture you resonate with the most, linking again back to the theory of ‘self definition’ (Nowicka, . Is belonging where you live, where you were born, the languages you speak, or where your parents are from; or can all concepts co-exist within the third space? With these questions, it is important to consider that for my own queries on belonging, if it means more than just where your parents are from and the languages you speak, I am not Irish because I don’t speak Gaelic.